Went to the doctor and the news isn’t bad but it isn’t great either. 

In a couple days I have to get my blood drawn. My doctor wants to check my cholesterol and to see if I have diabetes.

He also wants to see me back in a month or so to double check my high-blood pressure. It registered 139 over 93, which is four point drop from the last time I saw him. 

I wish I could trade this old body for a newer, healthier body.

She was a freshman while I was senior, but I had a crush on her anyway. I think Leslie (I’ve since forgotten her last name,) figured it out the second time I asked her to dance.

However, she was not interested in me and I knew it at the time, but I was jus’ bold enough to keep asking her to dance. The song I most remember dancing to with her is Bob Welch’s, “Sentimental Lady.”

Why the words to that song seemed to strike a chord with me at the time, I don’t know: “Sentimental gentle wind, blowing through my life again, Sentimental lady, Gentle one.”

However it has stuck with me over the years.

Every time I heard that tune, I remember dancing with Leslie and I get a warm and fuzzy feeling deep inside. I think it’s exactly what a good memory should feel like.

After a four-hour drive to the small town of McCloud, we found our way into the Union encampment.  It was just before two and the temperature was well into the nineties. We were hot and sweaty and hoping to see members of our group.

Slowly we drove through the rows of tents and parked vehicles, but didn’t see a single person we recognized.  So we stopped at the registration tent and Kyle got out and asked where the Comstock Civil War Reenactors would be setting up. 

They pointed to the area and I drove over to it to wait for someone to show up. It was at this point that I  started to wish I had purchased my own tent. 

But unfortunately I had not and had to rely on the club to bring us one.  Instead we waited for nearly four hours before deciding to go into town to grab a bite to eat.

After eating the two of us decided to visit the sutlers in the historic part of McCloud.  I wanted to purchase a new pair of blue uniform pants anyway.  This also gave us a chance to look for other members of our club.

While paying for my pants, Kyle came up to  me and said, “The Johnson’s are here.  I just ran into Timmy.”   

The Johnson’s were a family that had just joined the group during the summer. Turning I saw Mr. Johnson, the father and husband of the Johnson family. 

He walked over and said, “Hi,” offering a hand as he did. 

We shook hands and the conversation went immediately to the location of other members.

“Their all over on the Confederate side,” he said. 

He explained how he had run into the Captain earlier and that the Captain had told him that in the nine-year of doing Civil war reenacting he had never played a ‘Johnny Reb.’  I felt a sense of shock because I didn’t want to be a rebel and I didn’t have the uniform to play the part either.

Soon after leaving the town site, Kyle and I pulled into the Confederate camp and discovered the Captain sitting under a fly, dressed in a brand new gray uniform. 

“Welcome, boys,” he hollered as he puffed on a long-stemmed pipe. 

In a matter of minutes I discovered further that the Captain had brought some of the groups six-foot tents, but had managed to somehow load only the seven-foot poles. 

I mumbled, “First a Confederate, now no tents.” 

Soon other members of the club managed to find their way over to the encampment, but they were mostly Confederates anyway.  So they were used to being on the side they were on.  They also took pity on me and Kyle and did their best to accommodate and uniform us.

The sun was starting to set when word started to pass that the barbecue dinner that had been planned by the hosting club was no longer going to happen.  Several people grumbled including me, but the complaints fell on deaf ears.  It was the Johnson’s who were kind enough to share their supper of stew, salad and bread with Kyle and me.

By the time supper was finished, it was nearly dark and we headed back to the encampment.  We all joined into the singing at the tent of one of the members until it was necessary to build a campfire.

Kyle and I excused ourselves at that time to complete setting up our sleeping area under a fly that had already been staked out earlier in the day.  We new that it would be a cold night and that before dawn broke, we’d be shivering in our sleeping bags.

When it was time to go to bed, we laid down but the activities in the encampment continued.  There was singing and music playing as a group of reenactors talked and drank, laughing and telling stories about this and that. 

It made falling asleep impossible.

It was long after midnight when the party decided to adjourn for the evening.  The Captain and his bunk mate stumbled through the tents and into the area where we had set up for the night and were now joined by a third person.  The Captain’s bunk mate was loud and continued to talk even after laying down.

