Category: random

Gasoline was a lot cheaper in Ciudad Juarez than I’d seen un the U.S. in several months. I had jus’ filled up my friends Dodge Colt and had plans to find someplace to spend the night, but I didn’t get very far.

The car suddenly started coughing and sputtering, then the engine simply died. Though I tried several times I couldn’t get it to start again, so I walked back to the little gas station where I had bought the fuel.

Unfortunately I didn’t understand the language, save for a few key words and a couple of phrases, so communication with the station’s owner lead to nothing but grief. As I started to walk back to the car I found myself surrounded by Federales’, each dressing in black paramilitary uniforms, bearing machine guns, aimed directly at me.

Without understanding why, I was suddenly in handcuffs and being forcefully tossed into the back of pickup truck. Before I could regain my sense of direction, a dark hood was yanked over my head.

Within a few minutes I was being pulled from the bed of the truck and have dragged, half shoved into a building. It was a busy place, voices and machines and telephones ringing.

Then the hood was removed and I realized I was being pushing into a dark cell. As I stumbled forward, I heard the heavy metal door slam shut behind me.

It took me a minute or two to calm down from my initial fright. I had concluded that I was about to be summarily executed, though I had no idea why.

“Find a place against the wall,” an American voice spoke, “It all sits the same.”

I fumbled around until I located the cold steel bulkhead and positioned my back against. I slowly slid to the floor, which was jus’ as chilly as the wall.

Finally I grew the courage to speak, “Tom.”

“James,” came the unseen voice.

For two day, perhaps longer, James and I languished in that cell. By the time they opened it and escorted us before a three judge panel, I knew I was listed as AWOL from the Pollard Street Reservist Station in El Paso.

That, it would turn out would be the least of my worries as James told me I had been sentenced to three-years in prison for stealing a tank of gasoline. He was given 20 years, but he never explained what he was charged with.

Breaking away from the two guards holding me, I protested. I wanted an opportunity to defend myself, but that would never happen as I heard a large crash and my world went dark.

My head throbbed and my ears rang as I forced myself to sit up right in the back of what I believed was another pick-up truck. I couldn’t be certain as once again I had a dark hood over my face.

I had to fight off the urge several times not to vomit as we bounced along some uneven roadway towards whatever prison I was being sent too.

Perhaps I passed out, perhaps I simply fell asleep — at any rate I lost track of time and before I knew it, it was dark out and we were now driving along a very flat surface. The next time I opened my eyes it was daylight, but again I lost consciousness and track of time, having no idea how long or far we had traveled.

Finally, and though I couldn’t see anything, I sensed the change in my surroundings as we entered the gated wall of the prison yard.

Again I was dragged from the back of the vehicle, my hands cuffed behind me and the hood still in place. I stood waiting for whatever was to come next as the truck I had jus’ been a passenger in drove away and the large doors to my new home closed.

That’s when the hood was stripped from my still aching head and I got the chance to see my captors and fellow inmates for the first time. There was only one Anglo face in the crowd and with his reddish hair, I concluded that was James.

Before the cuffs were removed the five of us, James, me and three Mexicans, were looked over by Cereso Prison’s El Capitan. He was short, man with a pencil thin moustache and cruel little mouth and dark squinty eyes.

He addressed us, and though I had no idea what he was saying, I could tell by his demeanor he was giving us the rules; his rules. I could tell he expected us to live by them or else.

As soon as he was done, we were quickly ushered into a cell. There were no beds and all we had for a toilet was a rusted, dented paint can.

Like clock work, we were handed a tray for food, or what passed as food, by the prison’s standards each day for the next week. The three Mexicans originally housed with us, were released into the general population by day two, yet James and I remained locked up.

“They’re afraid we’ll be killed,” James explained.

“Why?” I asked.

James chuckled and replied, “We’re foreigners and don’t have family to pay El Jefe the necessary extortion to live in his prison.”

He went on to explain that El Jefe was also a prisoner, a God-father of sorts confined behind the walls and what he said, went and that was finally.  According to James, El Jefe was even more powerful than El Capitan.

“Did you really steal gas?” James finally asked.

I laughed, “No, but I called the guy who sold me the gas a thief.”

“Why’s that,” James asked.

“The shit fouled the engine and it wouldn’t start,” I answered.

Then James pointed out, “You know your cars stripped by now.”

“That’s okay,” I returned, “It wasn’t mine anyway — I borrowed it for a weekend get away.”

