Last night, Mary and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary by going out to dinner. It wasn’t anything fancy mind you, jus’ a place where we could sit, be waited on and enjoy a good meal.

Our server was excellent. He was engaging and even had water right there even before Mary asked which rarely happens anymore.

As we were ordering, my OCD got the best of me and I had to interrupt him. I pointed out that his name tag was upside down, making it difficult to read.

He immediately stopped what he was doing and fixed it – which made me feel better. As he did he explained that he thought he had lost it because he couldn’t find it before leaving home. However, he discovered it in his locker when he got to work and quickly pinned it on without checking himself in the mirror.

There it was – a trigger to an old memory that really has no bearing anywhere other than to say it happened. The word ‘mirror,’ did it for me.

It was late-summer 1979 and I was in the U.S. Air Force at the time. My office was near the front entrance of the Warren Hospital in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Why I was walking back to my office from the Flight Surgeons’ office, I don’t recall. But what I do remember is seeing my commanding officer seriously eyeballing-balling a Staff Sergeant who had jus’ come in out of the rain.

He had removed his rain coat and was simply standing in the foyer, looking lost. I intercepted him before Captain Covill could say anything to him.

“Ah, there you are,” I stated loudly, “come with me.”

The sergeant’s face crumpled into a serious state of puzzlement as he followed me into my office and into the interior room that wasn’t being used at the moment.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“No,” I answered, “but my CO was getting ready to jump your ass because your name tag is on the wrong side.”

He looked down at his right pocket then to his left and exclaimed, “Oh shit!”

Without any prompting he began removing the tag to correct the problem. I could see his hands shaking uncontrollably as he fumbled with his shirt buttons, so I stepped up to help.

We got the situation corrected in no time and as we did he explained, “My wife is here, having our first child and I’m a little lost this morning.”

“No problem, Sarge,” I smiled, “I’ll escort you to the maternity ward once you’re buttoned up and ready.”

As we walked down the hallway to the ward, I could feel Covill’s hard stare burning a hole into me. I smiled all the way.

Recently, a friend of mine sent me a story out of Orick, California, which is about 15 miles from my home town of Klamath. It brought to mind a memory of an event I experienced from my childhood.

It’s never been a secret with me that I’ve held a fascination with Bigfoot. It started as a very young kid, hearing tales from guy’s like Sandy Sanderson, who was a member of the Yurok Indian Tribe.

Later, I would have a chance to meet up with the legend and have my own tale to tell. Most of my time was spent alone as a kid, I don’t know why, but it was.

One day I was off in the woods south of High Prairie Creek and jus’ east of the trailer park of the same name. In the far distance I could hear the sound of the traffic as it raced by on U.S. 101.

As I recall it, I was simply exploring and wasting time playing with my ever present pocket knife. It was nothing at the time for me to be off playing in the forest as it was very different time in the world.

Suddenly, the cows that usually grazed in the pasture on the far side of the creek took off in a panicked run. This was followed by the mad dashing horses that also spent time in the same field.

I stopped to see what had spooked them.

As I looked around, I saw him. He was walking with a quick pace between the edge of the woods and the old barn nearby.

I felt a sudden fear and couldn’t breath as he looked over at me.

He was silent as he moved through the yellowing grass and never slowed down. This all happened in less than half-a-minute (my best guess all these years later.)

He disappeared into the bushes jus’ beyond the barn. As soon as he was gone I took off at in a mad dash to the trailer park. I wanted to be near people and civilization.

Later that night Mom washed my mouth out with soap for telling lies.

Following the 2012 H5N1 virus outbreak, the Obama administration announced a pause of federally funded Gain-of-Function (GOF) research, or how to increase naturally occurring animal viruses in a lab to make them more infectious among humans.

Now, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has released “Recommended Policy Guidance for Departmental Development of Review Mechanisms for Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight (P3CO).”

Sounds so benign.

But reading the first paragraph should give a person pause: “Section 1., Introduction 1.1., Federal departments and agencies (“agencies”) conducting, supporting, or planning to conduct or support the creation, transfer, or use of enhanced pathogens of pandemic potential should develop review mechanisms that are generally aligned with the approach recommended by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) in its May 2016 report Recommendations for the Evaluation and Oversight of Proposed Gain-of-Function Research (NSABB Recommendations).” 

The new recommendations provide guidelines for reviewing life science research that could enhance the virulence and transmissibility of a pathogen, leading to a potential pandemic pathogen (enhanced PPP) such as avian flu, SARS, Zika, and MERS. A weakness of the new framework is that surveillance activities involving PPPs, including sampling and sequencing, are not considered enhanced and would be exempt from reviews.

