by Michael Tsaphah

Since the first settler came to Reno in 1859, the settlement was known at first as Lake’s Crossing. This settlement was started by Charles W. Fuller, who built a log toll bridge across the Truckee River. It has been a mecca to travelers, gamblers, and homesteaders, and the town of Reno became a part of the Comstock in 1864.

The high Sierra mountains in the background and the Truckee River bring about the scenic view of beauty. I fell in love with this beautiful land when I was born here some fifty-nine year’s ago. I would peer through my front living room window; as a baby looking at Mount Peavine, better known as Peavine Peak. I lived in our house on Mount Shasta Street in the old Stead Air Force Base. The simple times was between 1964 through 1968 were etched intimacy of my childhood memories as a boy.
When we moved to Portsmouth, Virginia, there were no mountains to stare at nor a river to fish out from. The only snow came in February, and being in the South, there was nothing beautiful about this hot, humid climate that left the snow to melt quickly.

As a young boy, I would always paint mountain scapes with snow caps on them, and my mother would ask me where are you getting these scenes of snow cap mountains. I would tell her, ‘my home in Reno, Nevada.’ Once when my sister and I got into a fight. I ran away from home and got as far as Northern North Carolina. I was picked up by a husband and wife who saw me, so they came back and picked me up. They asked me where I was running away to what place? Like I told my mother, I told them, “I’m going home to Reno, Nevada.”
My itch for traveling never stopped me from wanting to see the mountains of the Sierra and the beautiful valley of Truckee Meadows. I went into the military for seven years, and I traveled all over the globe. The Salvadorian jungles of Central America, the Island of Granada, with its lizards and native birds. Then to Okinawa’s beautiful beaches, Thailand with its tropical rainforest and Buddhist Temples. The island of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with its banana rats and boa constrictors. Saint Thomas, Virgin Islands, with its crystal blue waters and tropical fish swimming in their coral reefs. But these places could never compare to the golden valley of the Truckee Meadows.

Yet, nothing I saw could compare with the beauty I had noticed since I was a child and the sweet smell of river air coming from the Truckee River. I love hiking on the many trails through the Mountains of the Sierra, and I have come back twice to the area of Truckee Meadows. I am now living with my first love, like an old dinosaur returning to its breeding ground. So, has this old fossil returned to his birthplace. I’m not a gambler, traveler, or tourist. I have paintings on my wall of things I have found in the Truckee River and the desert to be quite serene. I have driftwood and smooth stones from the river banks. I even have some of the lava rocks from the desert. This is my place, and Reno is my hometown.

The End
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