A view of Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS -- I first went to the top of the Landmark in Las Vegas when I was 10 years old. Looking down on my hometown gave me a real sense of the place I lived.

On Friday, Valentine's Day, my wife, Jennifer Hollister, and I went up to the top of the Stratosphere for the first time and looked at what the city where I grew up had become.

I reflected on the patterns of traffic along the freeways, watching a train inch through town and blocking surface streets as it went, looking out at the expanse of roofs and casinos filling a valley that once had great blank spots.

There are places where I once walked through desert that are now streets and sidewalks, lawns and Spanish roof tiles.

At night, looking down on the city, it's not so much the lights of downtown or the Strip that catch my eye, but the yellow pin pricks of sodium streetlights marking the Las Vegas Valley's topography like an old computer

rendering.

I haven't been here since Thanksgiving 2001, a decade in Vegas years. I grew up on Ann Road, where my parents purchased property in 1967. We were at the end of the road, which had a single crook in it.

Now it expands and contracts as development pays for improvements in one section and ignores another.

I missed our driveway on my way up on Thursday and almost missed it again on Friday. A dead rabbit, victim to the 45 mph speed limit passing my childhood home, was the only landmark I recognized.

The view from the top of the Stratosphere was impressive, I'm glad we went, but it was just another reminder this is not the place I grew up.

Gil Ayarbe has constructed a scale model of an understructure for a new, stronger, C-Hill flag.

According to Dan Mooney's report from the C-Hill Foundation, Gil and designer Josh Buscay are evaluating materials in search of some tough enough survive the tough conditions found on the side of C Hill and still maintain its visibility.

Dan says Lowe's Home Improvement is helping out with the material search and it sounds like treated 3/4-inch plywood panels are the best alternative so far.

Fund-raising to pay for the new flag should begin pretty soon. Foundation members are looking for a large indoor space to paint and preassemble the flag before hauling up the hill.

The original flag was assembled at the new Nevada Appeal building before we moved in the presses.

In his e-mailed report, Dan said the group needs at least 140-by-85 feet to work with the flag inside.

E-mail Dan at Nevada4@aol.com or or Gil at GAyarbe@aol.com if you can help or have any ideas about where the flag could be assembled.

Carson City resident and former Nevada Appeal columnist Larry Windsor e-mailed me last week to offer a little encouragement.

Larry is regional publisher for a national golf magazine, where he enjoys his favorite pastime as much as possible.

"Anything to keep finding reasonable excuses to play lots of golf," he said.

He points out that the wise columnist does not reveal his age in print.

"Now everyone will know you look much older than you actually are."

What many of you don't know is that I lost the beard and there is no longer any danger that I will look older than I actually am.

Kurt Hildebrand is former managing editor of the Nevada Appeal. Reach him at 887-2430, ext. 402 or e-mail him at kurt@tahoe.com