No data exists as to what viruses are not enhanced. In other words, if GOF was applied to the influenza virus, it could make the outbreak of the Spanish Flu in 1918 look like a common cold.

The issuance of this policy guidance follows a deliberative process initiated in October 2014 by OSTP and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). During this process, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) provided recommendations, suggesting additional scrutiny for studies expected to enhance PPP, along with a Department-level, multi-disciplinary review and ongoing Federal and institutional oversight.

Michael Osterholm, Ph.D., MPH, and director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, who was a member of the NSABB during the controversy over the H5N1 papers, said some research is needed to answer questions, such as what it would take for Ebola to become a respiratory virus, findings that would have implications for preparedness.

It was in October 2014 that a Texas nurse became the first person to contract Ebola within the United States despite wearing protective gear. The confirmation came four days after the death of the first patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, a Liberian who arrived in this country in September 2014.

The recommended policy guidance includes pre-funding review mechanisms for research proposals that involve enhanced PPP. Federal departments and agencies planning to fund such studies are encouraged to ensure that the projects adhere to eight specified principles, conduct risk-benefit analyses, and develop risk mitigation plans proportionate to the identified risks.

Paused projects under the existing moratorium will now undergo review using the process outlined in the recommended policy guidance. Projects deemed suitable to proceed will be subject to appropriate risk mitigation measures.

What could go wrong, huh?

The rain came shortly after dark, replacing the snow showers from two-days before. Now the entire Truckee Meadows region braced for major flooding.

It wasn’t until after 2 pm that I ventured out. I had been at home monitoring the ditch in our backyard, and one I felt it wasn’t going to wash over I felt it was okay to leave for a few hours.

Immediately, I found myself halted. Flooding had consumed the intersection of Pyramid Highway and Eagle Canyon Drive, the roadways I generally use to exit our neighborhood.

The Nevada Department of Transportation trucks were halting traffic from turning right from Eagle Canyon onto Pyramid because of a blockage in one of the overflow pipes that were recently installed. I had to turn back and use Richard Springs Blvd. to David James Blvd. to get to Pyramid.

Once in town I stopped at Paradise Park. Many of the old timers who recall when there wasn’t a park at the corner of Oddie Blvd and El Rancho Drive say that the area was always a flood plain and they one could tell how back an event would be by how much water collected in the basin.

Half of the park was underwater – I’d say that’s fairly bad.

My next stop was in the parking lot of the former Siena Hotel-Casino between Lake and Center Streets in Reno. Yes, there are signs posted that no one is to park in the lot, but I took a chance anyway.

The Truckee River was a creamy brown and swift moving. It had come up to within a couple of feet of the older bridges, like the Center Street Bridge and the Sierra Street Bridge to the west.

Reno’s newest bridge, built a couple of years ago, replacing the one that had been there since 1905, was holding its own. The river had plenty of clearance beneath, exactly as designed.

Across the river from the Siena is a reserved looking building belonging to the AT&T Telephone Company; their doors barricaded with ten layers of sandbags.

Walking across the street into the plaza, where the iron-worked “Believe” sculpture is on display I saw people in rain gear, umbrellas and cell phones scurrying about. Each one, like me, hoping to memorialize this year’s event in some personal way.

Over head the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office’s RAVEN helicopter buzzed; no doubt looking for any possible trouble in the areas west of downtown as their streets began to fill with water.

In Southern California they’re called ‘Lookie-loo’s.” Here in Nevada, we refer to them as the curious and they lined up along the new Virginia Street Bridge to get a good view of the raging Truckee.

A few more steps west and I found myself along the Plaza on the River. Here there were even more people as well as the camera crews to the three major TV news stations in the area.

Standing there for about 15 minutes, I watched as the water climbed the steps leading to the plaza. Since it was growing dark by then, and with the water creeping it way up each step, I decided it was time to vacate the area before being directed to by law enforcement or fire-fighters.

Thankful to find my wet and chilled self seated in my truck, I decided to head east on Mill Street to see how far I could get before having to turn around. As I learned I could get all the way to McCarran Blvd., where Mill ends, but I had to turn around because of major flooding in the industrial section of Sparks.

Turning north on Rock Blvd, I stopped in the overpass and took a couple more pictures. One of the river itself, the other, a shot of the foot path that is usually 10 to 11 feet above the river bank, but which was now covered in muddy, brown water.