We laughed at that.

“How about you?” I asked.

James smiled broadly, “I’ve been fucking a policeman’s wife.”

“No,” I shot back, thinking he was pulling my leg.

“Yeah,” he returned, “I was warned but I could stay away from that tight little thing. Got me 20-years for rape.”

For the first time, I really looked at James. I hadn’t realized he was a good ten-years older than me and not in as good a physical shape as me.

So when after ten days our cell door was unlocked and slid open, I felt a lump of fear catch in my throat. I could see the same thing in James’ eyes as we slowly walked away from the relative safety of our cell and towards the open yard in front of us.

“I don’t like this,” James said as we stepped into the sunshine for the first time in over a week. Then he added, “Watch my back and I’ll watch yours, don’t show any fear and lets find a wall to lean against where we can see anyone coming at us.”

“Roger, that,” I replied.

It didn’t take to long for someone to come at us either as a large man with scars on his arms, neck and face walked with purpose towards the two of us. I know it happened quickly, but it seemed like slow-motion as the brute, started slamming what I thought were punches into James, stomach and chest.

Then like that he walked away, leaving James bleeding. He had stabbed the red-head repeatedly and then simply blended into the mass of bodies standing there watching as the only other Americano bled out onto the brown dirt.

A pair of guards rushed into the yard and gripped him under his arms and dragged James away. I never saw him again after that.

Instead, knowing I was going to be next, I decided to figure out how to defend myself against what was coming my way. I had learned already, though the attack on James, that the yard would become eerily quiet, as if the men were expecting something, and then the attack would begin.

I also noted that the old man, also known as El Jefe was present and though he said nothing, he directed the action.

More guards came into the yard. They grabbed me and dragged me back inside my prison cell and secured the door behind me.

It didn’t take me very long to realize they had left our food trays behind in the cell and that I also had an extra blanket, the one that had belonged to James. I conspired to put these items to good use.

For another seven days, I found myself segregated from the rest of the prison population. During that time I had taken the heavy plastic trays and fashioned them into body armor.

By using a small nail I’d found in the corner of the cell, I drilled a hole in the upper corner of each tray and fastened then together with a strip of cloth from the remains of my tee-shirt, to form a front and back plate of protection for myself. Hidden under my work shirt, I tore a hole in the center of the blanket and draped it over myself and my creation.

By the end of two-weeks, I was feeling stir-crazy, and emboldened by my body armor I was screaming for the guards to let me out so I could roam the prison yard. It took a little convincing but finally, my door was opened and I ventured forth.

By this time I had grown weak from a lack of decent food and from no exercise other than that of pacing my cell. I wandered out into the yard and towards the wall where I had seen my only friend in the world meet his doom, and leaned against the cool rock facing.

Though many of the inmates looked at me, no one paid me any real-mind. In fact, I was left alone for the rest of my time in the yard.

That evening I was directed to the main dining hall, where I would have my first meal with everyone else. As my tray was filled with the slop-of-the-day, I recognized one of the men serving us as one of the three Mexicans who had been with me on that first day.

“El cuchillo, Gringo,” he whispered as I passed him.

“Knife — he said knife,” I found myself thinking.

Cautiously I moved around the room looking for the place I thought would afford me the best chance at defending myself. I selected a position against the wall and near the doorway.

It took me only two swallows of the crap I had come to think of as food to realize it was deathly quiet in the room. I looked up from my tray and around at all the faces staring back at me.

Then slowly, one by one, men started getting up from their places, leaving the uneaten food where it sat and lined the walls of the large room. Soon only me,’El Jefe, El Segundo and the man next to me remained seated.

‘El Jefe’s eyes seemed to flash at the man next to me. It was like a sudden explosion of movement as the man swiped at me with a large blade.

I jumped back, avoiding the knife.

Again he came at me, intent on murdering me in cold blood. This time though I was on my feet and ready for him.

He stepped into me and I grabbed the arm in which the hand that held the instrument of death was attached. I allowed him to thrust the blade as hard as he wanted into my chest.

The force was met with a loud “thunk,” and a scream of pain. He had stabbed my armor so hard that his hand slipped from the handle and down the blade.

Amid the fresh blood oozing from his fingers and palm, I wrenched the knife away from him and thrust it deep into his chest. I became frenzied, stuffing the blade to the hilt over and over again in the soon lifeless form of the man who had attacked me on command.

Then I stood there — listening to my heavy breath and heat beat and the silence of the room.