The situation grew worse as the bunk mate fell asleep and started swearing as he talked in his sleep.  It took the Captain two attempts to wake him up and make him stop. 

By this time the night sky had started to lighten up and the stars faded.  Soon it would be morning.

Drums and fifes broke the stillness of the morning.  The sun had yet to touch any part of the valley and they were already being called to get up and prepare for the coming day. 

I could hear my son’s teeth as they chattered from the chill of the air.

Kyle rolled over and stood up. “I’m heading to the bathroom,” he said.  Breath smoke slipped from between his bluish lips as he spoke.

By the time he returned, I was sitting up. Kyle sat down next to me, sighed and said, “I didn’t sleep at all last night and now there’s not going to be any breakfast as promised either.”

He sighed again, adding, “I’m starving.”

“Okay, let’s get our crap together and go to town and gets some breakfast,” I responded.

Once in town, we sat and enjoyed a hot breakfast of eggs, potatoes and toast with a couple of cups of coffee to wash it down with and watch the Confederates marching into McCloud to occupy the town.

After breakfast we headed into the town square to meet up with our group. There we milled around, looking at the various items the sutlers had offer.

It was about an hour into this that the general alarm sounded that Union troops were on their way. Soldiers scrambled to grab their picketed arms and form-up.

At first I found my self separated from Kyle. I walked up and down the street where other units were forming and several times I was pushed back and warned not to step into the street by a bellowing soldier.

Shortly before the fighting between the Confederates and the Union ensued I found Kyle. He seemed as confused as me about why we couldn’t find our group.

So we went over and stood at the entrance to the train’s platform waiting for the possibility to get onboard. The Conductor stood at the end of the platform directing passengers to the various cars and where he wanted them to be seated.

It was here that I bumped into Mr. Johnson, who was having the same difficulty as we were. Mr. Johnson decided to speak to the Conductor.

When he came back, he was excited, “I just spoke to the owner. We can get on board now.”

Kyle and I along with the Johnson family lined up. The Conductor directed us to the adjoining car, a flatbed with hay bales for seating and occupied by Union troops. We followed the Conductors instructions.

It was at this flat-car that we encountered a reenactor wearing a Union Major’s uniform. He refused to allow us to board the flat-car.

We decided to go around to the other side of the train and climb aboard.

Once on the other side we scramble aboard the train, having to pull ourselves over the rails since there wasn’t a ramp or steps. I was the last to get on board when I heard the Major yelling at us.

“You can’t be on my train!” he shouted, continuing to using profanity.

Being in the process of sitting down, I was ready to ignore the Major, but his foul mouth left me in a state of anger. I pulled off my satchel and undid my belt, then removed my bear-claw necklace.

I then stood on a bale of hay and shouted at the Major, “Come over here and say that to my face and I’ll show you what’s real and what’s fake!”

It didn’t take long for the Major and two soldiers to come down to our side of the flatbed and order me, my son and the Johnson’s to get off his train immediately.

“I can’t have civilian’s riding a troop train!” he shouted.

“You idiot!” I replied, “We’re all civilians, including you! And we’re all reenactors!”

“Well, I can’t have you riding my train!” he shot back.

I shook my head sideways, “It’s not your train!”

The Conductor, who was standing there, finally said, “Hey, we gotta get going. Sorry.”

It was evident that he was taking the Major’s side in the argument.

As I disembarked, I looked at the larger of the two men and replied, “That’s right, keep yourself between me and that Major.”

I grinned and looked from him to the shorter, harder man’s deep-set, blue eyes as the taller one asked, “Did you just threaten our Major?’

“Make of it what you will,” I answered.

I never took my eyes from Blue-eyes; rather I continued to stare and grin at him slightly.

“Want us to call the cops?” Tall man hissed, “We can have you tossed outta here.”

I didn’t bat an eye as I answered, “Do what you want.”

Blue-eyes finally blinked and called me, “Punk.”

He stepped back several steps before turning away. I stood there and watched as they stumbled over the loose rocks trying to catch up to the Major who was escorting the Johnson family around to the front of the train.

I wanted to pick up a rock and toss it at one of them but instead I shouted, “Hey fellas, thanks for playing!”