With the sun quickly ducking below the Sierra, I continued north on Rock and back into Spanish Springs and home. While there was much flooding to be seen at the time as the snow continues to melt and the rains to fall.

After living here for 30-plus years, I’ve learned that the Truckee River will jump its banks every 10 years no matter what sort of flood mitigation man completes; it’s simply a matter of nature.

Many times random memories, without a real beginning or an end, pop into my head and I write them down with the hope that they’ll form into something more meaningful. Many times though, they don’t and I’m left with nothing more than a scrap of papers with a few words scratched on it, collecting dust.

No more, I’m going to plain-old have it out from this point forward. This morning, as I was cleaning the kitchen counter, I opened the See’s box that had been there since Christmas morning.

Inside were five pieces of chocolate candies, each laced with a helping of almonds. I removed the candies and placed them in a dish on the counter, and proceeded to throw the now-empty box away.

As I did this, I thought, “This would make a wonderful pen and pencil holder.”

Jus’ a fast as the thought came to mind, I laughed and said, “No it wouldn’t – it’s not metal.”

With that my mind was off and running…

The first time I ever had a piece of See’s candy was in 1982. My girlfriend at the time, Cathy, had gone to Los Angeles with her mother to visit her grandma and she brought back a couple of boxes.

And though I have never been one for a lot of candy, it tasted marvelous. Unfortunately, I called the boxes of goodies a ‘Sampler,’ for which I caught hell, because See’s was not like “Whitman’s’ which had ‘commoner’ written all over it.

As a kid, we had Whitman’s Samplers every Christmas. It was a box filled with special treats that everyone could enjoy.

Even more special was a box of Russell Stover’s candies, on which my dad had been raised at Christmas time. The boxes we received were generally two-times the size of the Sampler and that made it all the more special to our family.

Being a strange child, I wasn’t as enthusiastic about the candy as I was about the container it came in. And for me, the Sampler ranked supreme as it was often delivered in a tin – perfect for pens and pencils.

I warned you – this tale had no particular ending or real beginning.

A rainstorm that hit the region on December 30 and lasted until January 3 unleashed the Flood of 1997, the most devastating flood that Northern Nevada, Eastern California and Southern Oregon had seen in nearly a half century, wreaking devastation on communities while claiming two lives.

It was supposed to be my day off, but by mid-afternoon I was at work coordinating drivers and vehicles to help with the evacuation of people trapped in the flood zone as the Truckee River jumped its banks. This wasn’t how I had envisioned spending the first day of January.

Prior to this, I’d been on the phone with Kyle’s mother. Slightly panicked, she was in the process of leaving her and her husband’s home in Talent, Oregon because of the flooding they were experiencing.

As we were talking, the neighbor’s home slipped off its foundation and into the nearby Bear Creek. I told her to grab up her valuables and to get out immediately, that everything else can be replaced.

She, her husband, Kyle’s brother and his sister escaped to safety. As for Kyle, who was only four at the time, he was with Mary and me at the time. I should have known that this was only the beginning of a larger, longer and exhausting event.

After establishing a command point at 85 Keystone, some four blocks from where the river was raging, we had pulled nine-people to safety who found themselves being flooded out along Riverside Drive. The street runs between Booth and Ralston, along the river.

While we were loading folks up to move them away from the danger, the Reno Fire Department was engaged in a rescue of at least ten kayakers who thought the flooding Truckee would make a wonderful play ground. What made is so dangerous is the fact that the water was racing out of Lake Tahoe at about 2,200 cubic feet per second – 17 feet high, five feet above flood stage and carrying with it bits of houses, entire cars and parts of the upstream forest.

Around 11 p.m., I had only two drivers standing-by to help with evacuations and I sent the dispatchers home for the night. Shortly after that the Reno Police closed down Mill Street east of U.S. 395 as well as Longley Lane and Rock Blvd. That told me that Reno-Tahoe International Airport was now underwater.

I didn’t leave until 3 a.m., only to return by 8 a.m.

The following day, I had a smaller team of drivers staged on Keystone again awaiting directions. By that time, we had learned that the Sparks industrial area was under five-foot of water and that one of CitiLift’s major client, High Sierra Industries, south of the Rattlesnake Mountain area was also underwater.

Eventually, I was instructed to move our command point to Second and Winter Streets. We had watched all morning long as the river slowly crept towards us, damaging one business after another, never quite reaching our newly established safe-zone.

It was about 11 a.m. when I got a call from a RFD Battalion Chief. He told me that they needed us to caravan to Swope Middle School where the Sierra Chapter of the American Cross had established an evacuation center. Evidently, some of the evacuees reported the odor of gas.

