Columnist Susan Snyder: Workers branch out for holidays

Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2001 | 8:30 a.m.

The very best kind.

We walked past the stiff blue spruces and the trees big enough to require another trip to the store for more lights and settled in among the pines in the middle rows.

Finally spotting a likely candidate, we sucked it up and asked a price.

"That one's $30," said a man in an oversize flannel shirt, jeans and heavy boots.

"I think. This is my first day," he said. "I walked on the lot this morning and asked the guy if I could work for a tree."

The Christmas tree lot proprietor promised a tree and a fair wage for the day's work. The guy said he'd be back the next day, if the wage turned out to be worth it. He had three kids at home, and any work is good work these days.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Las Vegas.

"I haven't worked in two months, he said. "I'm one of the displaced workers off the Strip."

We meandered on to the next tree. Did it have too many gaps? It wouldn't be sitting in a corner this year ...

"I took my kids down to the employee Christmas party, to see if they'd let them go. But they wouldn't," the man said. "These right here are all $30, too."

OK, now I was sidetracked. What did he used to do?

"I was a dealer -- five games. But craps was my specialty," he said.

The guy moved here with his family about 18 months ago from the Reno area, which he described as "a great place to raise a family."

"But it's dead up there," he said. "They've had at least 11 casinos close -- two in the 18 months since I've been here. I had worked at the same place for 15 years."

He got on part time here and was still waiting to go full time when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon Sept. 11.

"They started laying people off on the 12th," he said. "The way they did it was lousy, too. They'd say, 'When you're finished come up to the office.' "

We decided the first tree looked like the best one.

"I was lucky, though," he said. "I got to stay on another week because Charles Barkley wanted me to be his dealer."

He toted our tidings and joy to the back, yanked it off the stand and picked up a chain saw. He made a clean cut across the bottom of the trunk with no gloves to protect the unroughened hands that once dealt for basketball stars.

He hoisted the tree to his shoulder, carried it to our car and helped us tie it to the top.

It seemed odd to utter the usual, "Merry Christmas." But we did. He certainly needed one.

"Oh, it'll be all right," he said. "I have a friend who is moving to Pahrump. He said if I'd drive the U-Haul for him he'd give me $500. He said to use it for Christmas for my kids. So they'll have a good Christmas this year."

And they'll have a tree, thanks to the ingenuity of a dad who, similar to thousands of other laid-off workers in our valley, are making do in a town where some have valued profit margins over people. A town where Christmas trees aren't the only things that come cheap this year.