She was sitting at the counter of “Dippin’ Donuts,” jus’ north of Adelanto proper, working on a cup of coffee when she noticed the tiny ripples forming in the dark liquid. Before Cari could think any further — the earth jumped forward, then backwards, splashing coffee all over the counter.

She’d been in earthquakes before, but this one was much harder than she’d ever experience. Cari held tight to the counter top to avoid being knocked to the floor.

The jolt lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to cause the window to the little donut shop to shatter. Cari heard Joe in the back of the building cussing a blue streak as he picked up whatever pots or pans had fallen.

Evelyn stood feet and hands planted solidly in the doorway between the counter and the kitchen. She was obviously frightened, her eyes opened wide and wild staring at the female deputy hanging tight to the counter to her right.

“Is everyone okay?” Cari hollered loud enough for Joe to hear her.

“Yeah, son-of-a-bitchin’ quakes,” Joe responded.

Evelyn stepped out of the doorway, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Cari answered. “Shit! I got coffee on my uniform!”

“Do they have earthquakes in Florida?” Evelyn asked, hoping to break the tension.

“Hell, I don’t know,” the deputy retorted sounding angrier than she’d wanted too. Then she added in a more friendly tone, “But I know they got alligators.”

Both women smiled at each other.

Cari’s cell phone rang and she fished it out of its leather holder on her equipment laden belt. It was the Kern County Sheriff’s dispatch.

“Yeah, I’m okay? She answered. “How about you guys?”

“Okay,” she added, “I’m on it.”

For the next 48-hours Deputy Cari Tom Owens remained busy taking reports of damaged property throughout the county. She recorded everything from broken windows and cracked walls to various outbuildings having fallen over to large upheavals that ran though residents property.

Meanwhile the earth continued to quake – though not as violently as it had that first day.

Jus’ as she was getting ready to go off shift the second day, she received a radio call about a possible 10-50 north and east of Wilson Ranch and Holly Road. A couple of ATV riders had found what they believed to be a dead body.

Cari swung her patrol truck around on Three Flags Highway, better known as U.S. 395 and headed north towards Seneca Road. Soon she was east bound looking for Wilson Ranch Road in order to get to Holly and the reporting parties.

It took her less than 20-minutes to find the ATV riders. The youngest of the pair looked shaken, “At first I thought it was a mannequin or something.”

The oldest pointed out the body.

“Yeah,” she spoke calmly over her radio, “I’m gonna need the M.E. out here.”

Soon more squad cars and fire trucks started arriving. Officers, deputies and firefighters worked to secure the scene while still others took statements from the riders and searched the area for possible evidence.

Meanwhile, Cari documented the body and the area in which it lay. She tried to photograph it from every angle possible, much like she’d been doing with property damage reports the last couple of days.

It took about five-hours for the Medical Examiner to load the body and clear the scene. Finally, Cari thought, “I can get home, shower, eat and get some sleep.”

The following morning she arrived early at the examiner’s office to find out what, if anything, the doctors had learned about the dead man. She found Dr. Michaels sitting at his desk, looking perplexed.

“I’m a little confused,” he admitted.

“Why?” Cari couldn’t help ask, knowing it wasn’t a necessary question.

She jus’ wanted see the smug S.O.B. sitting in front of her sweat a little. Time and again Michaels had set her up to be embarrassed — usually over something overtly sexual.

“You ought to file sexual harassment charges against the asshole,” her sister. Maggie Tom told her.

“That’ll cause more trouble than he’s worth,” Cari replied as they sat, sipping coffee on the porch of her sisters little home on the Walker Lake Reservation.

“Maybe,” Maggie responded, “but he shouldn’t be able to do that stuff to you.”

“I know,” Cari said, allowing the subject to fade.

“Well,” to begin with,” Michaels started, “His clothes are antiques – and he had a two 1902 half-dollar coins and four Indian-head pennies in his pocket along with a cloth billfold containing photo of a woman dressed in a Victorian-style gown and a letter from April 2^nd, 1906  — but no I.D.”

Cari frowned slightly – “Could he be one of those re-enactor guys I’m always seeing on the History Channel?”

“Yeah,” Michaels returned, “But I don’t think so.”

“Of course you don’t,” Cari thought, adding, “You pompous mother-fucker.”

Sometimes she wished she didn’t think stuff like that – she feared one day she’d say it aloud by accident.

“So what are you thinking, Doc?” she asked.

“He’s got compression injuries, sand in his airway and mashed deep into his skin,” he said, pausing, “and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was trapped in a mudslide or a cave-in.”

“There’re no mudslides where he was found,” Cari tossed out, “and I didn’t see any place where there could’ve been a cave-in, either.”