Then I lifted my kilt, exposing my backside at the two thugs. That was followed by a great round of applause and laughter and three thundering cheers of, “Zoo-ha, zoo-ha, zoo-ha.”

“Come on, Dad,” Kyle said, “Let’s get out of here.”

We turned and walked down the length of the train in the opposite direction. Neither one of us looked back as the whistle sounded and the steam locomotive pulled from the station.

“Hey,” came a voice from behind us.

I turned to see a man dressed in period-clothing, carrying a hand-held radio.

The man asked, “What happened back there?”

I explained how Mr. Johnson had spoken to the owner and was told he could get on the train and that the Major kicked us off the flatbed.

Then the man surprised me by saying, “I’m the owner of the train.”

At first I was slightly confused as he was not the same man who had identified himself as the owner earlier. I suddenly realized why the Conductor had so willingly given into the Major.

In the end, the real train-owner offered Kyle and me an apology for the screw up. I also apologized to him for having lost my temper and acted so poorly in front of not only his guests but also his employees.

Once in the truck I looked at Kyle and said, “I’m sorry for embarrassing you with my bad temper and ruining this weekend, son.”

Kyle smiled at me and replied, “You didn’t embarrass me or ruin my weekend. Being a damned Confederate soldier overnight did that. Now let’s go home.”

At the time I wasn’t getting along with Dad or my brother, Adam, so I moved out the apartment I had rented and into a small trailer in a park. At about the same time I had taken a part-time job loading, cooking and packing crab.

The job was smelly. At first I hated going to work because it smelled so bad and furthermore I smell jus’ like work all the time.

No amount of hot water or soap could get the stench off my skin. After a few days though, I had lost all sense of smell.

One evening after work I returned to my trailer. The first thing I did when I stepped inside was go to the stove and turn it on.

I wanted a cup of coffee, however the burner didn’t ignite.

So I grabbed the box of matches on the shelf above the stove. I struck a lucifer-stick and as I did I felt a rush of heat envelop me.

Before I knew it, the wall in front of me was missing. So was good portion of my ceiling and roof.

Slowly I turned around and found the door to my trailer. I opened it and stepped outside.

An ambulance took me to Seaside Hospital. Once there, a doctor and the two nurses checked me out but they couldn’t find any injuries, though they did have to shave off my beard, as it had melted to my face.

I ended up moving back to the apartment with Dad and Adam.

It’s a very vague memory that seems stuck in my head. I’m with Dad, he’s carrying me and we’re walking down a long hallway with another man.

The other man is older and in a gray overcoat that smell of cigarette smoke. The three of us enter an elevator and go down to a lower floor.

As I said—it’s jus’ a memory, but I have a feeling I know where it’s from. It’s the time period where Dad worked as a security detail for Pat Brown, former Governor of California and we’re inside the State Capitol.

It leaves me puzzled as I have to question the wisdom of taking a toddler to work as a personal body-guard.

It was one of the fastest and most frightening rides on a motorcycle I had ever encountered. By the time it was over, I was surprised I had survived let alone remained in one piece.

I was working for Northcrest Motors as a part-time car salesman and as an auto detailer.

A truck carrying four Harley Davidson motorcycles pulled up and stopped. Slowly I wheeled each bike off the ramp of the truck and onto the showroom floor.

With the fourth one though, I asked if I could fire the bike up. Mike Johnson, who owned the dealership, said it was alright, but warned the clutch on new motorcycle’s like these were very tight.

Within seconds of kicking the bike over and firing up, I found out how tight the clutch on the cycle was as it jerked me off my feet.  I found myself laying on my belly, on the seat of the motorcycle as it zoomed through the open doors of the showroom.

It took only seconds for me race across the showroom floor and out the other side, through another set of open doors. I was barely hanging on to the motorbikes handlebars and because of this, the throttle was being held wide open.

My sudden and scary ride came to an end, when I slammed into a powder blue Cadillac parked jus’ outside the showroom doors.  The front forks of the bike pierced the passenger-side door of the car.

The immediate stop sent me sailing over the top of the Caddy. I remember looking down as I seemed to float in slow motion above the car.

My body slapped the pavement and I laid there for several seconds trying to catch my breath. I was also busy in my mind trying to figure out how badly hurt I was.