Within five minutes, I had vehicles lined up and waiting for our escort, an RPD Humvee. When we drove up across the street from the school, over four-dozen people were milling about in the school yard.

For the first and only time during the entire three-day ordeal I had to “pull rank and take name” as some fool was standing in front of the school puffing away on a cigarette. When I asked him to put the cigarette out, he told me where to stick it, further informing me that he was in charge of his people and that I had no say in the matter.

Fortunately, the police officer that had escorted our caravan to the school instructed the guy that I was indeed in-charge and I only had to say the word, and a ride free-of-charge could be arranged to the local lock-up. The officer pointed out that the situation to him was no longer a shelter or gas leak problem, but a transportation problem, thus leaving me to call the shots.

The man immediately snuffed his butt out and said nothing more. Secretly, I was happy he didn’t call mine or the officers bluff.

First, we loaded everyone who was able to walk. Some of them argued that they didn’t want to go and were told the same thing – which again ended any arguing. Since we had only one person using a wheel chair, I rolled him into my smaller van.

We moved to a designated point two blocks away to await the all-clear. A minute after the word came down that we could return to the school; a man in one of the vehicles suffered a heart attack.

Since we had an ambulance from REMSA in tow, they were able to being treatment of the man and get him to the hospital. Come to find out he’s been suffering chest pains since the night before. He survived the heart attack.

The most harrowing event took place when we were summoned to a trailer park off of Dickerson Road, where an evacuation would become a rescue. When we arrived, the police were gathered about 100-feet from a trailer that had an elderly woman standing, frantically waving at them from the doorway.

Checking in, I learned they were waiting for the Swift Water Rescue Team to arrive and help pull her to safety. As we watched, the trailer’s wooden steps were swept away, causing the woman to panic worse than she had been.

Before long the trailer began shifting from it’s foundation. We didn’t have time to wait for the team and since we had the a high-clearance vehicle, I decided it was ‘now or never,’ when it came to getting the woman out of the trailer.

“If you don’t want to do this,” I told the driver, “you don’t have to. Jus’ get out of the seat and I’ll do it, okay?”

Without hesitation, he closed the doors to the vehicle, rolled down his side window, slipped the van into gear and slowly drove forward. He already had a plan in his head and it was the same as mine.

The water pushed the van back and forth, but failed to cause it to float, which was the biggest concern we had. Should the van begin to lose traction, we would have been force to back away and watch as tragedy took shape.

The driver (whose name I cannot remember) positioned the van as close to the door way as he could. He then leaned out the window and grabbed the woman by the arms and jerked into the window.

I initially had him by his pants belt to keep him anchored, next thing I know, I had her in my arms as we spilled onto the floor of the vehicle.

Without hesitation, the driver released the emergency brake, pulled the gear lever into reverse and backed out the way we had come in. As we reached safety, the woman’s trailer was struck by a log the size of telephone, causing the trailer to buckle, twist, roll-over and vanish into the muddy waters.

The woman, wet, and shivering from both fright and cold was taken to the hospital, where she was treated for shock and exposure. The driver and I returned to our assigned command post, knowing we’d done the right thing despite of the risk to ourselves and the van.

We caught real hell from the police, who wanted to arrest the pair of us for endangering our lives as we had.

Shortly after 5 p.m., January 2, we were released from our duty and we all returned to the yard. By the next day, the once swollen Truckee had slipped back between its banks and the clean up began for the towns and burghs affected by the flooding.

The following couple of days I attended several meetings meant to debrief those who had participated in the emergency and wrote ‘thank you’ notes to the businesses that supported my drivers as well as awarded certificated to those who helped in the evacuations. Much to my surprise and pleasure, nearly three months later I was given a certificate by my bosses, thanking me.

Today, exactly two-decades later, the weather forecast is sunny and a high of 42 for the in the Reno/Sparks area.

Dad’s senior high school yearbook contained a photograph of him with a saying next to it: “Never trouble trouble, till trouble troubles you.” As for me, I seem to have been born in trouble and as of yet I’m uncertain which follows the other around – me or it.

While in town, I happened upon a man in his 70s as he was being harassed by a couple of older teens with skateboards. As a rule, I don’t tolerate bullying – more so if it involves a child, an elderly person or an animal –so I knew I had to put a stop to what they were doing to the man.

As I parked my truck and got out, I saw the taller of the two, slam his skateboard into the man’s head, knocking him down. Without much forethought, I stepped between the teen and the man as he sat on the sidewalk.