“Yeah,” Michaels replied, “I didn’t see any either. If I didn’t know better I’d say our guy’s been dead a long time, but I don’t see any freezer burn to his organs and though I think he’s about 30-years old – desiccation says he’s a helluva lot older, so I don’t get it.”

“Well, I’ll go out there and look around to see if we missed anything,” Cari offered.

Michaels then invited her to have a closer look at the body. The dead man was about 5-foot, eight-inches, medium built with dark brown hair, eyes and rather large moustache.

Outwardly there didn’t appear to be anything outstanding about him. Then Michaels pulled the sheet covering the body all the way off.

“Good lord!” Cari exclaimed.

“Yeah,” Michaels relied, relishing the deputy’s reaction, adding, “Eleven-inches, limp. Maybe he works in the porn industry.”

Cari was wishing at that moment she’d done a better job at containing her surprise. She knew Michaels enjoyed this perverse sense of power.

“God Dammit,” she chided herself as she left the building, walking to her truck.

Within the hour she was back at the place where the body had been found. She spent the next three-hours walking through the tumble weeds, looking for anything that might prove useful to her investigation.

There was nothing but scrub brush, rocks and garbage on the trail-crossed land and no sign of a cave-in or mudslide. Cari did note the ground had shifted about two-inches, forming an opening that ran nearly a quarter of a mile in a northwest-by southeast direction.

She pulled out her note pad and penned a small map in it. It was then that a strange thought trickled into her brain, “What if…”

Before she finished, she felt the ground buck violently beneath her feet, emitting a sharp crack.  She sensed herself falling and a sudden inability to breathe or move.

It wasn’t until the next day her abandoned patrol vehicle was found and they realized Deputy Cari Tom Owens had vanished.

When I was a kid, this was a special treat Mom made on rare occasions. She usually served it with white rice, a tossed salad and a veggie.

This recipe is taken from the back an old envelope that’s so badly stained and in shambles that it took me a while to figure out what was actually written on it. I think ‘laranja‘ is Portuguese or perhaps Spanish for orange — a major ingredient. 

Ingredience:
6 whole chicken breasts boned
2 teaspoons salt 
4 tablespoons butter 
2 tablespoons minced onion 
2 tablespoons minced parsley  
2 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon orange rind zest 
1 cup orange juice
6 tablespoons currant jelly 
1 teaspoon dry mustard 
2 tablespoons cold water 
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Directions:
Sprinkle inside of chicken breasts with salt.
Cream together butter, onion, parsley, and paprika and spread on the inside of each breast.  
Sprinkle the outside with remaining salt and paprika. 
Melt remaining butter in a large skillet; add chicken and brown on all sides over moderate heat. 
Add orange rind and juice, jelly and mustard. 
Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. 
Remove chicken and keep warm. 
Stir together water and cornstarch until smooth add to skillet and cook stirring continually until thickened.
Pour sauce over chicken. 

Makes 6 servings.

The last inmates left in January 2012, and now the 150-year-old Nevada State Prison is officially removed from operation. The decommissioning ceremony was held on the prison grounds in Carson City and was the first time the public had the opportunity to walk the grounds and see the cell blocks that at one time housed up to 800 inmates.

There’s little argument about the place the old prison holds in Nevada history and in the crowd were many who had strong connections with the place.  Denver Dickerson’s grandfather served twice as its warden, dying in 1925 on the grounds in what was the warden’s residence.

“I just felt since it played such an important part in our family’s history, I should be here,” Dickerson told KOLO-TV News.

The prison was established in 1862 by the Nevada Territorial Legislature at the site of the Warm Springs Hotel, located east of Carson City in Nevada Territory. The legislature had been leasing the hotel from Abraham Curry and using the prison quarry to provide stone material for the Nevada State Capitol.

The territorial legislature acquired the hotel along with 20 acres of land from Curry, in 1864, who was appointed the first warden of the prison. In October of that year, Nevada became a state and the newly written constitution established that the Lieutenant Governor of Nevada also functioned as the ex-officio warden of the prison.

A blaze destroyed the original building in 1867.  Four-years later, a major portion of the prison burned down and was rebuilt with inmate labor and stone from the on-site quarry.

Lieutenant Governor Frank Denver was seriously injured in 1871 during a prison break involving 27 inmates. A year later, Denver refused to concede the prison to Pressly C. Hyman, who had been appointed the new warden under legislation and Governor Lewis R. Bradley sent troops in 1873 to force Denver to surrender the post.

As odd as it might sound today — with the legalization of gaming in Nevada — the prison allowed inmates to gamble in what was called the Bull Pen. Officials set up the casino in 1932, closing it 25-years later in 1967.

