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It was shortly after three in the morning. I recall the time because I had jus’ wrapped up my newscast for the top of the hour.

As I stood at the coffee maker, pouring the hot liquid into my cup, I was looking out the window in front of me. I looked down as I felt my mug was full and when I looked back up — I got the crap scared out of me.

In the time I looked down then back up — a homeless man had approached the window and had his face pressed against the glass doing his best to see inside the building. He must have seen me as I jumped — or perhaps he heard me scream — because he jerked away from the window and disappeared into the darkness.

It took me 10 minutes to clean up the coffee I had splashed thought-out the break room and another two or three minutes to pick up the broken remains of my cup —  and the rest of the morning to gather my nerves.

For as long as I could recall Dad carried a black attaché case to work. He took it to work and on temporary-duty assignments as well.

At the time I never once thought to think about what might be in it. Now that he’s gone, I find myself extremely curious, though I know there is no way of ever finding out.

What brings this about is the fact that a few months after Dad was laid to rest, my step-mom Jere’, gave me the attaché. There was nothing in it other than a few scraps of paper which included a couple of phone numbers and an address or two.

I brought it home and put all of his service papers in it and stored it away.

Without putting much thought into it, I found the case one day and pulled those service papers out and filed them in a safe-deposit box. I didn’t even recall at the time it was Dad’s old attaché.

It’s said that the memory is one of the first things to go.

Currently, I’m using it for work. In it, I carry my daily journal, various ideas for articles and stories I’d like to write, a pocket-copy of the U.S. Constitution, my time-card, a pencil and pen, my cell-phone, a small digital camera and at times my lunch.

I think it’s in pretty good shape for the age that it is.

Along with KNSS being sold, the stations call letter were changed to KBUL. This was followed by a change in the station’s logo from a bull’s head in a circle to a larger than life bull-character wearing a Hawaiian-print shirt.

Through an on air contest, the new character was named, “Bull-dacious.”

That changed a few years back to the same bull-character wearing a yellow Hawaiian-print shirt. He was also sporting the same pair of sunglasses around his neck.

The character’s name changed too, as he’s now known as “Incredi-Bull.”

Jus’ recently I pulled into the station’s parking lot to find the old logo has undergone yet another change. The bull-character is now sporting a Marine Corps-style desert camouflage utility blouse, called MARPAT, which is short for Marine Pattern.

I think the character’s name ought to be changed to something like Gunny Indestructa-Bull or perhaps Gunny Bull-istic.

Generally people do their spring cleaning in spring. This year much of northern Nevada and eastern California didn’t get a spring – instead going from cold weather and snow into hot temperatures.

Needless to say – I got a late start on my cleaning. Along with spring cleaning, I also like to take the time to use the same period for personal cleaning.

By personal cleaning, I mean examining my life. I usually find things out about myself that I had never taken the time to consider when I’m in one of these reflective states.

For example, my wife, Mary recently gave a heavy blanket away to one of her employees. Initially, I bulked at the idea as I really hated to lose that blanket. 

She offered up other recommendations. None of them made me happy.

This caused me to think about why I wanted to hang on to a blanket that’s been in the back of the closet for the last two years. It took me back to a period of time where I felt very insecure – which was pretty much until I was 41 or 42 years old.

Crazy as it sounds – the blanket represented protection from feeling crushed as I compared myself to others. Then I remembered a line from one of my favorite free-verse poems, “Desiderata.”

It reads: “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.”

Some one at the radio station had Chinese take out and I found this small slip of paper that obviously came from a fortune cookie. It reads: “You have a flair for adding a fanciful dimension to any story.”

Thanks for the inspiration — whoever left it.

After leaving the Marine Corps, I found myself in a strange situation. I discovered that making small decisions were sometimes next to impossible. One afternoon, my soon-to-be-bride and I were in Sak-n-Save, a local grocery store. She was doing the shopping while I was tagging along.

She asked me to go get some cereal while she headed for the check-out stand. Without hesitation I said okay and off I went.

She says I was gone for over 15 minutes and eventually had to come find me. She finally located me still in the cereal aisle, looking at all the assorted boxes.

When she called my name, I looked over at her. She told me that I had this “wild and dazed” look on my face.

I never did select a box of cereal that day.

Instead, I left the store in a cold sweat, pale and shaky. My soon-to-be-bride had to check out without me.

This wouldn’t be the last time I’d have a difficulty deciding something like this. And eventually I learned to “adapt and overcome,” the cereal aisle when it happened again.

My plan is simple: Get Cheerios®.

Magician and Miss USA judge Penn Jillette says he’s happy a pageant queen from Tennessee lost to Miss California USA Alyssa Campanella. He comes to this conclusion because of her onstage answer to a question about burning Quran’s ran afoul of the First Amendment.

The vocal half of illusionist duo Penn and Teller says on Twitter that he’s glad to have helped Miss Tennessee USA Ashley Durham lose the competition. Durham placed second in the pageant.

Durham responded to a question about whether burning religious items should be afforded the same constitutional protections as flag burning by saying it crossed a line and shouldn’t be allowed. Of course, Campanella’s answer about marijuana was completely overlooked.

‘Well, I understand why that question would be asked, especially with today’s economy, but I also understand that medical marijuana is very important to help those who need it medically,” she said. “I’m not sure if it should be legalized, if it would really affect, with the drug war. I mean, it’s abused today, unfortunately, so that’s the only reason why I would kind of be a little bit against it, but medically it’s okay.”

Guess, one can’t expect much more than that from a 21-year-old California-New Jersey transplant. Her next stop — the Miss Universe 2011 competition in Sao Paulo, Brazil, September 12th.

Now, if only Penn would magically disappear.

