Where I Stand — Columnist Brian Greenspun: For a father’s advice

Saturday, June 19, 2004 | 12:38 p.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

WEEKEND EDITION

June 19 - 20, 2004

It is Father's Day, again.

And just like I do every day of the year, I am thinking about my father. For those of you who are fortunate enough to still have your dad with you, the best I can tell you is do not take him for granted. The time will come, all too soon it seems, when he will be gone and only his memory will provide comfort.

I remember my father writing a column every Father's Day in which he tried, mostly in vain, to provide aid and comfort to other fathers in Las Vegas who yearned for a day of freedom from worry, freedom from work and freedom from the little woman. It never worked in his own home and, I suspect, it had similar potency in other homes around the valley. But it felt good for him to write it and that, I also have come to learn, has its own benefits.

I have been thinking about my father a lot lately because he was always the person in my life who had an answer for the real complicated stuff that seemed to jump up and grab us when we weren't looking. And if ever a world existed in which complications were the norm rather than the exception, I think this is the time and place.

Hank Greenspun loved a good political race. As long as I could remember, there were presidents, vice presidents and assorted senators and congressmen calling our home in search of advice or information. The Sun's publisher was always right in the middle of the political thicket.

I never had a doubt where my dad would have been between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. Contrary to the thoughts of others, who claimed to have known Hank, he would have loved the 42nd president of the United States and he would have railed against the kind and quality of people who tried to unseat him over a matter that, by today's standards, is so trivial.

The current race is not as easy. I would love to talk with my father about President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry. Hank never liked politicians who were too willing to tax the little guy into a longer work week so he would have found a reason to support the president. But this ideologically driven insistence on tax breaks at all costs -- even when it costs the working men and women their American dreams -- would have turned him away.

As a staunch proponent of American security, he would have led the charge into Iraq. And, as much as he would have supported our fighting men and women to the hilt, he would have drawn the line when it came to any dishonesty in the reasons for waging war.

His biggest issue against President Bush, of course, would have been Yucca Mountain. With over 1.5 million Las Vegans now being held hostage to one of the worst ideas ever devised by the bureacracy of man, my father would have singled out President Bush as the man who made the decision to bury Nevada's families under tons of high-level nuclear waste. He would have laughed at the spinmeisters' efforts to suggest that Sen. Harry Reid and his Democratic colleagues concurred in the decision that Nevada should bear the sole burden for the entire nation's radioactive poison. He didn't have any problem telling it the way it was. Yucca Mountain is a nuclear power company invention, subscribed to by mostly Republicans and endorsed by President George W. Bush.

As a Republican, Hank Greenspun would not have turned his back on many of the principles that his political party once held dear, but he would have excoriated those who voted for the monied interests against the people of this state. He was first a Nevadan, then a Republican.

By the way, he would have gone crazy watching elected officials in this state, especially the GOP members who are supposed to exalt states' rights against the federal government, cave in to the national party leaders in the name of party harmony. There cannot be harmony when your colleagues are trying to destroy your lives and livelihoods for the benefit of big business.

Lastly, every Nevadan could use his insight and experience today as we try to understand the ramifications of the recently announced merger between MGM MIRAGE and Mandalay Bay. He was around when Howard Hughes was told he couldn't buy his seventh hotel and he took a view that was not surprising then. I wish I could talk to him now to more fully understand what is best for the people of this state.

There are a great deal of subjects I would like to talk to my father about. But, I can't. I haven't been able to do so for almost 15 years. There are many Nevadans in the same boat and one day, not too soon I hope, our children will be in the same situation.

What is important is to appreciate that fellow you call Dad while he is here and while he can appreciate you back. One day it will be too late for him to hear the only words a father ever needs to hear:

"Dad, I love you."