I walked away from the crash with road rash on my elbows, torn up slacks and injured pride.

Across from our home was a large open field. It was the perfect place to toss a Frisbee back and forth.

But no one wanted to play, so I had to toss it and chase it down by myself. Eventually I realized I could throw the plastic disc and by running as fast as possible, I could catch it before it hit the ground.

It didn’t occur to me until years later that there was a reason no one wanted to play. I had caused so much trouble, area kids did their best to avoid me.

Somewhere in my mind I can hear my Grandma Lola’s voice: Too late we get too smart. As a kid I didn’t understand what she meant by this folksy comment.

But I get it now.

The C-130 was our ride out of the jungle after eight days of harassing drug traffickers. It sat with its tail-gate down and both port-side hatches open and steps extended, when it started taking small arms fire.

It suddenly became a “load and go” situation and the two Marines squads would have to evacuate the landing zone while defending each other. Within minutes we were aboard and the craft was taxiing. 

Leaned out of the craft, trying to get the forward hatch secured, I saw a rocket-propelled grenade race by the plane. The rocket came so close, its smoky-trail was cut by the C-130’s rudder. 

A second RPG, screamed out of the jungle and slammed into the aircraft. It blew me out the door and landed on my back.

The bad guys immediately started shooting at me. So I took off running after the C-130.

On fire, the plane turned and dropped into a ditch that paralleled the dirt airstrip. Marines poured out of every exit and we eventually rallied in the jungle.

Our ride ended up burning to the ground. And we’d have to wait for another lift out of the jungle.

We had three minor injuries, but no deaths from the attack. However, years later I realized I was a casualty of the attack too.

I had fractured two vertebra, falling out of the plane.

As I prepared to switch off the television for the night, I decided to flip through the channels one more time. I paused on The Weather Channel because there was something familiar about the woman wearing the U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Commanders’ uniform.

It took me a couple of minutes of watching to recognize and old classmate from both Margaret Keating School and Del Norte High. My mind jumped back nearly 25 years and to the last time I had seen her.

We were walking towards each other on a side street in Eureka. I knew her in an instant as we had also taught summer school together at Margaret Keating in the year 1977.

I even have a beautiful ink drawing she rendered for me from back then.

She said to me, “My Tom, you’ve gained weight!”

It was her way of telling me I was no longer the stick figure she knew. I agreed with her as we stopped to chat.

Then in a close up, everything was confirmed by the name tag over her right breast pocket: Ben-Iesau. It was Cheri Ben-Iesau!

I got so excited that I woke the entire household up.

The Weather Channel show was “Storm Stories.” Cheri and a Captain with the New Orleans Police Department teamed up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to rescue an elderly dog and later found it a good home.

Three things about all this: I never thought of Cheri as being military material, so shame on me for making such a brutal judgment about her, and secondly; it is a small world after all. Finally, I am so damned proud of Cheri that I fear my heart might burst with pride.

He was in his early teens when he first came west from St. Joe, Missouri. Frank Mueller didn’t intend on striking it rich but that’s what had happened.Frank started like any miner, with nothing more than a pick, shovel and a pie tin. He bought a length of land along the Russian River and set about to find gold.

Much to the surprise of those around him, he located a vain and chiseled out ounce after ounce of the precious ore. Within a month Frank was nearly as rich as any silver baron on the Comstock.

Suddenly, Frank found he could afford to pay others to do the work for him. He left the claim and moved to where he felt real adventure could be found; the city.

He had come a long way from his youth, filled with poverty, selling apples to help his widowed mother. When she died he saw no reason to stick around. Now as he grew older he reflected back and longed to see and do some of the things he had only dreamed about for so long.

Because of his wealth, Frank lived in luxury along the piers of the once infamous Barbary Coast. But even that wildness had long since been tamed by the civilized who roamed San Francisco.

He was amazed at how quickly the city had filled up with people. After years of easy living, Frank decided it was time to move on; to find some place less crowded.

As a young man he had always wanted to explore the high desert of Nevada. Frank heard there was a possibility of gold just a little north of Reno.

He wanted to find out.

It took only a day of travel for Frank to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He was surprised to find the small settlement established in his youth had grown so much.