As soon as I came to my senses, I turned and pointed at El Jefe. He gave me a half-smile as El Segundo rose from his seat and moved around the table towards me.

From out of his waistband he produced a slender blade. It occurred to me that I had seen it before — the day James was attacked and then it dawned on me El Segundo was the one who murdered my cell-mate.

El Segundo lead with is right and I knew this, so I was prepared when he sprang like a panther at me. I stepped to my right as he rushed by me, slashing open my serape.

He turned and started back at me, but was halted in his step, before he dropped to his knees. I had also slashed him — right below his right rib cage and now his guts were spilling out and onto his thigh.

I took advantage of his wounding and thrust the blade of my knife into the back of his head.

El Segundo fell to the cement floor and convulsed for half a minute before growing still. I tried to pull my knife from the bigger man’s head, but it refused to budget.

Instead I picked up El Segundo knife and backed my way towards the door. My eyes searched the room for my next possible attacker, but no one moved.

El Jefe simply sat there, a half-smile on his face as if he were enjoying the sport of gladiators battling to the death. I flipped El Segundo
‘s knife in the air and caught it by the blade.

A second later, I saw it buried in the El Jefe’s throat. I had thrown it without thinking and with a bit of fortune the knife had found its mark.

El Jefe gurgling on his blood as I turned a walked from the hall and into the prison yard. I placed my back against the wall near the gate and allowed myself to sink down onto my haunches and fade in and out of sleep through the night.

None of the guards bothered me as I eventually fell asleep.

It wasn’t until the sun had crept its way up above the wall, that I realized it was now morning and that I had slept much of the early hours away. The sun’s warmth was broken by a shadow as it rose over me.

I opened my eyes to find El Capitan standing over me.

At first I thought I was about find out first hand what sort of wrath he had in store for me, but much to my surprise he spoke to me in broke English,”Go, you are free. Go.”

“Now?” I asked.

“Go!” he repeated, sounding impatient with me.

The heavy metal gate squeaked as it was pushed open. I stood up and walked towards it, glancing back to see if this were really happening or maybe some sort of sadistic game, but El Capitan waved me out.

The clanking of the gate sounded final as I looked around at my unfamiliar surroundings. I was standing in a worn and rutted dirt roadway with no idea where I was.

But since I knew where the sun rose each morning, I turned to my right, and started walking. I walked until I could no longer see the walls of the prison and then I started to run.

Within half and hour I walked across the border into the United State, finding I was more than 400 miles away from where I had begun this incredible journey. Later I learned James survived his attack, spirited away by the wife of the cop he’d been fucking.

Immigrants brought to the country illegally as children and granted a temporary reprieve by President Barack Obama this summer will be eligible for Nevada driver’s licenses and state IDs, state officials told the Sun this week. And Governor Sandoval says he supports the policy and has no intention of changing it.

“As long as all of the DMV procedures are followed and other forms of identification are valid, I support this policy,” he said.

But at least one Republican lawmaker said the Nevada Legislature should weigh in on the question when it meets in early 2013.

“If any individual doesn’t have full status, to me, they shouldn’t have a full driver’s license,” state Senator James Settelmeyer of Minden said. “A lot of facets need to be discussed at the Legislature. I, myself, do not prefer to see an agency head make a decision that has such large repercussions.”

Immigration experts had been unsure whether the Nevada DMV would accept the employment authorization cards issued to those who received deferred action.

“These individuals will not be treated any differently under Nevada law than any other noncitizen applying for an identification card or driver’s license,” said Kevin Malone, a spokesman for the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles.

Other states, such as Arizona and Nebraska, have maintained they will continue to deny illegal immigrant’s driver’s licenses, even those who qualify for deferred action. But Nevada officials said the state will honor the employment authorization card, which is a photo ID issued by the Department of Homeland Security to the deferred action applicants and other non-citizens in the country legally and have been accepted by the DMV since at least 1999.

By some estimates, Nevada is home to 20,000 young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children who qualify for the “deferred action for childhood arrivals” — a program informally known as Dream Act-lite after the broader legislation that has failed to pass Congress.

Businesses in Nevada will pay about $77 more per employee in state unemployment-insurance taxes next year in order to build up the state’s jobless benefits trust fund, which was depleted during the Great Recession as a record number of workers lost their jobs.

Nevada has been borrowing money since late 2009 and as of October owes $625 million to the federal government. That balance at one point reached $800 million.

