Elko Daily Free Press from Elko, Nevada • 3

Saturday, November 1, 1997 ELKO DAILY FREE PRESS, Elko, Nevada A3 Ann Landers phoned her from the train station, and we arranged to meet at the top of the escalator. Only then did I wonder if I would recognize her. Suddenly, a beautiful young woman stepped off the escalator, threw her arms around me and gave me a more-than-friendly kiss. We've been more than friends ever since. Recently, our five children and five grandchildren helped us celebrate our 49th wedding anniversary.

Contented in Canada Dear Canada: Your letter was irresistible. I loved it Happy anniversary, and please give my best to "Legs." Creators Syndicate, Inc. Southern England. Within 10 minutes of my arrival, I was asked to help repair a faulty drain trap. I was lying on my back underneath the sink when someone entered the room.

All I could see was a pair of long and lovely legs. When I scrambled out, disheveled and dirty, I found that the rest of my friend's 15-year-old sister was equally attractive. We got along famously. Not long after, I was in the Air Force. She and I wrote occasionally, even though we were 400 miles apart We shared our joys, our sorrows and our secrets through the mail.

I didn't get back to England until 1946. I 'v. i i I OUR FASCINATING EARTH Looking like tombstones are the period-style, false fronts of buildings on Main Street in the gold-mining ghost town of Bodie, Calif, shown Saturday, Oct. 18. The buildings, all circa 1870s, are, from left, the post office, Odd Fellows Lodge, Miners' Union Hall (which is now the gift shop and museum) and the morgue, complete with caskets inside.

The infamous ghost town won't be disrupted by renewed mining thanks to a $5 million government buyout of old claims. Land deal saves infamous ghost town in high Sierra Dear Ann Landers: I just read your column about the do's and don'ts when conversing with pregnant women. How about the do's and don'ts when talking with an infertile couple? Don't say: 1. Just relax. You are trying too hard.

2. Don't think about it so much. 3. Go away on vacation. 4.

Get drunk. 5. Adopt, and then you'll get pregnant. 6. Well, she has to mother something.

(About a woman who is playing with someone else's children.) I assure you, Ann, all these things are very hurtful and not helpful. There is no scientific evidence that relaxing will make sperm swim any faster. Do say: 1. 1 hope the best for you two. You will be wonderful parents.

2. My prayers are with you. Here are some facts: There are only two or three days a month that a woman can conceive. The vacation may not be scheduled during ovulation. When you want desperately to have a baby, you can't help but think about it a lot, especially when you are going through infertility treatments.

Hot tubs can reduce sperm count for up to three months. Adopting doesn't mean you will get pregnant, and it is not necessarily the answer for many couples. If you doubt my facts, talk to a reproductive endocrinologist They specialize in fertility. Even if your gynecologist tells you he or she knows all about infertility, it may not be true. I would also like to recommend RESOLVE, a wonderful support group for infertile couples with local chapters around the country.

Thanks for listening, Ann. Broken-Hearted Couple in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Dear Couple: You've written a letter that is sure to be enormously helpful to a great many readers. Thank you for your sane and solid suggestions. For those who want more information, send a long, self-addressed, stamped envelope to: RESOLVE, 1310 Broadway, Dept.

AL, Somerville, Mass. 02144-1779 (www.resolve.org). Panhandling bears in national parks are really quite wild. but are not usually aggressive unless provoked. one bear exhibited extraordinary restraint when PESTERED BY TWO tMAOWtCK WEL10N5 SUDDENLY THE BEAR tions about stories of the ghost of a little girl killed by a miner's pickax, strange lights and music, or the smell of garlic in a home where fresh-cooked Italian food was on the kitchen table years ago.

"I've been living here 11 years and I've never smelled any garlic or seen any ghosts," said park interpreter Walt Stone, standing in the dirt street outside the supposed home of the "garlic-loving ghost" and now his home during the summer. The old Mendocihi house is one of seven homes occupied during summer months by park staffers. In the winter, when deep snow drifts can make Bodie all but inaccessible, four remain in use by employees who tough it out until spring. "But a lot of people see things, hear things, smell things. When the wind blows, the tin cans blow all over the place, and they can conjure up all sorts of things," says Stone.