That’s when the kid swung the board at my head. Much to my surprise as well as his, I blocked it, allowing it to bounce off of my left forearm.

It left the kid stunned and a little slow to react as he step towards me, ready to swing the board at me again. That small pause gave me a chance to do more than defend myself.

As the board bounced off my arm again, I kicked the teen in the groin and grabbed the board as he and it toppled to the cement. That gave me the upper hand as his friend moved in with his board to take a swing at me.

Instead of having to suffer another blow to my forearm, I raised the skateboard, deflecting the strike. As fortune would have it, the wheels on the board I was holding snagged the edge of his board and I was able to jerk it from his hands.

The second kid backed away, unsure of what to do next. As for me, I set both skateboards on the sidewalk and using my full weight, jumped on each, snapping them in half, followed by walking over to the nearby public garbage can and dropped all four halves in the can.

By this time, the second teen had help his partner in crime to his feet and they took off across the nearby four lanes road. That’s where they stood yelling and taunting me as well as the older man, who was now on his feet.

The kid I kicked in the nuts shouted, “Fuck you!”

I responded, “You wouldn’t like it, I’d jus’ lay there and bleed!”

The pair became of a chorus of eff-bombs and threats. Finally, having had enough, I shouted, “Go home you little Homos and come back with your mother!”

By this time they were retreating across parking lot of the mall they’d entered. I started for my truck to get my first-aid kit to clean the bleeding cut on the man’s head, when I was suddenly stopped by a woman yelling and screaming at me.

“How dare you call anyone a homosexual!” she cut loose.

“I didn’t call anyone a homosexual,” I replied in my defense. “I called the little fuckers, ‘Homos,’ which is Latin for man.”

“Oh…” she responded.

Having got my kit from my truck, I walked back over to the man. And as I did, I looked her up and down and stated, “If you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about keep your effing mouth shut.”

“But I…” she started.

“Don’t tell me you thought,” I cut her off, “had you been thinking you’d have stepped in to stop this fellow here from getting beat on.”

As I applied a couple of four-by-fours to his scalp wound, two police cars pulled up to take control of the situation. After dressing the cut, I filled out a report and headed for home.

President Barack Obama designated another national monuments Wednesday in Nevada. The 300,000-acre Gold Butte National Monument outside Las Vegas will supposedly-protect a scenic and ecologically fragile area near where rancher Cliven Bundy led in an armed standoff with government agents in 2014, that includes rock art, artifacts, rare fossils and recently discovered dinosaur tracks.

Retiring Nevada Democratic U.S. Senator Harry Reid pushed for the federal protections at Gold Butte. This should make the designation suspect enough as he’s known to want the tract for himself, his family and all their cronies.

This latest designation makes a total of 553 million acres of land and water that Obama has repurposed protection using the 1906 Antiquities Act, more than any other president. Nearly 86 percent of Nevada is now owned by the federal government.

Since November, the Obama administration has rushed to ‘safeguard vulnerable areas’ ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration by blocking new mining claims outside Yellowstone National Park and new oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean. As all of this occurs, we’re being treated to live-feed video via social media of a Bald Eagle giving birth by our Progressive media.

It’s all smoke and mirrors, dust and pollen.

Shortly after going to bed last night, I thought about my Grandpa Jack, who was Mom’s real father. The thought led to long forgotten memory of the two of us going for a walk along the logging road in the woods above our home.

He and I were talking about how he had lost three bars in the township of Klamath, California due to flooding and one tsunami between 1955 and 1964. After the third loss, the packed up himself and his wife and moved to Salem, Oregon.

In Salem, he took over the Hof Brau Bar and that impressed me. Most folks, including me, I believed would have called it a day and gone looking for something else to do to make a living.

As we walked, I told him this and how I’d like to open a bar one day – maybe with him – when I was old enough. Surprisingly, he didn’t poo-poo the idea, and in fact, said he like the idea.

Being 13 and very naive, I also told him I wanted it to be a ‘cowboy bar,’ and that I even had a name selected; “Hell’s Half Acre.” Grandpa Jack wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of a themed bar or the name and he eventually changed the subject.

Later, after he had headed south to visit my cousin’s in Fortuna, Mom asked what we had talked about on our walk. Once I told her, she was livid, saying, “There is no way you are opening a bar. You’re too young to be thinking about that sort of stuff. You’re jus’ a kid!”

Admittedly wounded, I wandered off to my room to sulk for a while. However, she was right and I promptly forgot about my idea and it was never brought up again.