• My Podcast: Silver Tailings

    https://anchor.fm/silvertailings

  • Dust

    It may only be an urban legend that a US servicemember working with a powerful military antenna array in Alaska turned to dust after walking in front of an active radar dish and his Zippo lighter was all that survived the ordeal. Real or not, thank goodness, the lesson I learned yesterday, that the wand…

  • Cold Call

    In the 1990 movie “Quigley Down Under,” there is a scene where Matthew Quigley, played by Tom Selleck, and “Crazy” Cora, played by Laura San Giacomo, get dumped from a buckboard wagon and left for dead. “I wish people would quit hitting me on the head,” Quigley says. “Don’t worry,” says Cora. “On a new…

  • The Photo Booth

    Stopping in to visit a minute or two with my friend Liza McIlwee at the Virginia City Tourism Commission, I saw that she was busy, so I took a seat to wait my turn. Soon, a grandfather and grandson came through the door. While Grandpa gathered information about mine tours, Grandson inspected the free-standing building…

  • The Fool

    Because I deliver the newspapers, the same ones I write for, I get up Friday mornings and immediately turn on the coffee maker that my wife sets up for me the night before. She’s nice like that. Then I head for the shower. By the time I get my shoes on, the coffee has finished…

  • I Spent a Year There, One Day

    “I spent a year there, one day,” means you’ve been in a place you didn’t enjoy for far too long. That is how it seems to me, feeling like it has been forever since I last posted and realizing it has only been 11 days. My computer crashed on Mon., Mar. 21, showing me the…

  • My Cousin Elmo says, “I was warned ‘not to try this at home,’ so I went to neighbors house.”

  • My Cousin Elmo says, “I know people who have spent more time in Facebook jail for fake ‘fake news reporting’ than Jussie Smolett has done for real ‘fake hate-crime reporting.’”

  • An Unapologetic and Uncorrected Ramble About Mark Twain

    “I am not alive. I am dead. I speak from the grave.” — Mark Twain In his 70th year, Mark Twain would perform a show in his brownstone on Fifth Avenue in New York. He would tell stories, crack jokes, and cut the high and mighty of his time down to size. “To-morrow I mean…

  • Penny Dreams

    As a child, I dreamed of growing up and dazzling the world. But time and disappointment chipped away at me until only the real stuff was left, and it was not all that dazzling. Tired stories, a sack of regrets, and a reverence for the pieces of me that survived. All this ruination has stranded…