My sister, Deirdre, was in sixth grade and had been released from class for recess late in the afternoon. At that time jus’ past the swings and slide on the playground of Margaret Keating School, was a large tire that the kids used for a game called king-of-the-mountain. Deirdre writes, “I suddenly found myself king — but it…

Grandma’s house sat vacant for nearly two winters after her death.  It had been a house that her husband and father had built many years ago and everyone in the family felt it was a shame to see that house sitting empty and quiet. Soon it was decided that the house should be repaired and rented…

Shortly after Mary’s father passed away, she and her siblings got together for a week and packed up the old man’s home. The four children decided to split most everything like the furniture, pictures and art. However, a number of books including school texts, compendiums of family history on her mother’s side and a bunch…

There are times when something simple can cause me no-end of concern. Take for example this story…” For the last two or maybe three weeks I have been fighting a losing battle with a chair from the dinner table that seems to move on its own. It suddenly started doing this after I removed the…

One of the things I used to dread about going to Margaret Keating School when I was in the eighth grade…our teacher, Mr. Tom Brown. Not only did he scare me, he also tended to scare others in the class. Case in point was the early afternoon a girl in our class fell asleep. Marisol…

Kyle called to tell me he had spoke with 9-1-1 because he believed our neighbors, Mike and Bridget Smith were being robbed. He said he was worried as one of the robbers had looked right at him as he watched the man come and go from the house a couple of times. I was stuck…

Certain things get caught in my craw and I jus’ can’t seem to cough them up. One is this Nevada news item: “Nevada lawmakers will be able to workout during the upcoming legislative session thanks to new exercise equipment installed in an empty office on the third floor of the state’s legislature building. The two…

The Denny’s was fairly empty at the time I entered and sat down for a cup of coffee and a burger. That’s because it was somewhere between morning breakfast and noon-time lunch. Shortly after I sat down and ordered my meal, in the door came a man I knew only by the name, Red. He…

University of Nevada Las Vegas president Neal Smatresk says the school is on the brink of financial collapse. He claims Governor Brian Sandoval’s proposal to cut nearly $48 million from the schools’ budget could force it to declare financial exigency, a move compared to declaring bankruptcy. However, Nevada university regents gave Majestic Realty, the developer…

Prior to renaming my weblog the more amiable, “Once Upon a Wednesday,” I had called it, “The Wedekind City Manipulator.” I did so as a take off the “Wabuska Mangler,” a Nevada newspaper that never really existed, but was invented by Sam Post Davis, then editor of the Nevada Appeal to help boost sales of…