The Central Authority claimed it had all started that year. However Dom knew it had begun earlier than that — over 25 years before the deadly rioting of that year.

Yes, Dom had been part of a movement to take control of the United States from Progressives. He had been vocal in his opposition to what the media labeled, “Hillary Care.”

Fortunately the idea of socialized medicine died with the Clinton presidency. However it raised its ugly head once again some decade and a half later — this time as the “Affordable Care Act.”

It was the first time Dom recognized the new media dialog of “parsing.” The act turned out to be anything but ‘affordable’ and it eventually led to the governmeny take over of all health care in the country.

But it wasn’t health care that lead to the riots that year — it was the dismantling of the second amendment. The loss of privately owned pistols, revolvers, rifles, and shotgun created a chasm between the people and politicians.

It too, began with a parsing of words. Gun control enthusiasts changed the argument to gun safety and before people knew it cities and townships were holding gun swap rallies which lead to voluntary registrations then mandatory registrations.

Finally, once the Federal Government announced that it had signed the United Nations’ “Arms Trade Treaty”, and that all but two states ratified the treaty, rioting broke out across the country. Soon military units from Russia, China and Mexico, called up by the U.N., arrived to put a halt to the rioting.

It was unknown to Dom and possibly to the Central Authority how many people died during that week’s event. That’s when the “DDP” formed, which organized the disappearance of those who wanted no part in what they believed to be a new one-world government.

“It’s funny how they took an insult, and turned it around,” Dom thought of the DDP.

He knew DDP stood for ‘Dooms Day Preppers,’ which he had seen on TV years ago, but paid little attention too. Shortly there after, the third banking collapse happened.

By this time Dom and his family were living in the mountains between Utah and Nevada. He had decided to join up with the “DDP” but failed to make contact before the authorities swooped in and detained those not already living in one of the designated Resettlement sites.

“I didn’t know they were for real” or “I figured that was a bunch of right-wing hog-wash,” and worse was heard throughout the compounds. Dom realized then many people had swallowed the worm and hook the media had lured them with and now it appeared to be too late

Dom’s wife Anne died in one of the compounds. By that time Dom was in a Reeducation camp along with his son, Cam.

Cam, however disappeared early one morning over a year ago. Rumor was that he took the old man’s advice and escaped the first chance he had.

“And don’t you worry about me,” he told Cam. “Jus’ get yourself free and keep moving and don’t you dare try to rescue me.”

The thought brought an agonizing pain to Dom’s heart. He had raised the boy to do right and the rest he had to leave “up to God.”

Through the entire struggle, Dom believed God would make into good that which is bad.

A Gate Keeper caught Dom praying once. Within the hour they dragged Dom from his domicile and chained him to a wooden pillar in the middle of the compound.

With the sound of a horn, the citizens of the compound gathered to hear it announced that Dom was to be caned — 20 lashes for failing to appreciate all that the Central Authority had given him in exchange for his life.

Dom could vaguely recall the third blow. He passed out and suffered the following 17 blows in silence.

When he awakened he had lost several days and several pounds.

The wounds were open and raw. He could barely move from the pain that racked his entire body.

Dom managed to drag himself up the wall of his domicile and peer out the slit facing the compounds center. He did his best to hold himself up as he reached for the door.

However the room twisted and turned as he pulled the door open. Dom fainted in the doorway where he remained to early the next morning.

Something was picking at this skin. It hurt one moment then felt relieving the next.

Too weak to get up Dom laid on the cold cement surface of the room as the sun jabbed a beam of light through the window slit in the back of the room where his cot stood. It was then that he saw the shadow that moved across his back.

Stronger and slightly in fear, Dom moved as if to roll over and the shadow jumped to life and streaked away. It floated gently to the top of Gate Keepers shack, looking back at Dom.

A black bird was making a meal of maggots growing in his infected wounds.

Dom lay back down quietly and soon the bird returned. Hours and hours later long after the sun had gone away the bird flew away, having eaten every last morsel it could find.

Dom owed his life to both the maggots and the black bird for cleansing his wounds. He took it as a sign from God that He has seen Dom’s struggles and when God deemed it right, all would be traded for blessings.

