The truth in news reporting has been displaced by facts and citation. Rarely, is it that someone can report on something without it being called ‘opinion’ or a ‘lie,’ even when the traffic accident was personally witnessed and the reporter tangentially involved.

This year 2020, Georgio was prepared to fly to unexplored lands that only his mind could imagine. He had done everything possible to make the long tethers as secure as possible and their ends as fragrant to the Monarch’s as he could.

Once their northward migration began, he hurried to his tightly-woven basket and waited to be carried aloft into the clouds, on on the wind. Several members of the village where he lived accompanied him because they thought he would never succeed.

“You are loco,” the men called to him.

“You are going died,” the women cried.

After several hours, Georgio was about to give up, when suddenly thousands upon thousands of orange and black butterflies encapsulated his tethers, his basket and then him. Those that watched were stunned by the bright, fluttering display.

“Go!” Georgio screamed. “Fly away!”

Then, as if of one mind, the insects lifted away, leaving the basket and tethers behind. However, Georgio was nowhere to be found.

No one had told the intrepid young explorer that Monarch Butterflies are very hungry after long migratory flights. And no one knew that these particular winged creatures were as carnivorous as vultures.

The women were right, Georgio died.

My Cousin Elmo says, “It’s time to put whiskey in my coffee, because it’s gotta be Ireland somewhere.”

My wife walks somewhere between 3 and five miles each day. She’s developed three or four routes through our neighborhood that she follows depending on the length of her desired walk.

One of these routes takes her by a home that has a beautiful garden in the spring and summer months. By fall and into winter, it is cleared out of dead and dying flowers and such.

This year the homeowners left a couple of dozen hand painted multicolored ‘Ladybugs’ rocks, with a small sign reading: “Take one and give it a good home.”
Over the last few weeks Mary has brought home eight of them, placing them in our front yard’s flower bed. She has also kept me informed on the progress of the rehoming.

Finally, Mary’s told me there was one rock left, saying, “Every time I see it, I think how lonely it looks and I want to bring it home.”

“So do it,” I said.

“Okay,” said Mary, “If it’s still there Monday afternoon, I’ll bring it home.”

“Good,” I said.

Sunday morning, Mary has returned from her walk.

“Someone took the rock,” she said.

“Great,” I said.

But I could tell she wasn’t as happy as she sounded, so I asked, “How do you feel about that?”

“I think we could have given it a better home,” Mary said, adding, “I simply didn’t want to seem too greedy.”

“I understand,” I said, smiling and trying not to snicker.

“And don’t you write a word about this,” said Mary, “I already feel silly about all the fuss I made over it.”

“I think it’s sweet,” I shout back, “So I’m gonna write about it anyway.”

“Well, don’t forget to take their picture,” she said.

Well played, Mary, well played…

A life-long friend of mine lives on Yerington. She and I went to grade school together at Margaret Keating in Klamath. She moved to Nevada when we were in eighth grade and we reconnected in 1987 after she heard me on KIIQ (KICK,) a local country music station in Reno. We stay in touch with Christmas cards and such nowadays. Diana, we need to get together for breakfast one day very soon.

In the heart of Lyon County, in the Mason Valley and along the Walker River, Yerington, Nevada began its existence as a small trading post and whiskey store called Pizen Switch, a reflection on the poor quality of the whiskey sold there. Legend has it that Jim Downey’s whiskey was of so bad that some thought they were being poisoned.

Since “poison” was a difficult word for some people to say, the term “pizen” became the verbal label for Downey’s rot gut. History has it that cowboys would say, “let’s ride to the Switch and have a drink of Downey’s pizen.”

It didn’t take long before “Pizen Switch” became the town’s first name, and to some, it still is.

Lyon County was one of the nine original Nevada counties created on November 25, 1861. It was named after Nathaniel Lyon, the first Union general to be killed in the Civil War and it’s first county seat was established at Dayton on November 29, 1861. After the Dayton Courthouse burned down in 1909, the county seat was moved to Yerington in 1911.

In 1870, a millwright by the name of William Lee homesteaded 160 acres in the area. He built a two-story boarding house where the Lyon County Courthouse Annex now stands, in order to supplement his income by renting rooms to travelers.

That same year, Lee convinced Ed Bennett, James Downey and Isaac Sims to set up businesses near his boarding house. There were a series of roads that passed through that of section of businesses that may have been instrumental in the formation of what was later known as the “Switch.”

