Backstory: Remembering others, remembering ourselves

By Michael Green

Ruthe Deskin told me this story. Time may have made some of the details fuzzy. But here goes.

Years ago, the IRS informed Hank Greenspun that he owed the feds $50,000. That wasn't unusual. Something about the IRS roiled Greenspun's rebellious soul. He dared to call Sen. Joseph McCarthy the pervert he was and he took on Sen. Pat McCarran of Nevada when most cowered in fear of him.

The IRS brought out similar feelings in him.

But if Greenspun didn't come up with the money, there might not be another edition of the Las Vegas Sun. He was at his wit's end. All Deskin could do was sympathize.

Finally, Greenspun lit up. Recently, he said, he had sought a $100,000 loan from Parry Thomas and Jerome Mack, whose Bank of Las Vegas built a lot of this community before it ended up part of Valley Bank and then Bank of America. But they gave him only $50,000. So, he reasoned, they owed him $50,000.

That kind of logic makes you throw up your hands, which she did. But he got the money.

That was typical of Thomas and Mack, who became fabulously wealthy and sometimes controversial, but helped many along the way. It was typical of Greenspun, who worked in mysterious ways and often made you throw up your hands in amazement. But it also was typical of Ruthe Deskin, who loved to talk about the past and present and marveled at Greenspun for so long.

She died recently, just short of her 88th birthday. A few weeks ago, she spoke by phone with Gwen Castaldi on her KNPR program, "State of Nevada." She sounded tired and weak, but totally lucid--more lucid than, say, the average history professor and columnist 50 years younger.

Many have remembered her as a community treasure, involved in many good works, and as a walking repository of lore and knowledge. But she also should be remembered for whatever the Greenspuns have accomplished.

Not that Hank Greenspun lacked moxie or brains. Nor did he lack for motivation. The day after Deskin died, some Review-Journal readers saw a catalog of Greenspun family sins in editor Thomas Mitchell's Sunday column, which charged the Greenspuns with using their newspaper to promote their business and political interests. Not that the R-J ever would do such a thing.

But this is the latest in a long history of blasts the two papers have exchanged, going back to the 1950s, when R-J boss Al Cahlan subtly and Greenspun bluntly accused each other of everything that ever went wrong in the history of the universe. In those days, it was more common for Greenspun to describe Cahlan and the R-J as looking out for themselves.

Whatever his critics might say, no one questioned Greenspun's devotion to his family. His wife, Barbara, was a driving force in his life. So was Deskin. She handled myriad details that made it possible for the Sun to keep publishing when the red ink was rising, black ink was in short supply or the building had burned down.

The Sun was the foundation on which the Greenspuns built what can only be described as a success story. Yes, the coffin was slamming shut on their newspaper when they signed the Joint Operating Agreement under which the R-J and Sun now function. But without the newspaper, they might never have achieved such great success in cable television, land development and gaming. Without Deskin, they might not have had the newspaper.

She joined the Sun in 1954, mainly to replace managing editor Adam Yacenda, who left to work on Gov. Charles Russell's re-election campaign. When Yacenda returned, not altogether happily, they struggled at times to coexist peacefully. But when I read that Jack McCloskey, the late sage of Mineral County, called Deskin the glue that held the Sun and Greenspun together, and expected Adam to growl when I told him, he replied that he thought that was completely true.

Deskin's death was a reminder of all that and more, partly because it came just a few days after the loss of another part of our media history, Sig Sakowicz, who wrote columns, hosted TV shows, produced benefits and was a man about town when the town was much smaller.

Sakowicz was part of a group of entertainment commentators--Forrest Duke, Joe Delaney, Bill Willard, Murray Hertz and Ralph Pearl also come to mind--who talked about all performers great and small, in columns in a variety of publications and on TV shows. Sakowicz in particular kept tapes and other material from half a century of interviewing celebrities; they must be a treasure trove.

Ruthe Deskin and Sig Sakowicz were treasure troves, too, albeit in different ways. But they are part of a past being too cavalierly lost. And I don't say that merely as a history professor more comfortable with the not-so-quiet past than I am with the stormy present. Their deaths should jolt us to ask those who have come before us to share their memories, or to save remnants of the past to show to those in the present and the future. To lose people like Ruthe Deskin and Sig Sakowicz is part of life. To lose the times in which they lived would be even worse.