He is one of those Virginy City folk who picks a person whose lot he thinks is a lump of coal, then goes to work, figuring out a way to make their Christmas special. This year Alibi Ames had Brutus Howl in his sights, whose job it is to write about the goings-on of the Comstock in all of its glories and pitfalls.

Alibi does not know Brutus well, although he has seen him wandering the boardwalk along C Street late nights and always alone. He also thinks he knows what this loner will like.

He pulls a deluxe three-volume set of the 1973 edition of the Doten Journals from his bookshelf. He carefully wraps it in the pages of the most recent Comstock Chronicle, tucks it under his arm, and heads to the Union Brewery.

Brutus shows off his new acquisition the following morning.

“Those are worth more than your typewriter.”

“They are worth more than my typewriter to me, too.”

“Were they a Christmas present?”

“I think so.”

“From?”

“Who knows? Maybe Sam Baker or Santy Claus.”

When Alibi hears how happy Brutus is, he smiles and takes a drink of his whiskey-laced coffee.

Insomnia is jus’ another word for things you forgot to think of earlier in the day.

I had to get up and get going after realizing that today’s bad decisions needed my help.

Lander and Elko Counties in Nevada are talking about replacing equipment manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems.

It comes amid ongoing concerns about tampering and fraud that evidence, wholly ignored by the media and political elites, tying the equipment to Venezuela and George Soros. And like a good lapdog, the Associated Press got out front of the story by adding “claims have been largely debunked.”

Discernment counts, so please note the word “largely.”

And as if that weren’t enough, the AP also has to make sure that everyone knows the ‘Republican’ Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske has said the results in Nevada were accurate and reliable. They fail to mention how she was the only GOP candidate on the up-ticket to win reelection in 2020.

And as if this makes it all better, the AP also reports that all electronic voting machines are certified by the federal government and required to run on closed systems to prevent hacking and cyberattacks.

My final thought is in the form of a question from the movie “Moneyball,” wherein Brad Pitt’s character asks, “If he’s a good hitter, why doesn’t he hit good?” If the machines are not compromised, then why the concern about replacing them?

It was “Take Your Child to Work Day,” and I got permission to participate. We walked into the office, and I showed my son my cubical, my desk and then gave him a tour around the building, where he met all of my co-workers.

We returned to my cubical, letting him sit in my seat and play with the computer as I was finishing some paperwork. Finally, I told him I needed my chair, and he got up so that we could switch places.

As we did so, he asked, “Dad, where are the clowns you say you work with?”

From the most recent file box I’ve been sorting through, I found what might be the very first poem I ever wrote. My 10-year-old handwriting is such that I cannot tell if it is dated March 5 or May 5, 1971.

Poor Peter Cotton Tail
Robbed mother’s garden
He went to county jail
Meat pie for the Warden

Because the date is faded and my penmanship unreadable, I thought maybe I wrote it close to Easter time, but the holiday happened on April 11. Written for publication in our elementary school newsletter, it never made it to print.

Now I get why they refused.

My wife made the coffee this morning. When she handed me a cup, she winked at me. I was never so scared to drink something as I was at that moment.

I dropped a hardbound copy of “A Christmas Carol,” on my foot. It hurt like the dickens.

Recovering from a skull fracture, I was asked again by the Trooper to explain how I wrecked my truck. I consented, though I knew no one believed me.

“My truck slid off the road because of the icy conditions and rolled down the hillside near the old Orphir mine,” I said. “I hit my head but never lost consciousness and crawled out my busted windshield.”

The uniformed woman jotted down some notes and asked me to continue.

“I tried to get back the hill but couldn’t,” I continued. “That’s when I smelled smoke from a fire, and so I went to find it to get some help.”

“It didn’t take me very long to find it, but it was unattended, so I sat down to warm myself,” I told her. “I was sleepy but knew I might have a concussion and had to fight off the sleep.”

A few minutes after sitting down, soon I was accompanied by a group of men,” I added. “They weren’t your regular sort of men, the tallest being about a foot or so in height.”

“One of them began dressing my head wound and another to feed me and give me something warm to drink,” I stated. “I could not understand anything they were saying and figured it was because of my head injury.”

“Can you repeat what you heard?” she wanted to know.

“Something like, ‘go seek pens brew,’” I offered phonetically.

“Any idea how you got back to your truck?” she queried.

“No idea,” I said. “I must have lost consciousness and was carried back, cuz that’s where I woke up.”

“How do you explain your truck being on the side of the road and no longer in the ditch, then?” the Trooper asked.

“Not a clue,” I answered.

“Are you sure that your truck went down the embankment?” she asked.

“Certain,” I returned.

“Well, we didn’t find a scrap of evidence that your truck went off the road,” she frowned. “You must have been hallucinating or something.”

“And?” I asked certain there was something she was not saying.

“We can’t explain the tiny muddy footprints and the small handprints in your blood located in the cab of your truck,” she finally said.

I relaxed and smiled.

Standing there in my grief, I watched as she walked away from me and out of my life. I watched as the darkness of the night swallowed her up.

Looking down, I studied the diamond ring that she had returned. It no longer held the shine that I remembered the day I gave it to her, the day she said yes.

When I looked up again, she was gone, but then so were the street lamps, each wrapped in their Christmas best, which lined the sidewalk. Then I realized that the night and its inkiness had swallowed everything, including me.