Slowly his wounds healed and though not fully strong enough, they returned Dom to the general work force. As a member of a crew of ten men, they made then dig ditches manually, complete terracing and fill in rutted roadways.

The physical labor was hard but it left Dom feeling whole. It also made him work muscles and flex joints that he would have otherwise allowed to soften or grow stiff.

He also realized that to survive the camp he would need to become a model student— a step below becoming a model citizen. Dom decided to devour whatever he was given to memorize and regurgitate it when required.

As goes the TV commercial, so goes society.

Mayberry was so peaceful because only one man in town was married, and he stayed drunk.

I practice ‘rage yoga’ which involves swearing and drinking. Okay — so I practice swearing and drinking.

At 74-years-old, Grandpa Bill was a man of very few words. One late afternoon, as we sat on his porch in silence, he produced a large cigar box, handing it to me.

“Wanna to tell you ‘bout this,” he said, as he motioned for me to open the box.

Inside was a neckerchief wrapped around three items: an obsidian stone, a length of burnt bone and a battered Colt .45. Being 12-years-old, it was the pistol that held my fascination as I picked it up.

“This is so neat, Grandpa,” I said as I held it as if I were aiming it at a bad guy in some Western movie.

“And it used to be pretty at one time,” he smiled.

“Does it work?”

“Not since the last time I had to use it,” he stated, “And that’s what I wanna tell you ‘bout.”

He picked up a bottle of beer from the ice-bucket beside him and opened it with the ‘church-key’ he had sitting on the table between us, “We were sitting around when a Cherokee woman came crying to us. Said two of her children had been taken by a shaman to a bunch of rocks a few miles east of own and that he was going to kill them.”

“Being hot-blooded, me and James, another Oklahoma Ranger, decided that we could not stand for such a thing and immediately began searching for this shaman. James found the entrance to a shallow cave and we both figured that must be where this Injun had taken the stolen kids.”

He paused to take a drink from his beer, then lit a cigarette, “I crawled through the small crack in the rocks, first. The entrance opened into a narrow passageway, so narrow that I had to turn sideways to get through it. The walls of the passage had scratchings and etchings in then. Then it opened up into a cavern.”

“How could you see all this?” I asked.

“In the center of this cavern was a fire pit. Around it stood a dozen children, chanting and singing, eyes rolled so far back in their heads that you couldn’t see their pupils.”

Grandpa Bill took another drag on his cigarette before saying, “Now this is where it gets strange.”

“You mean chasing a kidnapper into a cave and finding a bunch of kids acting strange, isn’t strange enough?”

He laughed, “Never thought about it that a-way. Anyhow, before I could gather myself, I heard a voice behind me, so I turned, and there’s this old Injun holding a gun to Jame’s head.”

“His English, though broken, was good enough for me to understand that he wanted me to drop my holster. I did,” Grandpa Bill sighed as he shook his head, “And then he blew Jame’s brains out.”

“Naturally, I lunged for the gun, but he shot me through my right thigh. I blacked out and when I opened my eyes, the Injun was in my face asking me if I wanted to meet ‘White-man’s God.’”

“Thank goodness, he didn’t kill you.”

“I think it surprised him when I nodded yes. Didn’t know what to do at that point, so he walked over to a doorway, something I had not noticed before then. It was massive, made of pure obsidian. Biggest slab I’ve ever seen, but it had a large chip in its center half way down.

“The shaman picked up that piece of obsidian, you see in the box, there – and placed it in the chipped area – then something started to push the door open from the other side. As it opened, a unhuman, spindly hand came through the crack between the door and the jamb.”

“The hand was large, long fingers, and it felt around the edge of the door, as if it feared entering the room. Being scared to death myself, I crawled over to my holster, pulled my gun and I shot that dirty Injun in the back.”

“His blood splashed on the hand, which caused whatever it was to go crazy. Next thing I realize, I’d forgotten about my thigh and was on my feet, using all my weight to closed that door.”

“Must’ve surprised it, because I felt it give way, but then it pushed back. I almost had it closed but the hand got in the way.”

Grandpa Bill stopped and looked out towards the setting sun,”I pulled my knife out and hack at the fingers. Lopped one off and it howled a deafening noise as it pulled back.”

