Vol. 4, No. 11
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April 1, 2005
Nevada's Online State News Journal
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COPYWRITING
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A Visit To Silver Peak
For This Special Holiday
A Rare And Beautiful Sight
Found In The Desert
by Washoe Willie
Along the banks of the once sacred Lake Lahontan, now reduced to what is called the Silver Peak Playa in north central Esmeralda County, Hard Rock Harry and I were camped amidst scorpions, spiders, snakes, and the ghosts of the prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the region. In fact, one was sitting at the fire with us, enjoying a bracer of turkey, if you get the point, when out of the clear he mentioned how the desert came about. From post Pleistocene abundant water to 21st Century brutal desert in less than 10,000 years.
Seems as how, he said in a tongue difficult to learn quickly, as we had to do, that a super race had come from the sky, blazing fire out of its tail, a giant three-legged monster plopped itself down in the midst of his grubby little village. Well, it really wasn't a village yet, he said, because villages weren't known yet, but there it was, white hot and still belching smoke and fire from its behind area, and then it opened its belly, and had babies. Fifteen little ones emerged from what my newfound friend eventually called a hatch instead of belly, and they had with them one of the strangest contraptions ever seen.
I'll let our fireside friend describe what happened next in his own words, although Hard Rock Harry and I have had to interpret them into Modern English, you understand. Keep in mind, these are the words of one of the first Nevadans ever. I mean that, ever.
Señores y Señoritas, this is what I saw that fateful day so many años ago. After these strange people emerged from that frightful contraption, and I could get my compadres out from hiding, we held council in the plaza with them and their jefe, called He Who Gores.
What are those things you are sitting in called? I asked as calmly as I could and he (Jefe you understand) said they were called Auto Sportas where he came from. Washoe Willie and Hard Rock Harry translated this to mean Sport Cars but they were bigger than any sport car I've ever seen. Well of course I've never really seen one, but these seemed really grande. I think I will call them Auto Sportas Grande, and that's when Hard Rock Harry said, I've got it, we'll call them Sport Utility Vehicles.
Si, Amigo, that's what we called them for the next several thousand years, because those nice people from Andromeda left them with us and showed us how to make them even mas grande and more powerful. Well, the problem you see is this, they changed the entire earth, from one flat side to the next, and our wonderful water world slowly changed into a desert as you see it today.
Now you have it in his own words. He Who Gores came from another planet with modern technology with the intent of destroying this earth. What a fiend. Well, Hard Rock Harry, our new friend, and I enjoyed a taste more or two of our turkey, and we rolled up in our bedrolls in the back of my friend's Chevy Suburban and slept like babies.
It was a fine holiday.
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