Long before I was mayor of Boulder City, before I was a state legislator, I started a long, rewarding career as a physician. Two of the hardest things about being a doctor is, 1) telling someone that their loved one has died, and 2) sharing news about critical, potentially-fatal conditions.
Opinion
The other day I saw something on how few movie drive-ins there are these days and it got me thinking about my memories of drive-ins.
If you are a homeless veteran, would you care to sleep in an abandoned automobile, in an old vehicle with no heat or A/C?
So the other day, Ron and I were talking about death.
Over the last 200 years, life expectancy worldwide has nearly doubled. Today, many live well into their 80s or 90s and beyond.
In August 1990, I was covering a court case at the Douglas County Courthouse. Walking past the law library, I noticed the defendant and his lawyer through a glass wall. I swung my camera up and shot some footage of them and then continued on my way.
The number of races in which credible conservative candidates challenged moderate, establishment-backed candidates in Nevada this year was unprecedented. And regardless of whether or not the conservative candidate chalked up more votes at the ballot box, conservatives won. Big time.
When I was 10 years old, my family drove across the country on a trip that changed my view of the world in a way I never put together until I was an adult. As we drove through the Badlands, my mother thought it was the most despairing place on Earth — no trees. For my mom, trees made a place habitable.
Coping with terminal illness can be difficult, for the patient as well as his or her loved ones.
The older I get, the quicker time seems to pass.
Recent news reports suggesting the Department of Veterans Affairs has neglected veterans, and in some cases been responsible for the death of several individuals who served our nation, is cause for great concern. It’s interesting that while many states, notably Arizona, have been named as having deficient VAs, Nevada has thus far escaped national coverage concerning the death of a female veteran here some months ago whose friends suggested may have been because of neglect.
In 1918, U.S. Rep. Edwin Roberts of Nevada, who was the wartime Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, stayed in D.C. until just before the election. While he was working in the House, back in Nevada his opponents did their best to poison the atmosphere against him, portraying him as a traitor for voting against the declaration of war against Germany and against the draft. By the time Roberts arrived back in Nevada, the political climate was so toxic that in Reno’s Riverside Hotel, someone called him a coward and the result was a fistfight.
Few legends in Nevada history approach the amazing feats of strength and endurance of the great Sierra mailman, John A. “Snowshoe” Thompson.
Last week in this space, I told a tale of a 2011 measure at the Nevada Legislature that would have switched the state to digital records storage to solve a problem that didn’t exist.
It was brought up during Saturday’s unveiling of the Shane Patton Memorial Monument as to why Shane’s statue stands 11 feet tall.
Even with the mayor absent the dais was full.
Photos by Ron Eland/Boulder City Review
Long before I was mayor of Boulder City, before I was a state legislator, I started a long, rewarding career as a physician. Two of the hardest things about being a doctor is, 1) telling someone that their loved one has died, and 2) sharing news about critical, potentially-fatal conditions.