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Stop trying to buy happiness.
Many of the things we desire are expensive.
But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free.
Love, laughter and working on our passions.

A Democrat friend of mine asked in an email: “What are you going to complain about if the GOP takes both the Senate and House?”

I don’t think she expected the answer I gave her.

“Plenty, since most Republicans in Washington DC are no better or worse than Democrats in Washington DC,” I responded. “The same crap will continue.”.

“After all,” I continued, “I’ve not heard nor seen anyone in either party propose a real plan to eliminate Obamacare, reign in the IRS, or halt the NSA’s data gathering programs, to name a few.”

Once I sent her my reply, I looked up the word ‘complain.’ This is the definition: “To express dissatisfaction or annoyance about a state of affairs or an event.”

Well, I’ll be damned!

Senator Harry Reid told Reno’s KRNV in April 2014, “This is not over,” following the stand-off at the Bundy Ranch. He wasn’t kidding having introduced a bill to seize nearly 1 million acres of Nevada — including land involving the Bundy Ranch.

“…Reid last month introduced legislation to withdraw 805,100 acres of federal land in Garden Valley and Coal Valley straddling the Lincoln and Nye county lines,” reported the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “a desolate area bigger than Rhode Island.”

Taking a deeper look, his plan is in lock-step with the Bureau of Land Managements plan to have 2,767,941 acres in Southern Nevada designated as ‘Areas of Critical Environmental Concern.’ According to Federal Register, Volume 79, No.197, published October 10th, 2014, the BLM has plans to close off the Virgin River and Gold Butte areas, near the Bundy Ranch, to all human activities.

Before the standoff, there was around one million acres of ACECs in Southern Nevada. Since the standoff, the BLM has applied for an additional 1.8 Million Southern Nevada acres — a 280-percent increase.

Reid, whose listed as the bill’s only sponsor, had no comment. His spokeswoman though, Kristen Orthman, said the Nevada Democrat “has long had conversations about how to protect the scenic, natural and cultural values in and around Garden Valley.”

“It’s so cold, that I can hardly feel my feet and my fingers hurt when I bend them. But continue pressing on. I’ve decided to stay as close to 395 as possible, while avoiding the towns along the way — people marauding and looting.

Several times over the past several days, I’ve seen large military trucks moving back and forth along the highway. It leaves me puzzled how they can have operating vehicle’s when none of the cars, truck or even the one motorcycle I’ve managed to find will start.

Snow falls from time to time and food is in short supply. I killed a large crow which is awful to eat, hopefully I’ll get a rabbit of squirrel soon.”

Written in faded pencil in a black and white spotted book, ‘Keeper of Flames’ had removed it from the square container, ‘Lives in Woods’ had brought him. He recognized the container as being made of plastic, something that remained in short supply since the ‘New Time Beginning’ had arrived.

The Elder, now in his mid-sixties, had been nearly 23-years-old when his world changed. He knew most everything that there was to know about the world in which the ‘Last People’ had lived in and it was his job to record this history and anything about it.

Often times, late at night as he worked over his desk, he could hear his father say, “Read everything you can and keep a journal because you’ll never know when it might come in handy.” That had been a long time ago and he now strove to teach his son the same.

The entries in the book were few and far between. In the beginning, the author had recorded the day, the date and a time for each entry — but soon that stopped and the entries took on a more primal tone.

“Managed to hide on top of government truck, jumped when it turned towards Eureka and not Klamath. Sprained right ankle. Hobbled but home.”

‘Keeper of Flames’, put the gun down and returned to the plastic box. He leafed through the Bible, the small copy of the U.S. Constitution and a dictionary, before he saw the black folded leather.

“Driver’s license,” he announced as he removed it from what he knew to be a wallet.

He returned it to the wallet and quickly turned his attention back to the skeleton that he had arranged on a long table behind him. Earlier he had noted that there was a piece of metal lodged in the up part of the man’s right hip.

“Possibly, a bullet,” he whispered as he held a chipped magnifying glass over the fragment.

Now, he could feel the burning of his eyes as tears filled their rims. ‘Returns from War,’ he declared to the others as they sat, waiting patiently to learn what ‘Keeper of Flames,’ had discovered.

“Who?” his wife, ‘She brings Happiness’ asked.

Her question went unanswered as ‘Keeper of Flames,’ turned back to the book. He quickly leafed through to the last entry and continued reading, this time aloud.

“Effed up, walked into a pot-grow, shot in the lower gut. Bowl smell. Infection. Death sentence. Found shelter in redwood tree, new as young man. Dying in Klamath. Miss Kay, Miss Mary and Kyle. Will never know what happened to them.

‘She looks Up,’ another Elder asked impatiently, “Who is it and what have you learned, ‘Keeper of Flames?’”

