By John L. Smith, Nevada Smith

Almost every family has one: The uncle gifted with everything but a work ethic. He can build a custom home, nurse a horse to health, and litigate a lawsuit in proper person. He’s a renaissance man, your uncle, if you can only find a way to get him off the couch and away from the beer fridge.

That’s largely the way I look at government in Nevada.

Some see government as essential to each aspect of daily life. For them, the answer to every problem is a program or set of regulations. Every street corner needs a traffic camera; every kid on a Big Wheel needs a helmet.

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By John L. Smith, Nevada Smith

If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was something in the water.

HORSE LAUGH: The smartest move at the state Legislature – and how many times do I use “smartest” and “Legislature” in the same sentence during the year – is to shelve AB 329, which redefines “wild life” in Nevada to exclude wild horses and burros.

Horse lovers have loudly argued that the proposed law would have the force of enabling ranchers to block wild mustangs and burros from water holes. Advocates for ranchers, and by that I mean rural legislators, counter that the legislation would clarify the proper role of the Bureau of Land Management to provide for the federally protected species.

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By John L. Smith, Nevada Smith

Easter has long been my favorite holiday. Its message of love and life is universal. My childhood holiday memories around the Smith house weren’t always pleasant, but for some reason Easter was idyllic. It didn’t hurt that, in addition to the greater message of the special Sunday, for a kid Easter was as sweet as Halloween but without the spooky costumes and dark imagery.

When I became a father, I vowed Easter would always be a special day for daughter Amelia. Usually that means a big basket jammed with treats, windup toys, and a stuffed animal or two along with a nice lunch out.

This past Easter found us not in a conventional church contemplating the spiritual message and counting our blessings, or at home chewing the ears off chocolate rabbits, but bouncing along in the Subaru halfway up the White Mountains in search of a trout pond outside Fish Lake Valley.

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By John L. Smith, Nevada Smith

My grandfather Smith was at home in the Eastern Sierra. With a fly pole in one hand, he had an innate sense of direction and had no need of a compass to find the trout that filled his creel.

My father possessed an even greater ability to read nature like an Outdoor Life magazine. With his knowledge of everything from flora and fauna to scat sign and storm clouds, he was a one-man Audubon Society tour wherever we went. His sense of direction was flawless.

Somehow, all those remarkably handy skills have eluded me completely. I have no shortage of maps. I just have no sense of direction. As some readers might have long expected, my inner gyroscope is hopelessly off kilter.

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By John L. Smith, Nevada Smith

Sara Denton just can’t figure it out why the Boulder City Hospital Foundation decided to pay tribute to her and husband Ralph at its “Heart of the Community Gala” fundraiser on Friday.

“They honor somebody every year,” she says. “I don’t know why they’re honoring us. We haven’t done that much.”

No, not much at all.

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By John L. Smith, Nevada Smith

It’s hard to imagine two more different sheriffs than Nye County’s Tony DeMeo and Maricopa County, Ariz., law boss Joe Arpaio.

Outside Pahrump, you probably haven’t heard much about DeMeo. But he made headlines last week by calling out Nye County Tax Assessor Shirley Matson for her racially charged comments about Latino construction workers.

She wrote in an email, “My staff, me, taxpayers coming to our offices, other town and county employees can plainly see that the construction workers are all Mexican/Latino, non-English speaking and I’m getting complaints.”

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By John L. Smith, Nevada Smith

If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think Nevada is the place bootstraps were invented.

Bootstraps, as in those things that you must pull yourself up by in order to get along in the world. If you’ve lived in Nevada long enough to unpack your duffel, you’ve no doubt heard that, around these parts, we’re supposedly all about the grand libertarian tradition of self-reliance and small government.

None of those nanny state solutions for complex social problems for us. It’s bare bones, brother, and you’re on your own. We don’t lavish taxpayer dollars on public schools, care for the poor, elderly, or mentally ill. And although we have gained an international reputation for the promotion of vice in the form of legalized casinos and licensed brothels, traditionally we’ve quibbled over whether to provide a modicum of care for those suckers who end up gambling fiends.

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By John L. Smith, Nevada Smith

After a couple minutes of conversation with John Carpenter, I got the feeling he suspects I don’t know which end of the horse eats and which end kicks.

Carpenter read a recent column about the plight and politics of Nevada’s wild horse population and wanted to offer his considered opinion. The rancher and former state legislator knows a thing or two about the horses, having watched them gallop across the state all his life.

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By John L. Smith, Nevada Smith

Rural Nevadans have never been shy about making themselves heard. At times their collective voice is all that keeps them from being flattened for the sake of political expediency.

These days my neighbors on Mount Charleston are shouting their displeasure with Gov. Brian Sandoval. I’m surprised his ears aren’t burning in Carson City.

They filled Lundy Elementary School recently to discuss and protest the plan by Sandoval to close Nevada Division of Forestry Station 1 in an attempt to help balance the state budget. Should the proposal make it through the budget process, the NDF station closure would come in 2012.

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John L. Smith, Nevada Smith

It takes a lot to rile up the Rose of Mount Charleston. She’d rather give you a hug and a hot meal than utter a harsh word about anyone or anything.

But when it comes to speaking up on behalf of the mountain, longtime Kyle Canyon resident Rose Meranto isn’t shy about making herself perfectly clear.

Meranto, who recently celebrated her 80th birthday and has lived in her cabin in the pines since the 1970s, is joining the rising voices of discontent critical of Gov. Brian Sandoval’s decision to help balance the state’s budget by closing Nevada Division of Forestry Fire Station 1.

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