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If you say it softly, it’s not so bad. Now what’s that supposed to mean?
Well, it’s a conclusion I’ve reached after years and years of observation as to how people choose to express themselves. Shouting out a word — if you overlook the possibility of rousing someone from slumber — is worse than whispering it.

Let me explain:

After the nationwide economic panic of 1893, the lavish  Montezuma hotel and resort  closed, although several unsuccessful attempts were made during the next decade to revive the grand destination. Finally, in 1903, Montezuma closed its doors for good, no longer attracting the rich and famous, who were by then visiting other western resorts, and traveling abroad in luxurious steamships.

In the past few days, I performed two highly unusual acts: I chose to gift a relative and to friend someone on Facebook. You say this is no big deal?

Let me explain:

At the school I attended three-fourths of my life ago, Immaculate Conception, in Las Vegas, our English teacher, Margaret Kennedy (after whom Highlands’ Kennedy Hall is named), drilled into us the notion that there are verbs and there are nouns.

The railroad was not deterred by the 1884 fire that completely destroyed the first Montezuma hotel, a three-story frame structure built in 1882. A new four-story stone and brick hotel was immediately erected on higher ground and completed in 1885.