The invite came from Texas, a woman born and raised in England and nicknamed after the 28th state in the Union. It read: “You are invited to the Virginia City Idioglossic Breakfast Club gathering this Monday at 9 a.m.”

Fuzz répondez s’il vous plaît’d immediately.

The morning of the gathering came, and Fuzz learned it was a collection of six non-native English speakers aside from myself and Texas. There was no set topic as he had supposed there would be, but simply an open forum where each present could speak freely in their first tongue.

Fuzz listened intently, understanding nothing. Finally, he felt brave enough to say, “Thank you for inviting me to this little shindig.”

Suddenly, Texas turned, and in English so perfect it would have put Elizabeth II to shame, said, “We understood nothing you said.”

The other six English Second Language speakers roared with laughter. Confused by their sense of humor, Fuzz decided later that morning to look up the definition of idioglossic.

For years I have called myself a ‘mediocre man,’ not because I don’t try hard, but because I have not found that source that leads to an increase in paychecks or fame beyond my self-belief. I can write, photograph, draw, paint, produce short videos, and do all kinds of broadcasting. But none of these have brought me to the place I’d like to be; a little more money, some fame, and maybe an easier life. I don’t need to say this, but life is monstrously difficult. And as I say these things, I feel like I am bragging while complaining. I will leave whether I am or not to you to decide. As I am now 62 years old, I don’t see either happening and therefore have made myself content that I am, as first stated, a ‘mediocre man.’ Acknowledging this brings me a peace I have not had since childhood.

Markleeville, Calif., resident Susan Korngold recently learned from a cousin doing their family tree that she was related to James Fennimore, half-brother to her great-great-grandfather.

In 1900, William Hickman Dolman described James as a “frontier hunter, and miner, a man of more than ordinary ability in his class, a buffoon and a practical joker: a hard drinker when he could get the liquor, and an indifferent worker at anything.”

In the spring of 1851, Col. John Reese arrived in the Carson Valley and started a store, naming it Mormon Station. Reese said that when he arrived, the nearest other settler was a man in Gold Canyon who had a trading post and wintered there in a kind of small dug-out.

“The man who lived in Gold Canyon was nicknamed Virginia, and it was after him that Virginia City was named,” Reese wrote. “I don’t know what his real name was. He discovered those mines there where the Comstock now is. He had a reservoir fixed in the Canyon to wash the gold out.”

Reese also wrote about what happened between James and Henry Comstock and how the Virginia City mining district got its name.

“Comstock found the ledge and he worked there for some time, and I guess Comstock and his party bought Virginia out,” Reese wrote. “The latter did not live but a little time afterward. His tent was about a mile above the road that ran up & down the river at the lower part of (G)Old Canyon where the emigrants road was.”

“Virginia was drunk a good deal through drinking whiskey,” Reese added.

Reportedly, he sold his claim to Comstock for a horse, a couple of blankets, and a bottle of whiskey.

It is Charles Howard Shinn 1896 writing in “The Story of The Mine” that brings us the lore as to how Virginia City got its name:

“Late one night, Old Virginny, going home with the boys and a bottle of whiskey, fell when he reached his cabin and broke the bottle. He rose to his knees, with the neck of the bottle held high, hiccoughed, “I baptize this ground Virginia Town!”

On Jun. 20, 1861, while James was riding his mount through Dayton, he fell and fractured his skull. All agreed that he was drunk.

He died the next day and lain to rest in town. Later he was removed to the cemetery on the hill overlooking Old Dayton.

The Daily Alta California, in July 1861, reprinted a Territorial Enterprise article about Jame’s passing, “During his residence in this Territory, though at times dissipated, he always bore the reputation of being an unusually kind-hearted and honest man. Peace to his ashes. All good men should respect the memory of the hardy and generous old pioneer.”

His original gravestone is in the Dayton museum, and a new stone was erected in 2001 but broken by vandals over the New Year 2009 weekend.

At that now-mended stone is where Susan Korngold raised a toast to her newfound, long-lost relative, “Cheers to you, dear Old Virginia!”

All along the Comstock, Adolph Sutro is synonymous with mining and engineering, having designed and built the tunnel that bears his name.

In early 2021, Friends of the Sutro Tunnel approached the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP) if they would donate historical interpretive markers and three National Park Service-style inclined laybys.

The JASHP agreed without hesitation.

A Jewish-American immigrant from Germany, he was also an entrepreneur, real estate developer, and art and literary collector. Adolph Sutro was also the mayor of San Francisco from 1894 to 1896. 

Sutro was a self-made millionaire who earned his first fortune in the Comstock silver boom, constructing the famed Sutro Tunnel below Virginia City. In San Francisco, as in Nevada, he lived his life with an overriding public concern for the little guy in society. 

“I don’t believe in aristocracy. The aristocracy of the mind is the only aristocracy I recognize. It makes no difference to me whether a man has not got a cent or whether he is a millionaire. On the contrary, when a man is wealthy, I am more suspicious of him than I am of a poor man. I have found it in my experience that rich men, as a general thing, lose a great deal of the better feeling which they had when they were poor.” 

