Memories of Vegas are a mixed bag

Long before his Vegas dreams led him from driving a tram at The Mirage to writing screenplays, one of which led to his creating the “CSI” franchise, Anthony Zuiker struggled to overcome some not-quite-idyllic Vegas memories.

He recalls the day he got a F in junior high and his estranged father told him, “‘The next time you get an F, I’m going to beat the (expletive) out of you.’ ” (Zuiker went on to earn A grades at UNLV.)

Mom was hard worker

Zuiker’s mother worked as a cigarette girl, a cocktail waitress and blackjack dealer to support him — in casinos from the now-gone Royal Americana, Riviera and Stardust to the Tropicana.

“Talk about someone who worked to the bone,” Zuiker says of his mother, who has arthritic hands and “overly swollen knuckles as collateral damage. That’s real work.”

He still remembers the day, after his “CSI” success, when he walked up to her blackjack table at the offStrip Terrible’s Casino (now the Silver Sevens), put a check on her table and told her “‘I’m retiring you.’ ”

Zuiker did the same for his stepfather, who also worked at casinos, from the Desert Inn to Excalibur.

After seven years of enduring chronic back pain, “he woke up and it went

away.”

Visiting old haunts

Zuiker now lives in Malibu but returns to Southern Nevada to visit his mother and stepfather. He sees many changes in the neighborhood and around town.

On a recent visit, he got lost driving up Tropicana Avenue, looking for landmarks. Other memories include dining at Furr’s Cafeteria, on East Sahara Avenue across from the Department of Motor Vehicles, to more upscale restaurants such as the Tillerman and Port Tack.

When he returned to Chaparral High School, his alma mater, he was dismayed to note “there’s a bullet hole in my theater,” the campus’ Anthony E. Zuiker Theater. “It’s really changed.”

Overall, despite his local ties, Las Vegas doesn’t feel like home anymore, Zuiker says. “I’d love to say it does, but it doesn’t.”