‘Keeper of Flames,’ removed the license and held it aloft, “In the ‘Time That Passed,’ I was a young man. I remember when the ‘Last People’ were taken as I was a part of them. My mother and I lived for three-years in a camp before being released. My father escaped and we never saw him again, though we never forgot him.”

“And?” ‘She looks Up,’ interrupted.

‘Keeper of Flames,’ calmly responded, “In the ‘Time That Passed,’ they called me ‘Kyle.’ This is the name my father, ‘Thomas’ gave me went I was born and this is my father, whom I know call, ‘Returns from War.’”.

The next day, ‘Returns from War’ was laid to next to Mary in the towns’ cemetery. The plastic box, with the Bible, dictionary and Constitution as well as the rest of his clothing and equipment was permanently displayed in the town’s “Hall of Memory,” for all to view.

Four days later, Kyle walked up onto our porch. He looked tired and said he was hungry, so we fed him what we had available.

Since our water no longer ran, I felt fortunate that I had set up a rain barrel two years before the E-M-P. Kyle drank three Mason jars full before he felt satiated.

“Where’s your family?” Mary asked.

“They went with the fed’s,” he answered.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“One of our neighbors told me,” he responded, adding, “They’re rounding people up and taking them to camps.”

I felt a cold-sweat rush over me as I thought about this.

It was time to go to ground, walk away from our home, our lives, and our security and disappear into the high desert. I already had a plan set-up in my head that if push comes to shove, we’d walk to where I was raised – the Redwood forest and the Pacific Ocean.

My plan was met with disbelief and consternation. Neither Mary nor Kyle thought it was a plan worth exploring let alone attempting.

It never occurred to me that they wouldn’t want to go, despite the hardship involved. So since they didn’t want to try, I felt obligated to stay with them, though I knew very well the possible risk of becoming wards of the federal bureaucracy.

I’m a historian – and I know what happened to my Red Brothers at the hands of the government.

Despite my family’s decision not to leave our neighborhood, I took action anyway and filled three plastic five-gallon buckets with provisions – including backpacks – and buried them in the desert beyond the nearby dirt airport. I added a Bible, a booklet on the Constitution and a dictionary, jus’ in case.

As I was walking back from the burial site, I saw the large government vehicles as they lined up along Nightingale Way. I dropped to my stomach and pulled my binoculars from my daypack and watched as Mary and Kyle were escorted by armed men and loaded into one of the many trucks.

Suddenly a swell of panic and bile over came me. After puking, I picked up my .22 caliber rifle and aimed at the driver of the truck my wife and son were in.

If they were going to be taken from me, I was going to fight for them. I squeezed off a round and saw the windshield of the truck turn milk-white as it shattered.

My single bullet was met with an overwhelming barrage of machine gun fire. The dirt, the rocks and the dust jumped as if alive in front of the berm I was hiding behinds.

Overwhelmed, my military training kicked in and though it has been more than three-decades now, I retreated into the sagebrush and worked my way back to the base of the hillside that separates Eagle Canyon from the Hungry Valley Reservation. I holed up in one of the hundreds of crevasses as I saw uniformed men search for me.

Once darkness fell, I knew two things – possibly three – but hadn’t thought yet of thought of third one. I had lost my family and I needed to find a way out of the valley and over the hill behind me.

Moving slowly and as quietly as I could, I retrieved the buckets I had buried earlier in the day and pulled together the supplies I needed to make the trek to the North coast of California. As I hoist the heavy Alpine hiking pack onto my bad back, I promise I will return for my family.

The rain had stopped by the time daylight came to the deep forest. In its place floated a heavy mist that danced among the treetops.

‘Lives in Woods’ crawl out of the hollow and stretched. He had slept wee despite being unable to lay down.

Embers still glowed lightly below the layer of ash in his fire pit. Instead of adding wood to the, ‘Lives in Woods’ stretched again, then proceeded to urinate on the blazes’ remains.

He quickly found two limbs and cut them from the tree, stripping them of any branches so they were bare. Crossing the skinnier ends of the limbs, he tied them together, then knitted his hemp rope back and forth between the branches.

Finally he carefully laid the wrapped remains on top of the rope, picked up the two ends that weren’t lashed together, and headed on to the trail. If he moved quickly, he could be back in town by nightfall.

‘Lives in Woods’ thought back to the night before, wondering still how the bones came to be inside the tree as they were. It surprised him when he realized the man was sitting upright, and that the skull was half hidden in a small ledge where it had rolled after death.

In the morning light, ‘Lives in Woods’  could see the bones were heavily yellowed, meaning they were old. Furthermore, the fact that the bones had not been dragged away by hungry beasts long ago, mystified him.

“Perhaps,” he pondered, “It is his clothing.”

After all the man’s hands bore remnants of gloves and a think layer of clothe, much like a burlap sack.  His feet also had the same kind of wrapping that covered what at one time had been boots.