The 1895 biography by Eugenia Kellog Holmes, “Adolph Sutro: A Brief Story Of A Brilliant Life,” reads:

“His contributions to all public charity, since his arrival to opulence, have been munificent, and confined neither to race, creed nor class. His private alms are said to be limited only to the immediate needs of the individual.”

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the San Francisco School Board, roiled by woke political activists, demanded that San Francisco schools named for those they deemed racists, sexists, or “linked to an injustice” be renamed. Forty-four schools, including Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Adolph Sutro, came under attack.

Before Sutro became Mayor, San Francisco regarded Sutro very highly. 1891, they renamed a ramshackle school near Geary Boulevard the Sutro Primary School. Rebuilt, Sutro Elementary was formally established in 1894 on 12th Ave., opening in 1895.

The half-educated crusaders cursorily included Sutro for his alleged racism. Sutro had built a “wonder of the world” public bath next to his famous Cliff House for the public of San Francisco to come and enjoy. 

In 1897 a Black man attempted to gain admission to the Baths but was denied entry. A lawsuit was brought against Sutro and the Sutro Baths, the legal action coming a few months before his death in 1898.

In March 1897, California passed the first national public accessibility law prohibiting racial discrimination in public accommodations, recreational facilities, restaurants, and baths. It was called the Dibble Act. 

Four months later, John Harris, an African American accompanied by White friends, went to the Sutro Baths to test the Dibble Act. His White friends gained entry, but Harris was not.

The barring was not done by Adolph Sutro but rather by his son, who managed the baths and who set the policy. Sutro was not aware of the situation.

He had turned over the management of the Baths to his son because he was rapidly declining into dementia. By the time of the suit, he had two strokes, and his daughter was appointed to oversee his affairs because he was incompetent.

Harris sued Adolph Sutro for damages, $10,000 for discrimination, violating the Dibble Act, and causing him great personal distress. The suit went to court. 

The jury was sympathetic to the argument that admitting a Black man to the baths would seriously harm the business. White San Franciscans would not share the same pool with a Black. 

Reluctantly, after the judge directed the jury to follow the law, did they find in favor of Harris, awarding him one hundred dollars.

Nothing changed. San Francisco’s racial intolerance remained, and it would not be until the 1930s that the Sutro Baths became desegregated. 

The San Francisco School Board and the City tabled the school renaming plan for a later date.

San Francisco has numerous recognitions and honors named for him, Mount Sutro, Sutro Railway, Sutro Baths, Sutro Library, Sutro Heights, sculptures, busts, the Cliff House, and even an elementary school. The Golden Gate National Recreation Park and the National Park Service even have numerous interpretive markers about his gifts and public efforts in the Lands End (Point Lobos) area, which they designated the Sutro Historic District.

Because of the push to defame Sutro, the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation contacted the Golden Gate National Recreational Park and the National Park Service, enquiring if their markers recognized the first openly Jewish Mayor of San Francisco, Adolph Sutro. None did.

A new marker, recently installed outside the entrance to the Sutro Heights park, reads, “This was the estate of Adolph Sutro — a Jewish-American immigrant, mining engineer, and Mayor of San Francisco.”

After a 127-year neglection, it is the only marker in San Francisco that acknowledges Adolph Sutro’s Jewish heritage, while the Sutro Tunnel and the Comstock boast three.

South of the Humboldt sink in Northern Nevada, Brady found two bodies. Miners murdered, bearded, hairy heads mounted on nearby pikes.

Removed cleanly by a sharp instrument, Brady felt sure he was looking for someone with a sword. The hoof and dog prints made him think of a mounted Calvery soldier in the company of a large dog.

A mile away, Brady found them, the dapple gray horse nibbling grass and the brindle dog looking bored. A headless Hessian soldier stood a short distance away, a Hesse-Cassel saber in hand.

Not waiting, Brady drew his Colt revolver and shot the soldier. The sword fell from his hand as he toppled over onto his back.

“Told him not to,” the dog said.

“But Brom Beenderen would not listen,” the horse added.

Looking the pair over and seeing neither were a threat, Brady asked, “Need a place to stay?”

“Yes,” each answered.

Brady led them both home, knowing its hard to suffer fools and that they had suffered enough.

My Cousin Elmo says, “I just now realized I’ve never had an epiphany.”

h/t: Joe Kneer

My Cousin Elmo says, “Ghosts are jus’ people who’ve died trying to fold a fitted sheet.”

My Cousin Elmo says, “Jeffery Dahmer’s bologna really did have a first name.”

My Cousin Elmo says, “100 percent of all biting dogs agree that Vegans taste like meat.”

George Papadopoulos of the Conservative Brief always has these incredibly and sometimes misleading headlines for his Twitter posts.

For instants, his latest reads, “Hunter’s ex wife is exposing it all.”

The first thing I thought, knowing he likes to write ‘grabber’ headlines, was that the ex-Missus Biden was appearing in the pages of Playboy. Nope, this time the header was spot on as detailed in the lead sentence of the article:

“Kathleen Buhle, Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, has dished on their marriage in a brand new tell-all memoir called, ‘If We Break.’”

Damn, I don’t care about another tell-all book, I was looking forward to the photo spread where no reading is required.