The state is also paying interest on the federal loan after officials in 2011 set aside $66 million from the general fund for interest payments. State officials estimate interest charges for the next two-year budget cycle will total $40 million to $48 million.

The Department of Employment and Training adopted a new average tax rate of 2.25 percent on the first $26,900 of an employee’s wages. The new rate takes effect January 1 and amounts to a 12.5 percent increase under a formula used to calculate the tax.

Agency staff estimate Nevada may be able to pay off the loan by 2016, and the state’s trust fund could become solvent again by 2018. It’s unknown whether the state will use its general fund dollars to cover the interest costs.

“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program”—Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama, June 2003.

“I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter”—President Obama, August 2009.

“Leadership means that the buck stops here. . . . I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit”—Sen. Barack Obama, March 2006.

“It is not acceptable for us not to raise the debt ceiling and to allow the U.S. government to default”—President Obama, July 2011.

“I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages”—Obama questionnaire response, 1996, while running for Illinois state Senate.

“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage”—Sen. Obama, November 2008, while running for president.

“It is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married”—President Obama, May 2012.

“We have an idea for the trigger. . . . Sequestration”—Obama Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew in 2011, as reported in Bob Woodward’s “The Price of Politics.”

“First of all, the sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed”—President Obama, October 2012.

“If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election”—Sen. Obama, 2007.

“We’ve made the decision not to participate in the public financing system for the general election”—Sen. Obama, June 2008.

“I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign”—Sen. Obama, June 2008.

“The way Bush has done it over the last eight years is . . . [he] added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back. . . . That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic”—Sen. Obama, July 2008.

“I don’t remember what the number was precisely. . . . We don’t have to worry about it short term”—President Obama, September 2012, on the debt figure when he took office ($10 trillion) and whether to worry about today’s $16 trillion figure.

“[Sen. Hillary Clinton believes] that . . . if the government does not force taxpayers to buy health care, that we will penalize them in some fashion. I disagree with that”—Sen. Obama, Jan 2008, opposing the individual mandate for health insurance.

“I’m open to a system where every American bears responsibility for owning health insurance”—President Obama, June 2009, supporting the individual mandate.

“Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times when America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive”—President Obama, April 2009, in France.

“We have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms”—President Obama, April 2009, in Trinidad and Tobago.

“Nothing Governor Romney just said is true, starting with this notion of me apologizing”—Barack Obama, October 2012, on whether he went on a global apology tour.

“The problem with a spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel”—Sen. Obama, September 2008.

“Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years”—President Obama, January 2010.

“So if somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them”—Sen. Obama, January 2008, on his plans to financially penalize coal plants.

“Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution”—Sen. Obama, August 2008.

“Here’s what I’ve done since I’ve been president. We have increased oil production to the highest levels in 16 years. Natural gas production is the highest it’s been in decades. We have seen increases in coal production and coal employment”—President Obama, October 2012.

“If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition”—President Obama, 2009.

“We’ve got a long way to go but . . . we’ve come too far to turn back now. . . . And that’s why I’m running for a second term”—President Obama, October 2012.

Officials have approved an alternative for NV Energy customers who don’t want the new smart meters. The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada says southern Nevada customers opting out can pay $98.75 to install an electric meter, plus $8.14 every month.

Northern Nevada customers opting out will pay a $107.66 upfront cost, plus an $8.04 monthly fee. Northern Nevadans can also opt out of a smart gas meter for a one-time fee of $6.08.

Some customers critical of the meters fear they might cause health hazards or invade their privacy. The alternative meters require someone to manually check the readings each month.

NV Energy has installed about 1.3 million smart meters, which can transmit meter-reading data directly from a home or business to the utility.

Credit for the discovery of the Comstock Lode remains disputed. It is said to have been discovered, in 1857, by Ethan Allen Grosh and Hosea Ballou Grosh, sons of a Pennsylvania minister, trained mineralogists and veterans of the California gold fields.

The Grosh brothers occupied a shack along with a Canadian named Richard Bucke, and Henry Tompkins Paige Comstock, which the ledge is named after. It should be noted that some written histories report the Canadian’s name as only that of McLoud.

They made their way to Gold Canyon and searched for the claim that would make them rich. However the brothers were a bit different in their approach to mining.

From the testimony of many miners who knew them, they were men of much scientific attainments, being chemists, assayers and metallurgists. In addition to all this, they also had assaying equipment and a large library on mining.