And while the fire glowed, he again lifted and examined the square box. During this period, he sudden became aware of how simple it would be to open it as it had only two tiny latches that held it closed.

Though again tempted to open the box, he thought better of it, fearful he might let loose an unwanted spirit, like the ‘bleeding disease,’ that killed millions around the world, before ‘the new time’ began. “Best leave that to the Elders,” he concluded.

‘Lives in Woods’ took note of his surroundings, wanting to be able to find his way back if called upon. He was sure the Elders would want to see where the bones were found, so they could better understand why the man was in the tree’s hollow.

By the time the sun set, ‘Lives in Woods’ stood in front of the Elders lodging.

With two ‘Chuck Allen for Washoe County Sheriff’ signs in my front yard, it is hard not to tell who I intend to vote for in the upcoming election. I know, have work with and genuinely like Chuck and that helped me come to my decision.

But there is more.

While I do not know ‘Trooper Chuck’s’ opponent, Undersheriff Tim Kuzanek, I do know he has the misfortune of being endorsed by our current sheriff, Mike Haley, Sparks Mayor Geno Martini and Reno’s Mayor, Bob Cashell. This trio is problematic for me.

Last year the Reno Gazette-Journal reported that Haley wanted to “control access to assault weapons,” and “limit access to high-capacity magazines.” As for Cashell and Martini, they decided at the last-minute to endorse the ‘Sycophant of Searchlight,’ Harry Reid in his 2010 senate bid, thus helping to stick the U.S. with another six-years of ‘Pinky’s’ political treachery.

While I am able to forgive – I cannot bring myself to forget.

What has actually happened, none of us really know. We’ve been cut-off from all outside information for days now.

I jus’ know we are suffering the effects of an E-M-P – an electrical magnetic pulse.

It started while I was sitting at our computer, typing a story for my blog. I had the television on in the living room as I was listening to the Glenn Beck show.

Suddenly everything blanked out. At first it didn’t seem like a big deal, power outages happen and I figures NVEnergy would have the problem solved in an hour, if not in a few minutes.

I was so wrong.

My wife, Mary, was in town and when the power hadn’t returned after two-hours I decided to call her. I don’t really like having a cell-phone, but I keep one with me incase I need to get a hold of her, my son, or our friend Kay.

Unfortunately, my cell wasn’t working either. So I pulled the old ‘Princess’ phone out of our closet and plugged it into the phone jack since our other home phone’s operate on electrical power.

It didn’t work either. Then it dawned on me, her business phone operates on electricity too.

And even though I knew it wouldn’t work, I dialed Kyle’s cell-phone and then Kay’s. I had no way of knowing exactly where they were as Kyle was working for a temp agency and Kay was visiting family in Las Vegas.

Soon I became worried about Mary, scared for her safety and wondering where she was at since I was certain she had left her shop hours. So I grabbed my truck keys and with the intent of going to look for her, I tried to start my truck.

Oddly, it was dead. So I went next door and knocked, wondering if I might borrow one of their cars.

Bridgette told me Mike had not made it home and she hadn’t heard from him as of yet. She also tried to start her older model VW bug and it too, wouldn’t start.

Luckily, she had picked their son up their son from school before the power went down. So she didn’t have that worry to contend with.

As I walked back to my front door, Tom from across the street hollered to me, asking, “Can you get your truck to start?”

“No,” I answered.

Quickly we were joined by Bob, who lives across from Tom on the corner and Gary who is my next door neighbor on the other side of me from Bridgette and Mike. We all compared our situations and found they were nearly exact.

Only Bob, who has an old 1927 coupe, could get his vehicle to start-up. It was at that moment that I realized what had happened and decided to voice my opinion.

“Can I borrow your coupe,” I asked Bob, “So I can go pick up my wife and perhaps find my son?”

Bob hesitated; he had to think about it, which I don’t blame him in the least. Finally, he handed me the keys.

Within 20 minutes I was driving through the streets of Sparks, which were littered with cars and trucks. I found the same thing on Kietzke as I headed towards Mill and Mary’s business.

By this time it was dark and devoid of people as I wheeled into the parking lot. I pulled in front of her shop and banged on the front door.

At first I figured she was no longer there, but then I saw her press her hands on the glass, cupping her face to see outside and into the darkness. I could see the fear in her face and her swollen, red eyes from crying.

Isolation can do this to a person, no matter how strong they might be.

She turned the key in the door and stepped out. We stood there hugging each other for at least a minute.

Soon we were dodging vehicles left in the roadway, abandoned where they died. We were on our way to Kyle’s mother’s home, where he lives.

Once parked in the driveway, I rushed to the door and banged on it. No one answered and I returned to the vehicle, puzzling over what to do.

Mary suggested we jus’ head home and I agreed. It took us no time to drive up into Bob’s driveway and park.

