Do you have any idea what the hottest item is in Summerlin these days? Your house. And do you have any idea what the hottest item will be in Summerlin, at least for several years to come? Again, your house.
Herb Jaffe
Herb Jaffe was an op-ed columnist and investigative reporter for most of his 39 years at the Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey. His most recent novel, “Double Play,” is available.
hjaffe@cox.net
“Not many people would stop and do what you did,” the employee at the animal hospital told Chris and Alan Beck, after they tried to save the life of a coot — a small black duck — that had been lying on the middle of Soft Winds Drive, a street in the Desert Shores section of Las Vegas.
Any day now, you’ll be reading about baseballs flying out of ballparks all over Arizona and Florida. That’s because spring training is in the air — the time of year when every team in organized baseball is a winner.
Once upon a time, it was unthinkable that someone would break into mailboxes, whether yours, mine or any of those big blue boxes that are the property of the U.S. Postal Service. But times have changed, and mailbox crimes are happening with greater frequency, especially in Summerlin.
When they cut the ribbon to open the doors at MountainView Hospital exactly 20 years ago this month, there weren’t many who would have predicted the facility would expand into the ever-growing, increasingly popular, and medically and surgically advanced health care provider it is today.
Chances are you’ll never guess what the performance of delicate hand surgery has in common with playing ice hockey and beating out some heavy rock on a set of drums.
You don’t believe there are freshwater lakes stocked with fish — and even boating for those who like to sail along the lakes on small craft — right smack in the middle of the Las Vegas desert?
Whether or not Las Vegas can boast of being The Entertainment Capital of the World, or merely of the U.S., or even second-best, is a matter of semantics. But one thing no one can deny is that the quality of entertainment in this town is on so high a plane that it routinely exceeds the nose-bleed level of the stratosphere.
They constitute the largest collection of lawyers to be found under any one umbrella in the entire state. Their boss refers to them collectively — and loosely — as “the largest law firm in Nevada.”
Lots of new gadgets come with those shiny new cars that are unveiled every year. And that necessitates new understanding for motorists and new driving habits, especially in cars with push-button starters.
You’ve probably heard that Badlands Golf Course in Summerlin could soon become Badlands Housing Development. And you probably know that Silverstone Golf Course in northwest Las Vegas could soon suffer the same fate.
It began almost four months ago with a column in this corner that questioned how the development of new homes in Summerlin — and indeed new housing in all of Southern Nevada — can continue at the pace it has for decades in light of the mother of all droughts continuing to plague the Southwest.
It began during a discussion I had with my friend Morrie about an item that appeared in a recent column written by Doug Elfman in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
An “exciting picture,” once painted by The Howard Hughes Corp. in the form of the first phase of Downtown Summerlin, has developed into more of a work-of-art masterpiece as the regional shopping and dining center prepares for its first anniversary in three weeks.
There’s that old question, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” And there’s the stock answer: “Practice, practice, practice.”