Unlike most miners, who looked only for gold, Ethan and Hosea were also looking for silver. They found silver, a strike they described as the “monster ledge,” in the Silver City area, but did not live to develop their discovery.

There is no authentic record of any assay made by the Grosh brothers, but they had the necessary appliances for the work and must have made the assay, for in the fall of 1857 they told Comstock that they knew of rich silver mines in the vicinity, and were going back to Philadelphia to secure capital to work them.

Unfortunately, before this could happen, Hosea injured his foot by running a pick-ax through it and died of an infection in 1857.

Ethan wrote a letter home to their father where he fills in details such as the cup of peppermint tea he made before going to find a doctor, but forgot to set near his sick brother. He concluded that when he returned later that day, Hosea had died.

A couple of months later, to raise funds, Ethan, accompanied by Bucke, set out for California with samples and maps of his claim. Comstock was left in their stead to care for the Grosh cabin and a locked chest containing silver and gold ore samples and documents of the discovery.

Grosh and Bucke never completed the journey, getting lost and suffering frostbite while in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Ethan died on December 19, 1857, three days after being found by a group of hunter.

Bucke lived, but upon his recovery, he returned to his home in Canada.

During their ordeal, Bucke claims Ethan tied up his maps and tha assay sample in a piece of canvas and hid them in the hollow of a pine tree. He further stated a wind-storm had snapped the tree off at about 20 feet and that Allen cut a mark into it and rolled a “good-sized stone in front of the hollow.”

When Comstock learned of the death of the Grosh brothers, he claimed the cabin and the lands as his own. He also examined the contents of the trunk but thought nothing of the documents as he was not an educated man.

What he did know was the gold and the silver ore samples were from the same vein. He continued to seek diggings of local miners working in the area as he knew the Grosh brothers’ find was still unclaimed.

Upon learning of a strike on Gold Hill which uncovered some bluish rock, Comstock immediately filed for an unclaimed area directly next to this area. Legal efforts were considered by the Grosh family, but noted-attorney Benjamin F. Butler persuaded them to avoid it.

Accounts would tally the yield from the Comstock Lode at 9 million ounces of gold and 220 million ounces of silver.

My heartaches as I read from the Del Norte Triplicate about the passing of my friend Oscar Gensaw. He and I grew up a year apart in Klamath, attending grade school and high school together.

He was born July 3, 1959, at Seaside Hospital in Crescent City, and passed away November 8, 2012. He was a lifelong resident of Del Norte County having graduated from Del Norte High School in 1977.

As kids, we didn’t always get along. One time he punched me in the face for picking on another kid as we rode home on the bus from Crescent City to Klamath.

Outside of stuff like that, I always thought he was a pretty-good guy. I saw into his soul one Spring day in 1975, when every kid from Klamath gathered to lay Robert Pasche to rest; Oscar was brave enough to allow everyone to see how emotionally distraught he was over his classmates death.

I had never seen any of my male classmates cry like that before.

Now, with Oscar’s passing, it’s hard not to think long and hard about my morality and if anyone will carry me to my resting place when that day arrives.

My heart continues to ache.

Nevada has decided to repeal a state law that allows job discrimination against communists. A 12-member Legislative Commission agreed to introduce a bill at the 2013 session that would repeal a law passed in 1951 during the anti-communist fervor of the Cold War.

The law allows employers to reject job applications from communists and their sympathizers, and to fire any communists in their workforce. Staffers say the law has remained on the books, even though Congress repealed similar federal laws in 1971.

The law took effect as Communists were infiltrating all walks of American life, concerns that gained the national stage with hearings conducted by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Thousands of Americans, including entertainers, teachers, union activists and government employees were accused of being Communists or sympathizers.

Nevada’s U.S. Senator Patrick McCarran secured passage by Congress of a bill creating the federal Subversive Activities Control Board. The law required the registration of communist-front organizations with the U.S. attorney general, and paved the way for states to approve their own anti-communist laws.

No Nevada lawmakers who voted on the 61-year-old state law are alive today. It’s unknown whether the law has ever been enforced.

The Beaver’s moved into the old house at the end of the long dirt road as if overnight. The next day there were two more children in the neighborhood to play with.

Bridget and Brett Beaver were both blonde and slight in build. Bridget was the younger of the two and had difficulty breathing at times.She had her own personal tent to sleep in when her breath became noisy and quick.