While Mary and I set ourselves to work right away, going into our back yard and digging a large hole. The ground is hard and by the time we finished, both our hands were raw and blistered.

The next morning, we lined the hole with the rocks we’ve had in our yard since we first moved here and which I’ve been too lazy to move or get rid of. Then we pulled our old metal ice chest out of the rafters and filled it with the frozen food from our freezer.

It took us less than half-an-hour to bury the hole with the hope of keeping the food from rotting. I knew that it might not work, so soon I might have to go out and find some fresh meat.

As we were covering the hole, it occurred to me that I might be able to communicate with someone beyond our neighborhood. I had forgotten that at one point I had studied to get my Ham radio license, and I still had much of that equipment, including a telegraph key.

Within an hour’s time, I had my crystal radio set out and I was working to tune it to anything, a voice, music, Morse code or even static. I found a voice, though faint and fading in and out, that told me what I had already suspected.

It was a worthless message, obviously pre-recorded and left to repeat in an endless-loop. Though it wasn’t what I had hoped for, it did bolster our spirits to know there was something out ‘there’ beyond jus’ us.

This series of five short-stories is based on reoccurring ‘night terrors’ I’ve been having for the past few months. The way I’m figuring it — maybe, jus’ maybe — if I write it down and share it then it’ll go away.

‘Lives in Woods’ looked up at the gray sky as droplets of rain fell on his face. He’d been hunting for a day and a half now and hadn’t seen one deer or elk.

“Perhaps, I’ve gone to high,” he thought.

He could tell that the light would soon be gone as it filtered through the giant trees. He decided to it would be a good idea to look for shelter before it grew too dark and he’d have to set up camp in the rain.

As he silently, but swiftly moved amid the high ferns, he looked for tracks, eaten ends of plants and a possible place to get in out of the rain. ‘Lives in Woods’ was even willing to use a dead-fall log to get in out of the chilling event of the wetness as it continued to fall.

It was jus’ off to his left that he saw what might be an even better place to hole up than under a log. He could see an opening in the base of a huge Redwood, that was hidden by a growth of ferns.

“Hopefully, there’s no bear inside,” he muttered as he worked his way to the tree.

He thrust his spear forward into the opening. There wasn’t a bear inside the hollowed out tree trunk as he had first feared – it would make a good shelter for the night.

After gathering wood, he knelt and began the task of creating fire. He used the ancient technique passed down through the generations of spinning the end of a stick in the notch or a board, which he carried in a bag that hung across his body.

Even though the weather was wet, his board and stick we dry and he made fast work of making a glowing ember. He quickly added it a bird’s nest he also had in his bag, found days ago and soon he’d built himself a fire by which to dry himself and stay warm.

It had been a long day, so after eating some jerked salmon, he moved to the back of the hollow and stretched out. As he lay there, he felt something, perhaps a rock, poke him in the back.

Absent mindedly, ‘Lives in Woods’ reach under himself and dug at the object. He pulled it free from the compressed earth and looked at it.

It didn’t look like a rock at all. He studied it some more, turning it over again and again.

“Bone,” he concluded.

Rolling over and getting to his knees, he probed the area on which he’d been resting. To his shock he found another bone, this one long and slender.

Next to it was another long, bone, about the same length, yet thicker. That lead up to what ‘Lives in Woods’ knew to be a human thigh bone.

Before long, he had uncovered a nearly complete skeleton. While others of his people would have run away, terrified of such a thing, ‘Lives in Woods’ knew he must collect all that he could and return with them to town.

Along with the bones, he also pulled from the ground a large square object, made of a material he didn’t recognize. It looked to be wrapped at one time inside pieces of clothe that had long since rotted away.

It was hard to see through the square, like a heavily fogged over afternoon, yet he could tell it held something inside it. What it could be, he didn’t know, and he felt it best not to investigate it any further.

“I’ll let the Elders do that,” he thought.

Then much to his surprise, he noticed an object leaning in a crevasse of the tree trunk. It was long and made of metal, with a wood handle.

‘Lives in Woods’ knew it a gun when he saw one, though he never held one before. He gathered these items too and wrapped them all in a piece of deer skin he had planned to use to keep warm with.

In the morning, at first light, he would rig a travois and return to town.  ‘Lives in Woods’ was certain he had found one of the ‘Last Peoples.’

It occurred to me as I listened to Monica Lewinsky speak about her sexual escapades with former President and current Democratic rock-star Bill Clinton. In her talk, she blamed the Internet, Matt Drudge and the media with bullying her.

But not once did I hear her during her monologue, take true responsibility for her actions. After all she said she was 22-years-old at the time and therefore old enough to know better.

Nor did she blame Bill Clinton for what happened to her. As for Bill, I never thought it was about sex – rather it was all about power and then in the end it was about lying to Congress.