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In the spring of 1803 President Thomas Jefferson was suffering buyer's remorse. He had just handed Napoleon 15 million dollars for Purchase of the Louisiana Territory that nobody knew anything about, including the president. So Jefferson asked Secretary of State, James Madison, "Jim, what exactly did we
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My father believed a missed shot mattered. Most of us can trace parts of who we became back to habits or responsibilities that seemed small at the time. A skill practiced repeatedly. Someone whose respect mattered more than we realized then. Childhood often forms us quietly long before we understand
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If there were ever a contest judged by the phrase “well, of course it is,” Nevada has just taken home the trophy, the ribbon, and possibly the slot machine it was sitting next to. In one of those exercises where people compare things everybody already knows, WalletHub has ranked Nevada
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There’s a tree outside my bedroom window that speaks to me. Yes, speaks with a perfectly symmetrical spray of pine needles that welcomes me when I rise in the morning and bids me adieu when I retire at night. It’s the very same constellation that welcomed me when
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There are two kinds of people in Nevada: those who are lost, and those who are merely waiting their turn. The desert has a talent for swallowing things whole: wagons, dreams, marriages, political promises, and occasionally people themselves. It stretches across the state like an ocean that forgot how to
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By the time a Reno television crew came to interview my father about D-Day, he was already well into his nineties. Age had slowed him physically, but not mentally. Some memories remained as sharp as ever. The young reporter arrived eager to interview a surviving World War II veteran
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There are many great institutions in the American Republic. Congress is one, though it has not shown signs of life in years. The railroads were another, before they learned that arriving on time was bad for business. But among the noblest inventions of modern civilization is the police dog, an
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It has come to my attention, through the fog of advancing years and the occasional haze of medicinal whiskey, that our fair Virginia City has added yet another peculiar celebration to its calendar of festivities. The "Mother's Day Flower Crawl" happened on May 6. Now, in
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Now, if a man ever finds himself ascending the Geiger Grade, the twisty, vertical staircase of a road that hoists you up to the high-heeled majesty of Virginia City, he is liable to feel a touch of lonesomeness. The kind that creeps in from the thin air and the
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Not long after moving to Wisconsin, my father met a boy named Makwa. The name meant “Bear.” To Bobbie, who had grown up in New Jersey dreaming of open country, even the name sounded like something from another world. The West he imagined was mostly made of cowboy stories. But
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While downsizing here at home yesterday, I came across a 1983 article from the Maui News that I had not seen since the day it appeared. The author is Doctor William James, and for those who like analytics, let us quote the good doctor here… One example of the amazing
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Carson City Health and Human Services has confirmed a case of Hantavirus in the Quad-County region, meaning Storey, Lyon, Douglas, and Carson City now share not only government coordination but also, apparently, the occasional microscopic menace carried by creatures with more ambition than sense. Hantavirus, for those unacquainted, is