The prison was expanded in 1964 and operated as a maximum security facility until 1989, when Ely State Prison was opened to fulfill that function. The prison still houses Nevada’s execution chamber, though no executions are imminent, and the state’s license plate factory will remain there for now.

Closing the prison was debated for years until the last inmates were transferred in January. Officials claimed bringing the aging building up to code would have cost $30 million, and moving inmates to newer, more efficient penitentiaries is expected to save half that amount over the two-year budget cycle.

No decision has been made on what will become of the building.

For years I’ve suffered from the need to belong. It started when I was a child in grade school and in some cases rears its ugly head today.

At both Margaret Keating School and again at Del Norte High, I never felt like I belonged. In fact I often believed I was jus’ outside the circle even when it came to activities I was good at.

Worst of it is that I never out-and-out discussed these feeling – which I consider negative – with anyone. Therefore I don’t actually know if others have got through this or not, though I have my suspicions many have and still do.

Do you?

For me the need has been terrible and I’ve acted extremely superficially. For instance I joined the group ‘Vietnam Veterans of America’ as an associate member. The only personal connection I have to the Vietnam War is my father’s service.

I left the organization after only a few meetings having learned I didn’t belong.

Furthermore, I joined the ‘Civil Air Patrol.’ I was a member of the ‘Nevada Air Wing’ for nearly four-years and yet never truly felt I was a part of the organization.

It continued as I joined the ‘Cold Springs Volunteer Fire Department.’ That lasted about four years as I struggled to perfect my first aid and CPR teaching, followed by earning my instructorship in Emergency Medicine.

And speaking of that – I taught at ‘Truckee Meadows Community College’ for about a year only to discover — it was a fairly closed-society that I didn’t really belong in. Add to this — working as a paid instructor for the ‘American Red Cross’ for ten-years — which got me no further in my career.

Later — for fun — I joined the ranks of the ‘Comstock Civil War Re-enactors’ as the groups Chaplain. That lasted about three years before I grew tired of the politics and in-fighting among members and was eventually chased away by an angry Aunt.

That’s a touchy subject for another time.

It was about that time that it occurred to me – I don’t NEED to belong to anything – I was acting on my WANTS. Instead I realized I needed to finally be honest with myself and focus on my NEEDS.

And as I continue my life’s journey — I’m learning I still feel the WANT to belong — but instead I find I NEED only my family, friends, church and work. It’s all part of being a work in progress.

A historic marker displayed on the front of Dayton’s Odeon Hall claims Ulysses S. Grant spoke from the balcony of the building.  And while the pages of Nevada newspapers were filled with reports on Grant’s visit — he never spoke in Dayton.

The Lyon County Times in its November 1st, 1879 issue noted, “General Grant…passed through Dayton…He did not stop or pause…but hastened to Sutro…and General Grant spoke a few words.”

The Lyon County Times continues that had Grant stopped in Dayton the residents “would have given him one of those receptions which have made the country famous, which in war times earned it the name of the banner Republican county of the state…”

The former president spent three days making speeches in Virginia City and taking photographs, touring the mines, and traveling the length of the recently completed Sutro Tunnel. He and his wife boarded the V&T train October 29th bound for Reno on their way home to Galena, Illinois, never to return to Nevada again.

Things got crazy-weird around the house this afternoon. I was taking a nap when the dogs suddenly went nuts.

Before I could respond to their barking, I heard our front doorknob jiggling back and forth – followed by someone messing with the dead bolt.

I concluded someone was trying to break into the house.

After trying to see who was at the door and having no luck, I pulled my rifle off the wall and cranked one into the chamber. Then I stood back a couple of feet – ready to shoot.

As a small back story to this situation – over the weekend two young males were recorded on surveillance footage kicking in doors and running away. This has happen three times that I’ve learned of in the last two days.

While standing there aiming my rifle – the noise stopped and I could hear voices as they spoke to one another. I looked outside and saw it was two kids about 12 or 13 years of age and they were talking with my next door neighbor.

Quickly, I opened the front door and shouted to the young boy closest to me. “Do I know you?”

He answered. “No.”

I then asked, “Do you know me?”

Again he answered, “No.”

“Then why are you trying to get into my house?” I asked.

“We found your key,” the boy answered as he stepped up onto the front porch, “And we wanted to see if you were home.”

It was at that moment he saw the rifle I had in my hand. He came to a sudden stop as he stared at it.

“Yeah, you could have gotten yourself killed,” I stated as flatly as I could.

I could hear my heart pounding as I realized what I had jus’ done.

Then I told him and his friend about what has been happening around the area. I also did my best to explain the fact that entering a person’s home — even if you have a key in hand – is illegal.

