Category: random

It was jus’ before midnight as I left my friend’s home in Virginia City. Once out the front door, there is a set of well-lit stairs to the right of the porch.

The night breeze coming down from Sun Moutain, now known as Mt. Davidson, felt delicious, and so I paused, letting it cool me off. As I stood there, I saw a quick movement from the side of my eye.

Someone had peeked around the corner at the bottom of the stairs. I was sure they were planning to scare the crap out of me.

“Hello?” I called. “I saw you.”

No answer.

So I raced down the stairs to see if I could catch them. As I did this, I turned my camera on and let the flash engage.

My plan was to ‘blind’ them temporarily. It did not work out that way.

When the flash lit the area beyond the corner, I realized I was not dealing with anything ordinary. Whatever it was, it left my butt puckered as I stumbled up the stairs and ran to my truck.

A tall, beautifully-built blonde with green eyes met him at her apartment door as he was preparing to knock. Vicky had a way of doing that to Tim.

Raised in what some would call a “commune,” but what followers believed was a “community, Vicky intrigued him, and he hoped that he did more for her than that. She was like two different people, one fun-loving and adventurous, the other academic, serious, and he was still learning to distinguish between the two.

She was fun-loving and adventurous today.

“I have a surprise for you,” she said as she pulled the door closed behind her.

Tim followed her out to her Mini Cooper, “But we can’t take my car, so we’ll have to take your truck.”

“No prob,” Tim said.

Forty-five minutes later and several miles of rugged dirt road behind them, they came to a rise that overlooked a ghost town hidden in the folds of the Nevada desert. Vicky smiled as she watched the look of amazement on Tim’s face.

“Wow,” he said.

“I knew you’d love it,” she said.

They slowly drove down the steep embankment and into the wide center strip of land that had served as the main street at one point. The buildings, though old and abandoned, were in good shape.

Tim reached behind the seat of his truck and pulled out his camera. Vicky could see that he was excited about the photographic possibilities of the place.

“How did you find this?” Tim asked.

“I didn’t,” she answered. “It found me.”

He wanted to ask her to explain, but it wasn’t the first time she had said this, so he knew it was useless. Instead, he allowed his mind to wander to a favorite subject, the Spann Ranch.

The ranch, as it was known, had been a one-time movie set. Forgotten since the hay-day of Western films, save for Charlie Manson and his followers, Spann was hardly used, except for a hang-out.

Not counting location, the abandoned town could be the same.

Without thinking, he said, “And to think I’m here with a woman whose family was considered ‘the Manson family of the East Coast.’”

The smile slipped from Vicky Lester’s face as she replied, “I know, why do you think I brought you out here.”

Tim felt a sudden chill of death’s hand surge over his body as he came to realize his mistake.

It was no surprise that my wife knew about the possibility of having to get a booster shot for COVID-19. It was also not surprising that she did not know about the Freedom Of Information Act that netted three thousand emails from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s government account.

While I do not want to go into the email’s contents, I will say that Fauci’s integrity is under fire. They are online and searchable if you are interested in learning more details.

That aside, I have not liked the man since the AIDS ‘epidemic.’ I like him even less since I recognized a pattern.

In many of his emails, he seems to agree COVID-19 may have been a viral bat-to-human transfer. We know that is not untrue.

It is the same direction he took with AIDS. In 1984, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases reported that HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) might be a monkey-to-human viral transfer.

Though no one knew it at the time, Fauci is the one who developed that theory. So when I heard of the bat-to-human viral transfer premise and that Fauci was involved, I knew it to be bull shit.

My Cousin Elmo says, “I decided to get ahead of the game today, so I woke up pre-pissed off.”

My Cousin Elmo says, “I was invited to a ‘Pin the tail on the Donkey’ drink party. Made an ass of myself.”

Try as I might listen to President Biden speechify on the so-called ‘Tulsa Race Riots,’ I simply could not stomach the pandering. Of course, to use ‘riot’ is wrong because it was murder — and there is a difference.

How and why it happened, I will not go into as I cannot and will not attempt to explain or sidestep the morays of a period gone by. I will explain why this was not a “hidden” event as so many, including Biden, would like us to believe.

It was the new school year, 1974, and I was 14 years old Freshman. I had U.S. history, a subject I enjoyed but was not need to taken until I was a Junior.

In this particular class, the Roaring 20s, the Wall Street Crash, and the Great Depression were being taught. Oddly, students were getting extra credit for swallowing live goldfish, a fade from the 1920s.

Deciding I would pass, I skipped class in favor of ‘hiding in the library,’ as I called it. There, I enjoyed reading books on various subjects, including history.

It was also in the library, in 1974, at 14, that I learned of the Tulsa Race Riots. I was appalled by this, and the following day I asked why we were “swallowing fish” instead of learning about things like the wholesale murder of people.

Simply put, I was told to sit down and shut up and to quit skipping class. I failed the subject that year.

Now, why do I call the President’s remarks pandering?

Because this has never been a “hidden” incident. Not only was it reported in every major and minor newspaper across the U.S., but it was widely reported in the foreign press too.

Where it did become “hidden,” was in the classroom. Instead of teaching the stomach-churning truth, we were being fed “live fish,” until our stomachs churned.

This is a lesson in the dangers of selective history.

My Cousin Elmo says, “It would be less confusing if Joe would jus’ turn the teleprompter around and let us read it for ourselves.”

Time is perplexing to me and only good as a writing device and maintaining an interconnective schedule. Anything more and it becomes as illusive as the wind cupped in my hands.

My Cousin Elmo says, “If ‘liar, liar, pants on fire,’ really meant anything, then watching the news would be a hell of a lot more fun.”

Knee-deep in the ink
Line to think
The squiggle leads
Fulfilled needs
Count down count down
Blood red shit brown
Hands stained black
Heart meat-sack
Hup two three four
Must even score
Old man rocking chair
Life is not fair
See the Sargent
To hell get bent
Knee-deep in the ink
Memories blink