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Thursday, January 01, 2004 Cowtown Chronicles
Moapa Pop.: About 900 in town, 6,400 in valley Industry: farming, ranching, light industry, power production, property sales Nearest city: Mesquite (pop. 14,528), 27 miles northeast Distance to Las Vegas: 47 miles Talk of the town: Quite a bit's going on in the Moapa Valley, but that doesn't mean the folks at the local Glendale Service café and gas station hear about it. There, it's the everyday news of personal troubles and joys that dominate the flitting conversations with locals. And travelers--the bulk of the customers--probably just grunt what's necessary to get their goods and hit the road. Beverly, first on the phone, says she knows nothing: "I go to work, I go home, I go to work, I go home." And cashier/server Rochelle Horton says people just talk "about their personal stuff: not enough sleep, overworked, underpaid." She laughs. Someone in the background says something and she reports, "The windows got broke out in the library. We don't know who did it. I've got a table, now, so I have to go." Well, depends on whom you call, I guess. If I called, say, Moapa resident Bruce Lund, he'd talk about the Christmas Bird Count that occurred Saturday in Moapa Valley (I was there, actually--met my first ruby-crowned kinglet, a goggle-eyed character that looks like a plump fish out of water). Or he'd mention the groundwater pump test taking place over the rise in Coyote Springs Valley, where developer Harvey Whittemore proposes to build a city. The water from the test is being diverted through ditches and fields in the Moapa Valley. But I called cafés. At Calamity's, up the road from Glendale Service, a woman answers, says, "Can you hold on a minute?" and holds the phone away from her mouth. Male voices conversing in Spanish fill the foreground, and I hear the woman shout, "Richard, do you want the gravy on your hash browns?" She gets back on, says can I call later, please? And life in tiny, surprisingly busy Moapa goes on.--Heidi Walters |
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