The thought of him gaining entry and the idea of how horrible the outcome could have been leaves me with a sickening feeling in the middle of my gut.

Though it’s long after midnight — I’m up having a snack. Two egg sandwiches and a hot lemonade spiked with ‘Sailor Jerry’s Rum.” It’s a meal that can’t be beat considering how early or late one might believe it to be.

Much of my day was spent on my own. My wife was at work while our housemate was off helping a friend move.

I ended up in mid-town Reno taking pictures of murals — something I’ve been mistakenly calling graffiti.

It’s always amazes me that I cab find art where ever I go and in much of what I see. I’m even more amazed when I manage to capture a picture that I can call my own work.

More than taking photo’s occurred as well — and soon you’ll know why my lemonade’s laced.

For the third time in my life, I was hit by a moving vehicle. And for the third time — I walked away virtually unscathed.

It happened as I was crossing Virginia Street near Lulu’s Chic Boutique jus’ north of Arroyo. I looked both way and even waited for some cars traveling north ob Virginia to pass by.

After stepping out into the road I watched as two cars heading south failed to stop for me as I walked through the cross walk. I wasn’t sure if the third car was going to stop or not.

It did — but the truck I saw pull up to the stop sign across the street from me decided to go when the third car did stop. I saw the hood of the truck out of the left periphery of my eye and prepared for the worst.

The driver of the truck managed to stop in time and not run me over. However the bumper smacked into me and I banged up my left arm pretty good on the hood of his truck.

He apologized for not seeing me and nearly running me over. I let him off the hook with, “It’s okay, accidents happen,” because I thought the dude was going to burst out in tears.

I’m jus’ now beginning to feel the pain.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup chopped SPAM
1/3 cup chopped fresh pineapple
1/4 cup butter or margarine
½ cup milk
4-eggs
Salt and pepper

Directions:
Cook SPAM and pineapple in butter until glazed.
Blend in eggs.
Cook over low heat, folding SPAM and pineapple into eggs.
Serve while still hot.

Question: When is it “racist” to call a group of African-American females, “Black?”

Answer: When they’re being excessively noisy.

In a recent tweet, Associated Students Union of Nevada Senator Spenser Blank wrote, “These girls are being so loud in the library…oh wait, they’re Black.” The electronic message was disclosed in a University of Nevada, Reno campus newsletter published by the secret society, “Keys and Coffins.”

The disclosure led to Blanks resignation from the school’s governmental body. Furthermore it’s opened him up to criticism by members of the student body, the Associated Students Union, and UNR’s President Marc Johnson not to mention the local press.

Since political correctness means minimizing social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, religion, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts  — why is no one’s upset he pointed out they were females?

It was quick visit from President Obama as he sat down at the dining room table with a Reno couple. He came to town after an overnight visit at actor George Clooney’s home where he raked in nearly $15 million, a record for a single fundraiser.

Guests paid $40,000 to attend and included Robert Downey Jr., Barbra Streisand and her husband James Brolin, Jack Black, Salma Hayek, Tobey Maguire and Stacy Keibler. It’s a stark contrast with Obama’s visit to highlight the plight of struggling homeowners in Nevada.

During the scheduled visit he had a private conversation with Valerie and Paul Keller to discuss their refinancing situation as they had been ‘upside down,’ on their mortgage. Then after talking with the Kellers, Obama took the opportunity to blasted the GOP — saying Republicans had no new ideas and weren’t willing to work with him.

“They think that all we can do are try the things that have been done in the past — things that they’ve tried in the past. So they want to cut more taxes, especially for the wealthiest Americans,” the President said. “They want to cut back on the rules that we put in place for banks and financial institutions. They’ve said that they want to let the housing market hit bottom, and just hope for the best.”

Meanwhile Nevada’s Lt. Governor Brian Krowlicki pointed out that discussing home refinancing is not addressing the real issue — which are jobs.

“I appreciate the fact the president is coming to town and sitting the living room with the Kellers but it’s not going to solve our problems,” Krolicki said during a brief conference call ahead of Obama’s visit.

Congressman Mark Amodei  was also part of the same conference call, adding, “There are several projects that are no brainers.  It’s like the Yerington Mine Bill Project, 800 hundred jobs on the ground at no cost to the government with no cultural or environmental issues.”

But for me — the most telling thing to come out of President Obama’s visit with the Kellers is that when asked, Valerie Keller says she’s still undecided about who she’s voting for in the upcoming Presidential election this November.

“I’m leaning, but undecided,” she says tells KOLO-TV’s Ed Pearce, “I’m still watching the economy.”

Talk about kicked in the crotch! I mean what’s a popular President gotta do to earn the vote of a commoner?