Mom used to say to us kids when we were rough housing too much for her liking: “You guys aren’t going to be satisfied until someone gets hurt or gets pissed.” Eventually, that’s exactly what would happen.

Given what has been going on after dark at the radio station it was bound to happen. With all the weird noises and strange sights – somebody was going to think it was a good idea to scare someone.

It was jus’ after 10 in the evening when I decided to go to the men’s room. I was standing at the urinal when a co-worker suddenly popped out of the stall behind me, with a shout of, “A-HAAA!”

Needless to say –- I jumped and yelled back. I also turned around, thinking I was going to have to defend myself some how and I unintentionally whizzed all over his legs.

Once again, Mom was right.

It was during a family vacation that saw first hand how the state of Nevada shared, at least in some small part, a bit of history with Mount Rushmore. First though a little bit more from the personal side of this story.

My bride’s father was raised near Mount Rushmore and he had at least one family member who worked on the sculptures at Mount Rushmore. I spoke with Don Conklin prior to his passing in 2006, and he confirmed his cousin Reuben worked there throughout the entire project.

And before having ever gone to Mount Rushmore I had learned the creator of the monument also carved the statue that stands in front of the Mackay School of Mining on the University of Nevada, Reno Campus. I knew this because I had read some six-year previously, that a team of conservators had made a rubber mold of the statue so it could be recreated for display at the Rushmore Borglum Museum.

Unfortunately, at the time I was visiting the wrong museum. The rubber mold was for the Rushmore Borglum Story Museum in Keystone, South Dakota.

I recently called the museum in Keystone and no one there knew what I was talking about.

In 1906, the family of John Mackay presented the university with a financial gift that enabled the construction of the Mackay School of Mines building on the north end of the Quadrangle. In front of the building is the statue of Mackay.

Mackay was an Irish immigrant, who along with three other key figures of the time, discovered perhaps the greatest lode of silver ever found in the world. The discovery eventually led to the establishment of the Comstock and eventually the state of Nevada.

I think that the greater story of Mackay’s legacy is in the communication companies he formed.

In 1884, with James Gordon Bennett, Jr., Mackay formed the Commercial Cable Company in order to lay a transatlantic cable. Two years later and in connection with the cable company, he formed the Postal Telegraph Company as a domestic wire telegraph company.

Until Mackay and Bennett entered the field, all underwater cable traffic between the United States and Europe went over cables owned by Jay Gould. A rate war followed that took almost two years to conclude.

The American financier finally quit trying to run Mackay out of business. He was quoted as saying, “You can’t beat Mackay, all he has to do when he needs money is go to Nevada and dig up some more.”

Once Mackay had conquered the Atlantic with the Commercial Cable Company and the U.S. with the Postal Telegraph Company he turned his sights on laying the first cable across the Pacific. He subsequently formed the Commercial Pacific Cable Company in secret partnership with the Great Northern Telegraph Company and the Eastern Telegraph Company.

He died on July 20, 1902 before this was completed, but his son Clarence, saw the project through to completion. By 1906, Commercial Pacific had cable lines laid from San Francisco to Manila, via Hawaii and Guam, with a subsequent spur that went from Manila to Shanghai.

The Mackay System eventually purchased the Federal Telegraph Company, its radio stations and research laboratories, in 1927. The entire system was later bought out by International Telephone and Telegraph a year later.

In 1908, sculptor Gutzon Borglum finished the statue after nearly two years of work. Originally, it had been commissioned to be placed on Nevada’s Capitol grounds, but the state legislature rejected the idea, believing it would diminish the grounds’ appearance and proposed placing it in an alcove in the Capitol’s library annex.

Needles to say, Borglum was offended by the legislatures rejection. However, Joseph Stubbs, president of the University at the time, offered the site at the north end of what later became the university quadrangle.

Both the Mackay statue and the Mackay School of Mines Building were dedicated on June 10, 1908. The statue was rededicated April 25, 1996.

From the February 8, 1908 issue of the Carson City Daily Appeal stated, “Some time last year the Board of Capitol Commissioners passed a resolution that a bust of Governor Sparks be placed in the center of the tessellated floor of the lower rotunda. When Gutzon Borglum, who made the Mackay statue, visits here the coming June, he will begin work on modeling the head.”

The bust was never completed — but I have a hunch where the unfinished piece is – I jus’ can’t prove it yet.

It was a lovely memorial service, as memorial services go. I actually think of memorial services are really funerals without the presence of the casket.

For an hour and a quarter I stood in the back of the church as we paid our final respects to our friend. I had given my seat up to a young woman who arrived about the same time I started to sit down.

I learned that bit of politeness from Dad.

Standing for an hour-plus like that isn’t as bad as it sounds. I one time stood for a period of four-hours during a military funeral service as the wind blew a blinding snowfall sideways across a Nebraska cemetery.

As the service was ending, two men got up and left the church, obviously to avoid the coming crush. That’s when the woman I had offered my seat too, looked up at me and mouthed the words, “Come, sit beside me.”

With the movement of her lips, she also patted the seat next to her with her hand. I felt like a puppy dog as I dutifully moved to the chair and took a seat.

Jus’ as I sat down,  the Cantor chimed her bell, which announced the service had ended and everyone was expected to stand as protocol warrants in such situations. The woman and I looked at one another and giggled at the irony of my having jus’ taken the seat.

That’s when I really looked at her. On her left foot, tattooed in cursive were the words, “Live life to Love,” and on her left shoulder-blade was the inked artwork of a growing flower — a Morning Glory, perhaps.

“My names Tom,” I whispered as I held my hand out to shake hers.

She grabbed my hand, “Dominique, pleasure to meet you,Tom,” she replied.

I was instantly smitten — but it quickly faded and I felt myself sigh. Dominique is a very beautiful woman — and I — well — I’m but an old man.