When he was younger, Reno, along the Truckee River, was nothing more than a few buildings that served as a stop for the weary traveler heading elsewhere. Now Reno was a bustling metropolis, filled with saloons, hotels, businesses and city folk.

Frank found the atmosphere confining. He quickly found himself looking off into the horizon, searching for a place less inhabited.

Wanderlust led Frank to exploring the lands above the mine town of Wedekind City. There he found a small box canyon and several draws holding small shelves of what he believed to be silver ore.

Sandy Canyon, as Frank named it, was where he decided to set up a claim. For weeks he had poked around and through the rocks, searching for mineral deposits until he found what he knew to be color.

He had a small camp set up near the longest draw of the side of Sandy Canyon. Frank was comfortable with the small wooden shack he had erected to shelter himself against the elements of wind, blowing sand and the cold nights.

It was one evening, as the sun settled in the west; Frank discovered a length of outcropping that looked promising. The vein turned into the hill as he continued to follow the nearly invisible lines of the deposit.

The small thread of mineral slipped under a rock ledge. Frank crawled beneath the cleft to see how far it continued.

That’s when he heard it.

It was a sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. Frank lay quietly listening, trying to decide if he should he concerned.

It echoed through Sandy Canyon again. This time Frank froze in place as feeling of dread covered his being.

He asked himself, “Was that a man or a dog?”

Frank couldn’t tell.

As quickly as he could, he scrambled from between the rocky shelves. Frank wasn’t fully to his feet when something struck him from behind, knocking him hard to the ground.

Frank crawled to his knees and looked around for what had attacked him. He saw nothing as he made it to his feet.

However he heard the low, vicious growl of what he believed to be a dog from somewhere in front of him. Frank backed up and into the shallow draw behind him, placing his shoulders against the face of a short overhang.

Still couldn’t see what was making the malevolent sound, he could only hear what he thought might be a large, wild dog. Frank decided he’d climb onto the overhang to create a greater distance between himself and whatever remained hidden in the darkness.

On top of the overhang and about ten feet from the desert floor, Frank heard the beast moving from one side of the draw to the other. Frank continued to move higher onto the draw, until he could climb no further.

It was nothing more than a small ledge, some thirty feet high. There he found a few loose, dried sage brushes and a couple of rocks. Frank was trapped and he would have to wait out the night or until he felt certain the beast had gone away.

Darkness had long settled in on the desert as Frank huddled against the rock looking down the draw. Every once in a while he believed he saw a shadow from in front or heard a noise from above.

And twice he dosed as he sat silently. But the rest was short-lived as he heard the low growl emanating from the blackness of the lonely night.

The beast had moved closer to Frank’s perch amid the rocky crags. He wondered, “Is it my imagination or is it growing bolder?”

To find out, Frank struck a match and held it to a dried ball of sage brush and tossed it down the draw. What the flame uncovered terrified him.

What he thought was a large and wild dog was instead standing upright on two legs, looking menacingly at him. He felt his blood run cold and a chill race over his body as the sage burned out.

Frank remained tucked as tightly against the wall of Sandy Canyon as possible, until the sun had long risen over the Pah-Rah Range. He waited to make certain the thing he had seen, whatever it was, was no longer stalking him.

Only then did Frank move from his place of safety and climb to the ground below. He wasted no time in heading for Wedekind City as he craved the safety of civilization for the first time in a long while.

Frank went directly to a saloon and ordered a shot of whiskey to settle his nerves. The old-timers had seen him rushing along the narrow, dust-covered path that served as a road and could sense something was wrong.

At first Frank refused to speak of it, but slowly shot after shot of whiskey loosened his tongue. His tale was incredible and few believed what he had to say.

It would be several days before Frank would have the gumption to lead a small party back to his encampment. Once there, the group found little or no trace of what he had claimed to have seen.

Folks from all around came to consider Frank just another colorful character, a poor soul who lost his mind after too much time alone in the big emptiness of the high Nevada desert. He would spend much of the rest of his life in a drunken stupor and eventually would find himself committed to the Nevada Mental Asylum.

Eighty-three years later, Alycn Wold, searching through an old crate, found a yellowing and faded newspaper clipping. It told the tale of Frank Mueller and the Sandy Canyon Terror.

Alycn’s curiosity was piqued, because she knew.