A couple of weeks ago, I received an angry response to, of all things, our weekly events newsletter. It was the type of email we unfortunately get on occasion here at the RN&R—a homophobic rant calling us names and accusing us of bias—and the writer saved what they thought was their harshest burn for last.
Go back to fucking California where you belong and fall off into the Pacific Ocean.
Yep, it’s true: I am a Californian. In fact, as I write this, I am looking out my apartment window in Palm Springs, where it’s sunny and 101 degrees. Another confession: This newspaper is indeed published by a California company. Our mailing address really is in Cathedral City, Calif., since the RN&R has not had a proper office since the pandemic arrived.
That said … I am a Californian who was born at St. Mary’s long before it became a “regional medical center.” I am a graduate of Wooster High School, and I can trace my Nevada roots back five generations. I left Reno twenty-some years ago only because the city had no real opportunities for me in my chosen career. My mom is still in Reno, and I have all sorts of other family members spread across northwestern Nevada. My husband grew up in the Truckee Meadows—he graduated from Sparks High School—and still has family, including his father, in Sparks. Our deep roots in Northern Nevada are why, at great personal and professional expense, we returned as part-time Renoites in 2022, after my California company acquired what was left of the RN&R, and I devised a plan to rebuild this little newspaper that I love so dearly.
For the most part, that plan has worked. Oh, and for the record: Had it not been for a California company, this publication would have died in February 1995, when the owners of the News & Review newspapers in Sacramento and Chico stepped in to rescue what had been the Nevada Weekly from extinction. One name change and almost 30 years of California ownership later, the RN&R is still here, serving Reno, Sparks, Carson City, Gardnerville, Minden, Truckee and Lake Tahoe.
Now that I’ve gotten all of that off my chest, I have a request: Can we (both part-time and full-time) Nevadans stop with the ridiculous California bashing?
Light-hearted jabs and jokes, of course, are still fine, welcome and absolutely appropriate. There’s a lot to make fun of in California. I mean, what other state would exact a ban on plastic grocery-store bags that actually leads to more plastic going to landfills … a “ban” so bad that other states took lessons from its failure?
But as for the legitimate, real disdain for California … it’s time for that to stop.
I love Nevada. To me, Nevada Day will ALWAYS be on Oct. 31—forget this legal last-Friday-of-October crap to create a three-day weekend. Today’s younger Nevadans will never know the joy of having every Halloween off from school, because it just so happened that Oct. 31 was the date when your state was admitted to the Union back in 1864.
I love California, too. It’s the place where Disneyland and Dodger Stadium and Yosemite National Park the Golden Gate Bridge are. Even if you’re a native Nevadan, let’s face it: It’s where many of your local friends lived before coming to Reno. Heck, it’s where most of Lake Tahoe is located.
And if you’ve ever both 1) expressed serious disdain for California AND 2) devoured an In-N-Out burger with joy … well, my friend, you need to deal with some serious internal contradictions.
Here’s my message to that hateful reader who I mentioned in the first paragraph: I don’t need to go back to fucking California, because I am already in California … although I’ll be back at my adorable apartment in Midtown Reno in a couple of weeks. If California falls off into the Pacific Ocean, there’s a good chance that Reno is coming, too, given the sheer amount of earthquakes and seismic activity native to the Truckee Meadows.
And even though I am indeed a Californian, I have more love and appreciation for Nevada and the Reno area than your hateful brain can even fathom.