More businesses were established over the following two years at what is the intersection of today’s Main, Van Ness and Broadway streets. Bennett eventually built a mercantile where a barbershop is now located.

Downey settled across the street and opened a saloon known as Downey’s Exchange. The saloon was at the south end of where the Yerington Inn now stands, while a blacksmith shop stood at the north end.

In the 1878, after the settlement had grown, a gentler name was in order, so the citizens agreed on “Greenfield.” Old-timers claimed that the name came from the threat of hangings in which “Greenfielding,” was the slang of the day, and thus the abbreviated version of the town’s second name.

In the Yerington Indian Colony is a granite monument to Yerington’s most famous Native American, the Paiute prophet Wovoka. Also also known as Jack Wilson, his vision of the return of the buffalo, and of the Native American way of life, was an attractive prophecy to the native people whose culture was melting away, and it was fervently believed and spread through the Indian world.

His Ghost Dance movement led to the massacre at Wounded Knee 1890. The monument that sketches his life and carries his image, stands within sight of the fields near Yerington where his wickiup was a common sight before his death in 1932.

In 1894, the town wanted its own post office, but the post office refused, saying there were too many communities in the country named Greenfield. The town voted to change the name to Yerington, its third iteration, in honor of Henry M. Yerington, president of the Carson & Colorado Railroad.

They had hoped that it would be an enticement for Yerington to extend a spur of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad at Wabuska their way. But Henry did not extend the railroad to the town and it wasn’t until the 1920s that copper mining activity justified bringing a railroad to Yerington.

In fact, it is generally believed that Henry never did visit his namesake which was eventually incorporated in 1907.

Joe Dini’s Lucky Club is a Yerington tradition, that carries with it the historical footnote that boxer Jack Dempsey helped to lay the tile floor there during his Nevada roustabout years. Years later, he became the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion from 1919 to 1926.

In 1938, there was a movement initiated by the 20-30 Club, to change the name back to Pizen Switch, but the promoters were overruled.

During World War II one of many Japanese fire balloon launched at the U.S. with the hope of starting massive forest fires landed on the Wilson Ranch near Yerington. The ranchers, not knowing what it was, attempted to notify authorities by mail, but did not receive a response until long after they had cut it up and used it as a hay tarp.

Adjacent to Yerington is the former mining town of Weed Heights. Built in the 1952 and named for Clyde E Weed, vice president in charge of Anaconda operations, with a post office being established a year later, to accommodate the Anaconda Copper Mine, the town is mostly abandoned but makes for an interesting, short drive.

Owned by Anaconda until the company was taken over by Atlantic Richfield Company, the property was sold to former Lyon County Commissioner Don Tibbals. He subsequently sold all of the property, except for the town of Weed Heights to cathode copper production company Arimetco.

Then there is Fort Churchill State Park located 25 miles north of Yerington. Fort Churchill was the first established in 1860 when Nevada was still a territory and following the Pyramid Lake Indian War.

It was in use for only nine years and abandoned soon after the Civil War. It was useful for suppression of the Paiute and Bannock Indian hostilities and to assist emigrants bound for California.

The fort was made of Adobe blocks with wooden roofs. The adobe has deteriorated substantially and the wood has since rotted away or was carted-off by homesteaders and later souvenir collectors and only a few partial walls of the fort remain intact.

Buckland station was built in 1861 using materials from Fort Churchill. It was used as a Pony Express stop, boarding house and home for the Buckland family. It is located across the highway from Fort Churchill. The Fort Churchill park includes a picnic area and a trail along the Carson River across the bridge.

In town, there are many interesting and historic things to check out, like including the Lyon County Museum. With frontier relics on display, you can browse items from dolls to shooting irons, to Chinese antiques discovered in the area. There are also a few standing structures, like a one-room, eight-grade schoolhouse and a fully stocked 19th-century grocery store.

Yerington hosts a number of annual events, like the ‘Spring Fling Car Show,’ the ‘Portugese Cultural Celebration,’ the ‘Lyon County Fair & Rodeo,’ the ‘Spirit of Wovoka Days Powow.’ Of its annual events, perhaps the most notable is ‘A Night in the Country,’ a music festival that is popular with visitors and locals alike.

It’s not often I present photographs like these U.S. Naval Aviators doing their magic for a publicity shoot…

Fair winds and following seas…

Last night as I walked my dog, I looked up into the heavens, admired the stars, pondered the creation of the universe and I wondered to myself: what are the lyrics to ‘Blinded By The Light?’

