Column: My Favorite Nevada Moments

The Nevada Day Committee got it wrong this year. By selecting "My Favorite Nevada Moment" as the theme for 2020, the committee has left people like me out.

I can't whittle my experiences in Nevada down to just one favorite.

There have been several special moments that I consider the highlights of my life here in the Silver State.

There was the first Nevada Day Parade I marched in as a new member of the Virginia City Living Legends.

Rain was pouring down that day. For a few long moments, water dripping off the broad brim of my high plainsman hat, I felt I was back in my native Western Oregon, where 300-plus days of grey skies turn the sun into an unidentified glowing disk.

I hadn't been a Nevadan but for just a couple of short years when I got the chance to be part of the Nevada Day Parade. The experience, though wet and bone-chilling like where I had grown up, was still exciting.

People were open-carrying. Old West and Civil War reenactors were shooting blank cartridges into the air. Bloody Marys were being poured liberally. Guys with funky facial hair competed in a beard contest.

I felt like I was starting to fit more comfortably in this peculiar libertarian state, where slot machines and cheap liquor are found in every drug or grocery store, and the neon carnival lights of legal brothels glow right off the highway.

The Beaver State didn't have a statehood celebration like this. No other state I know of does, for that matter.

My first-ever hot air balloon ride is another favorite Nevada moment. Just last year, I was offered the opportunity go up, up and away in one of those beautiful, beautiful balloons.

I had attended the Great Reno Balloon Race a few times since moving to Nevada, but always as a spectator on the ground.

This time, I was both passenger and crew member helping to unfurl the envelope and spread it out on the grass at Rancho San Rafael Park in Reno.

I watched in awe as the massive envelope quickly grew in size, steadily filling with air. At the flip of a switch, the pilot would periodically add a few hefty bursts of heat into the envelope until the whole thing eventually stood on its end ready to float gracefully into the sky.

Once the balloon went vertical, that was my cue to climb into the basket; not an easy task for a muscle-bound 300-pounder. But I did it, with some extra effort, and in moments I was floating away from the ground.

The pilot leveled off the balloon somewhere shy of 1,000 feet. At that altitude, folks on the ground looked like gnats.

I felt like a canned pear. The basket was just about too small for me and the pilot. I moved with very slight shuffles of my feet, careful not to bump into the pilot.

Despite this, the experience was nothing short of exhilarating. The only flying I had ever done before this was in a commercial airliner, and that just can't compare with floating above the Earth in the open air.

I felt the freedom, solitude and peace that so many before me had described the first time they went up in a hot air balloon.

There have been a number of firsts for me since becoming a Nevadan, and these events are probably my most cherished moments living in the Silver State.

The Nevada Department of Veterans Services selected three of my photographs last year to be permanently displayed at the brand-new Northern Nevada State Veterans Home in Sparks.

I've been published many times in Nevada. I received my one and only professional award here, too.

But never before had any of my work been selected for permanent display. I am humbled by the thought that my simple photos of a little Canada gosling, Mallard ducklings and Mule buck are being enjoyed by the residents of this wonderful home for heroes.

Much more important than professional accomplishments, though, are the personal milestones I reached here in Nevada.

I bought my first house as a Nevadan, and I became a father for the first time.

I also heard my Dad say he was proud of me; something I had longed to hear from him since I was a little boy.

I will never forget that moment. My parents had come down for a visit. Me and Dad were in the garage of the house I had bought the year before.

And it just came out.

"Brett-O," Dad said using his term of endearment for me, "You aren't the little boy I knew. You're a man now. I'm proud of you."

This came from a guy whose standards and expectations were usually too high for me to meet. I thought I'd never earn his approval, or this important rite of passage in my life.

Frankly, so stymied was I that I had been struck speechless. Later on that evening, by myself in my back yard, I let out the tears that I'd held back during the day.

Moving to Nevada was my choice. It wasn't one my Dad would have made. But I made that decision on my own without his influence, and I was beginning to create a life for myself here.

I think maybe that's what had prompted him to say he was proud of me.

Dad passed away a few short years later. I remember whispering in his ear just minutes before he died that I loved him and was proud of him, too.

My favorite Nevada moments are those that could have happened anywhere. But, for me, they happened here.

They happened in the Silver State, where Home Means Nevada.

Happy Nevada Day.