Submitted by Karl Breckenridge
I’ll be excoriated – as I was a week or so ago for showcasing Dawn Bunker’s travails – but I can honestly say that after 78+ years on this rock, most of them with pen in hand, the star of today’s show is as close as I’ll ever get to posing the question to readers what the difference may be of a tavern, an elephant, er, breaking wind, and finally our featured guest today.
The answer is that the former is a BAR-room, the intervening is a bar-ROOOM, and our guest today is a BEAR-RUM.
Bill Berrum, to be precise. And Bill is featured because today is his birthday. He’ll never again be faced with that age-80-threshold. For today, he turns 81 (actually he did so just past midnight).
“I’d like to write about you,” said I last week, ever on the lookout for the grist of a good column.
He’s done it all in his scant eight decades – born into a family that owned and operated Moana Springs and its swimming pool ‘way out south of Reno on a road named Moana by a fellow freshly returned from Hawai’i in 1903. And Bill’s family also owned the permit to operate a streetcar, that ran between California Avenue to rural Moana Lane then took a left to the Moana Pool (and baseball park, home to the vaunted Reno Silver Sox baseball team). Grandpa Lou Berrum owned the operating rights, dad Lou operated the streetcar and son Lou (aka Bill) told me about it.
Bill is what most would refer to as a jock, in this case a swimming jock. We yakked and yakked some more about his ascension through to the pinnacle of the local YMCA, the one on Foster Drive. He rose to the Director of Athletics, responsible for the Y’s youth programs and the nascent Youth Basketball Association, a model for YBAs the nation-around.
“Did you know Patti Dillon (Cafferata) while you were there?” (I was kidding; we all knew Patti…the Y wouldn’t have endured without her presence and counsel.) Bill, ever the man with a story, fired back, “Treat (Cafferata, the lucky dude who would take Patti as his bride) was a star swimmer for Stanford U but I got him to swim for the Y team for a couple summers…”
Bill to this day has not lost his athletic prowess, but after matriculating at the U of Nevada for 30 or 40 years gained an affinity for business and its conduct, and served Washoe County and sheriff Vince Swinney for eight years, largely in the transition from the sheriff’s office on Sierra and Court Street to the new facility on Parr Boulevard, which was less a physical relocation than a total revamp of the way the County did business.
Bill then ran for and was elected Washoe County Treasurer (and would run successfully for three more terms). Somehow, he got mixed up along the way with Harry Spencer, Bob Carroll, Neal Cobb and Bud Beasley in 1994; they would put the God Old Days Club (the G.O.D. Club!) in motion at the Liberty Belle and Bill has served as its treasurer for 25 years, faithfully putting a postcard with the upcoming program in the mail to each member monthly (and I can’t remember him ever missing a month). Which in itself should qualify him for sainthood…
I asked Bill what stood out in his life were I to write a Berrum tale, and he had two highlights. One was, through a circuitous turn of events, being tapped to build a competitive swimming program for the Saudis, and spending almost two years in Saudi Arabia and taking 20 swimmers to the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics (none of them competed, but were treated like royalty). Which they were…
The other was Bill’s 10-year reunion for his 1957 Reno High School graduating class, held at the California Building, natch, a hoot-and-a-holler from the Idlewild Pool. Where Bill was a lifeguard, with no standby lifeguard to free him up. He described hearing the laughing voices of classmates – Alex Kanwetz, Frank Fahrenkopf, Ginny Berry (Topol), Norm Dianda, Sue Rauch (Schroeder), Luther Mack, Phyllis Johnson (Wetsel) and so many others drifting over while he manned his post and enabled the pool to remain open. But – that’s Bill. If you see him around, wish him a Happy Birthday, but remind him, be safe, huh?
Submitted opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of This Is Reno. Have something to say? Submit an opinion article or letter to the editor here.
Karl Breckenridge
Karl Breckenridge was slowly going nuts. So he decided to help out This is Reno by writing a daily out-of-his-mind column for the duration of the coronavirus shutdown. Now that it’s over he’s back to his usual antics, drinking coffee with the boys at the Bear and, well, we’re not sure what else. But he loved sharing his daily musings with you, so he’s back, albeit a little less often, to keep on sharing. Karl grew up in the valley and has stories from the area going back to 1945. He’s been writing for 32 years locally.
Read more from Karl Breckenridge
Cheers 4 – the Lear steam bus
The latest news on the Lear Theater has Karl remembering some of the Lear’s other projects, including a steam-powered bus.
Cheers 3 – the groceries II
Karl did not limit his column to ten items or less, so get out of the express line to read this history of Reno grocery markets.
Cheers 2 – the groceries I
Karl got a little distracted this week, starting off with a list of Reno’s great groceries of yesterday then slipping on some ice.
Cheers 1 – Of wine and Little Italy
Karl is back, making us all wonder why we didn’t spend more time during stay-at-home orders pressing grapes into homemade wine.
Day 75 – Karl’s retired to the Bear
From the get-go our pal Karl said he’d write “a short squib on a daily basis – nothing political, nothing controversial,” well, except for that one column.
Day 74 – the Truckee’s picturesque islands (updated)
Karl’s pal Jody shares the rich history of bootlegging, decorating, and engineering within the confines of the Truckee River’s banks and its picturesque islands.
Day 72 – Hobos, tigers and leprechauns
Karl recollects the series of eateries that drew diners to the corner of Virginia Street and Gentry Way for several decades.
Day 70 & 71 – in Flanders Fields
Karl shares a poem by John McCrae to mark Memorial Day.
Day 69 – The Nugget shark: John meets Jaws
Karl was talking about baby shark, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, long before the kids these days had ever been born.
Day 67 – What I like about Reno High
Karl, er, Carmine Ghia, writes an end-of-school-year essay to turn in to Mrs. Lehners about everything he likes about Reno High School.
Day 67 – 25 Bret Harte
Karl saddles up and heads to Newlands Manor where Western movies star Reno Browne grew up, and Lash Larue paid a visit or two.
Day 66 – Out for dinner we go
Karl goes out to eat at the El Tavern Motel, a truck stop outside the Reno city limits on the Lincoln Highway.
Day 65 – Dawn Bunker
Karl is back in action with a fresh story of which students of Mrs. Bunker’s class at Jessie Beck Elementary School still won’t spill the beans.
Day 64 – abducted
Karl Breckenridge called in to This Is Reno editors this morning with a hands-in-the-air, what-can-I-do sense of resignation.
Day 63 – Wedding chapels
Karl’s enjoying coffee with pals at the Bear, so today Jody stands at the altar to share the history of Reno’s wedding chapel industry.
Day 62 – the mansion at 2301 Lakeside Drive
Karl’s 7-year-old alter ego rides his bike down to Virginia Lake to explore the Hancock Mansion, a nifty home complete with a bomb shelter, sunroof and doll collection.
Day 61 – Basque hotels
Karl wanders back in time to 1960, a time when multiple Basque hotels served up minestrone soup, English lessons, banking, and accommodations.
Day 60 – the bygone Greyhound terminal
Karl’s synapses are firing today after hearing mention of Reno’s Greyhound bus terminal on Stevenson Street, now razed.
Day 59 – Don’t tell Mom
Karl rewinds to Mother’s Day to share a story from the archive about Grandpas without a Clue and another ragtop adventure, by reader demand.
Day 58 – School stuff
Karl considers the value of a school name as the WCSD moves to rename one of the area’s older remaining schools and open a new one.
Day 57 – Pedalin’ around Vine Street
Karl rides his bike through history, remembering some of the places and people that helped to build Reno into the city it is today.