Wow wee! A computer crash and a treasure trove of written material hidden in the folds of the Internet, and that I thought was lost forever.

It’s like having a whole bunch of new stories to post. Some are actually journal-type entries from 2008 while others are poems that I jotted down in 2001 and 2002.

Needless to say, I’m so tickled. Please be ready to read.

Carson City Health and Human Services (CCHHS) is reporting four additional deaths due to COVID-19 in the Quad-County Region. Two of the individuals were Lyon County residents and two were Carson City residents.

Currently there are 751 cases in Lyon County with 62 active cases. Of the 751 cases, 673 people have recovered, however 16 people have died from the disease. As a whole Nevada has seen 137-thousand COVID-19 cases, including 83-percent of the states prison population having become infected, with over two-thousand deaths blamed on the virus.

To this end, Nevada announced that it has entered into a $10 million contract with Quest Diagnostics for COVID-19 testing through December at state prisons and veterans homes. It remains unknown how the money will be divided between the two targeted groups.

On Friday, Nov. 20, Gov, Steve Sisolak issued new restrictions under what he called “Stay at Home 2.0,” Nevadans were urged to not go out in public unless absolutely necessary, not gather with those outside their households, to order groceries for delivery instead of going to the store and to pick up food curbside instead of dining at their favorite restaurant. Employers were also being asked to have their employees work from home as much as possible and to host meetings virtually instead of in conference rooms.

Private gatherings are to be limited to ten and can include people from no more than two households. Public gatherings limits will also be reduced from 250 people to 50, including churches.

Masks are required at any time you are around someone not part of your immediate household, including during private gatherings inside and outside.

Other restrictions include:

• Reservations are required at all restaurants and bars that serve food for in-person dining. Fast food restaurants and food courts are exempt from the reservation requirement. Restaurant and bar capacity was reduced from 50 to 25 percent, and there can be no more than four patrons at a table.
• Capacity at gyms, fitness and dance studios is reduced from 50 to 25 percent. Patrons must wear a mask at all times, unless actively drinking. If the activity is too strenuous to be done while wearing a mask properly, people must seek an alternative.
• Casino capacity has been reduced from 50 to 25 percent.
• Public gatherings are limited to no more than 50 people, or 25 percent of fire code capacity, whichever is less.
• Arcades, art galleries, aquariums, racetracks, bowling alleys, mini golf, libraries, museums and zoos all are reduced to 25 percent capacity.
• Big box stores that have more than 50,000 square feet must now have monitors at public entrances to manage capacity.
• A pause on all adult and youth sports tournaments.

In addition to individual and workplace action, Sisolak asked that colleges and universities communicate with students and faculty that they should avoid any gatherings on campuses and in homes. He did not make any specific requests of K-12 schools, including whether or not schools should discontinue in-person learning if the upward trends continue.

Sisolak’s stay-at-home request, however, did not apply to tourists, who the governor said should continue to travel the state while following all coronavirus health and safety protocols. The state’s tourism-driven economy came to a halt earlier this year when casinos were forced to shut their doors for several months and remains battered as visitors have been slow to return amid the pandemic.

CCHHS is also reporting 34 new cases and 25 additional recoveries of COVID-19 in the Quad-County Region. This brings the total number of cases to 2,869, with 2,119 recoveries and 30 deaths; 720 cases remain active. They continue to work to identify close risk contacts to prevent further spread of the disease.

CCHHS is continuing to offer drive-thru COVID-19 testing and flu vaccination events for Quad-County Residents only. Those from other counties will be turned away. For the flu vaccine, CCHHS is contracted to bill most insurances.

For uninsured we ask for a $20 administration fee; however, no one will be turned away for the inability to pay. CCHHS is not contracted with Tricare or labor unions. Testing is free of charge.

Events are first come, first served, no appointments or reservations.

The Nevada COVID-19 Mitigation and Management Task Force met with nine counties, including Lyon County, flagged for having an elevated risk of transmission of COVID-19. Lyon County’s Assessment/Action Plan remains the same with a main focus on messaging from local County and City leaders to correlate issues and actions that need to be taken from the community.

The task force said that all counties, regardless of risk level, must maintain the statewide baseline mitigation measures, including wearing face coverings, limits on gathering sizes and capacity in businesses. Additionally, all counties must continue to follow the criteria on gatherings and youth/adult sports outlined in Directive 033 and Directive 034, respectively.