For this reason Adam and I weren’t allowed to go inside the Beaver’s home. This seemed strange to us.

“We used to play in it all the time,” Adam said. “And that’s before anyone lived there.”

It was true. All of the kid’s that lived along the road that was Sander’s Court had played in the abandoned house. It was a castle one day and then a fort the next during a game of combat.

It had even been rumored to be haunted, but that was never proven.

Brett was always off in the woods with us boys, but Bridget usually stayed home so she could be near her breathing tent. Someday’s, she wouldn’t even leave the house to play at all.

About two-weeks after moving in, I decided to go around to the back of the house and visit with Bridget. I had convinced myself that she had to be pretty lonely with no one to talk to or play with all day.

Brett’s and Bridget’s room was in the lower southeast corner of the house. I quietly walked up to the window and peeked in.

I could see Bridget, with her head and chest inside the clear plastic tent, was asleep so I decided it was best not to disturb her.

Slowly, I backed away from the window — but that’s when I heard a small noise behind me. I spun around expecting John Paul Arnold or Chucky Yates to be there, ready to jump on top of me or something.

Instead, I found myself standing face to face with a black bear less than ten-feet away. I froze in my footsteps and sucking in my breath as I tried to think what to do next.

My mind reeled at what to do. My instinct said to run away as fast as I could.

Yet, I recalled what Dad had said to do if I ever ran into a bear, “The best thing to do is play dead.”

“Maw,” cried the bear as it pushed itself from standing on all fours to standing upright.

The blood drain from my face as I pitched myself face down into the dirt and leaves. I laid stone still and feared to even allow a breath to escape my lips, fearful the animal would realize I wasn’t really dead.

I could feel its cold, wet nose press against my clammy skin and the warm, misty breathes as the bear snuffed and smelled me.

Then it stepped over me. I tensed, fearing the worst, however instead of being bitten, the beast dropped his weight down on me.

It rolled over and over on me, yet I did not dare move. Instead I pressed my face into the earth to stifle the grunts I let out as the bear forced his heft against my smaller body.

“Maw!” came the bear again and again as he continued to roll over me. Then the animal grew still.

The bear had laid his entire body completely atop me and breathed deeply as if resting. I still refused to move.

I knew I dared not even twitch a muscle, for the bear couldn’t be allowed to know I was alive.

“Someone will come along and find me,” I remember thinking — or perhaps it was a prayer.

Then I felt a sense of panic wash over me as I heard voices coming nearer. They were coming from up above me, along the Old Ranger Road, which was jus’ a few feet away from where I lay under the now slumbering bear.

Yet I couldn’t shout or even whisper for help, afraid I wake the beast. And the result could end in something worse than being a rug for bear.

The underbrush moved. It was all that I could see, with my face pushed into the dirt. Then I saw a pair of black and white high-top sneakers appear from the bushes.

It was Brett. Once he saw what was happening, he yelled, “Yogi!”

With that the bear jerked with a start and rolled from me. I jumped to my feet and then fell down, then got back up, as my legs had grown numb after laying still for so long.

“Run,” I screamed at Brett as I raced around the corner of the house.

But Brett didn’t follow. Instead I discovered the boy hugging and scratching the bear neck and shoulders.

It was at that moment, I realized the bear was a pet. I sheepishly approached and asked Brett if I could also scratch the black bear who had made me into a human rug for a day.

It was the day after President Ronald Reagan ordered a strike against Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi. I was working for KROI/KPLY in Sparks at a remote for a home and garden show inside the Conventions Center.

I was accompanied by the station’s program director.

As I was prepping to do another sixty-second cut-in on the air, I saw Harry Reid approaching our booth. He had not yet been elected to the U.S. Senate and was out and about shaking hands and kissing babies.

My topic suddenly took a turn from the home and garden show to the attack on the Libyan leader. He passed in front of our booth jus’ as the announcer on the air introduced me.

I didn’t hesitate, announcing I had the pleasure of talking with Mr. Reid, candidate for U.S. Senate.

The future senator didn’t hesitate to start talking to me about his candidacy. I let him talk for a half a minute, and then I asked him about the missile strike.

He started answering the question, but we were interrupted by the program director. He grabbed the microphone from me, introduced himself and sent me back to the booth.

He took over the interview I had started. He later the program director chewed on me for having asked Harry Reid such a question.

Later I found out he had asked several questions along the same line of the senatorial candidate. Needless to say my ego was severely bruised after he took the mic from me.