“That’s when I slammed the door closed. But whatever it was, the began to push back, opening the door again.”

“Panicked, I noticed that piece of obsidian the shaman had placed in the chip. I forced the door closed again, then clawed the chunk of rock from the door, letting it drop to the ground.”

The second it hit the rocky floor, the banging and guttural roaring stopped. Everything going silent. The kids then snapped awake and started crying.”

“The finger I’d cut off, caught fire, burning till it was nothing but bone. I went to James, but he was done in, so I picked up the bone, the rock and with the children following me, limped my way through the narrows of the cave and into the welcoming glitter of a starlit night.”

“It wasn’t till early morning that a posse found us. A few of the fellas were brave enough to crawl back inside the cave and drag James’ body out.”

“It was sent back to his family in Pennsylvania so as he could have a proper funeral and burial. I continued to ride for the agency for a few more months before I decided I needed a change of scenery and I came out here to California.”

“What a story, Grandpa. How come you never told me about this before?”

“Figger you’re almost 13 and you should know there are things out in the world that defy understanding. I didn’t know this when I left my home in Ohio and I wanted you to have a fighting chance if you ever come up against something you can’t explain.”

“So, what became of the cave?” I asked.

“It was dynamited shut shortly after James body was removed,” Grandpa answered.

We never talked about it again and Grandpa Bill died a few months later. To this day, I have no idea what happened to that old cigar box and its content therein.

The greatest joy of having a penis, is sharing it with someone who doesn’t have one.

‘A butt tuba,’ spelled backwards is still ‘a butt tuba.’ Jus’ saying.

For nearly 37-years, she was simply known  as “Sheep’s Flat Jane Doe.” She was discovered shot to death by hikers near a trail close to Mount Rose Highway, in Washoe County, Nevada, on July 17, 1982.

But now she has her given name back: Mary Silvani, born in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1948. After developing a DNA profile from a rape kit taken at the time her body was discovered, detectives used a set of fingerprints provided by the Detroit Police Department from a misdemeanor arrest in 1974, to verify the body was that of as Mary.

Cold case cops also have the perpetrator of the crime – a man who died in prison five months after the murder – James Richard Curry, born in Texas. In 1946. He was identified after his two children provided voluntary DNA samples, confirming that their DNA matched those of the Mary’s murderer.

Five months after Mary was killed, Curry confessed to committing three other murders in California while in custody. He’d been arrested after he killed a man in his home and sexually assaulted the man’s wife, kidnapped her and killed her.

Curry died in 1983 in prison several days after a suicide attempt. The other murders Curry committed occurred in California’s San Jose and Santa Clara counties and suspect he may have also killed a co-worker from Waukena, in Tulare County, also in California, where he had lived, but that victim’s remains have not been located.

It was in April 2018 when the Washoe County Sheriffs cold case squad and forensic unit began working with the DNADoe Project and IdentiFinders International to make the duel identifications. However, there’s still more work to be done as investigators still don’t know whether or how Curry and Silvani knew each other.

Meanwhile, the Eldorado County, California, Cold Case Task Force has been busy solving two other decades old murders in the South Lake Tahoe area. In 1977, horseback riders discovered 27-year-old Brynn Rainey’s body buried in a shallow grave near Stateline Stables and two years later, 16-year-old Carol Andersen’s battered corpse was found dumped alongside a road.

Investigators recently identified the murder suspect as deceased South Lake Tahoe resident Joseph Holt after hiring Parabon NanoLabs, to construct a “family tree” from DNA obtained from both crime scenes.

DNA samples taken from Carol’s body during her autopsy, as well as those collected from a blood stain left on Brynn’s shirt, were later matched to the suspect’s brothers. Holt grew up in San Jose, California, was a graduate of Cupertino High School and the University of California, Berkley. In 1974 and moved to South Lake Tahoe in 1974 where he launched a career in real estate, dying in 2014 at the age of 67.

The task force is still investigating whether Holt is responsible for other unsolved crimes. Call the task force tip line at 530-621-4590 if you have any further information on Holt, these two cases or any other unsolved crime.

My wife explaining why having a regular bed time is important: “It’s not because you’re tired, it’s because you exhaust me.”