"It's one thing to be captured by the spirit of the town and it's another to see things. Personally, I like to see people have a sense of stepping back in time. If they're here only for the ghosts, they're missing a lot of what this town has to offer." The town was named after William S. Body, who found gold here in 1859. By 1880 there were 10,000 people, 30 active mines and mills, and about 600 buildings including 65 to 70 saloons.

Gambling, prostitution, opium and murders were common. The mines produced about $70 million in bullion. In the process, violence and vice increased dramatically and created what one horrified minister termed "a sea of sin lashed ONE OF THEM IN A CLASSIC "BEAR HUG" WITH ITS JAWS AROUND HIS NECK, THREW HIM TO THE GROUND AND WALKED OFF. EXCEPT FOR BEING VERY FRIGHTENED. THE BOY DIDN'T HAVE A SCRATCH ON HIM! Dear Ann Landers: Here's another one for your "how-we-met" file.

I hope you can find room for it. I was living in Scotland in August 1939 and visited a school friend in Phil Nancy Seff Of 1987 GRABBED 00 i TEftJ AGE BOYS. mm CAP PhotoNevada Appeal, M. Cannon) by tempests of lust and passion." One account of the town's reputation, in a rival mining town's newspaper, told of a young girl who looked skyward as her family left for Bodie and cried, "Goodbye, God. We're going to Bodie." Bodie editors condemned the article, saying the child was misquoted and had really said, "Good, by God, we're going to Bodie." The town finally folded in 1942, but a caretaker stayed on for another 20 years and ran off people who might have otherwise vandalized the place.

Harsh weather also kept people away. At 8,375 feet, Bodie often is hit by storms winds of up to 100 miles per hour, temperatures down to 35 below zero, and an average annual snowfall of 12 to 14 feet. Those conditions also have made it tough to preserve the fragile collection of about 150 homes, businesses, a school, jail, church, a big mill, cemetery, barns, sheds and outhouses. But specially trained, carpenters brace sagging structures to keep them from collapsing. Some are com-pletedly rebuilt but the work is done so carefully that nothing looks new.

in line with the "arrested decay" goal. "We want people to look back and see what it was like 100 years ago or so and I don't know where you can experience that better than here," Stone says. "We want people to appreciate what their forefathers went through, and to see how good they have it today because life was not easy then." ages about 40.000 checks a month. Clark water use LAS VEGAS (AP) Southern Ne-vadans saved a record 8.6 billion gallons of water from June through September, capping a 13 percent conservation rate for 1997, officials estimated. The conservation goal was 12.9 percent.

Southern Nevada residents consumed 54.4 billion gallons from June to September. The Water Authority used a complicated formula that determined that 8.6 billion gallons more would have been used if conservation measures weren't taken. Last year, residents saved 7.5 billion gallons during the same period, an 11.1 percent savings. The Water Authority's goal is a 25 percent rate of conservation by the year 2010. BODIE, Calif.

(AP) The spooky solitude that pervades this infamous ghost town won't be disrupted by renewed drilling and blasting thanks to a $5 million government buyout of old mining claims. The deal, long a goal of California's park system, has doubled the size of Bodie State Historic Park, in the high Sierra about 180 miles east of San Francisco, to more than 1,000 acres. The claims had been held by a Canadian mining company, Galactic Resources which had drilled for ore samples on the bluff above town but then went bankrupt. The bluff is honeycombed by Bodie's original mines. So Bodie will remain undisturbed except by the tourists who come here each year to see what's considered by many to be the best preserved ghost town in the West.

No mining ensures times when the only sounds will be weathered buildings creaking and rusted tin roofs rattling as wind sweeps across the barren landscape eerie even if you. don'f in, ghosts, Bodie, once considered the wildest town in the West, invites such feelings. The idea, when it became a state park 35 years ago, was to leave it in a state of "arrested decay," frozen in time. You can peer in windows of sagging buildings and still see whiskey bottles in the bars, china on dinner tables in homes, and children's lessons on the school room chalkboard. But park staffers don't want to spend their time answering ques State banking CARSON CITY (AP) For the first time, smaller Nevada banks have a chance to grab a share of state government's mammoth banking account business.

State Treasurer Bob Seale is seeking bids on a full range of banking services. Banks will have until Nov. 19 to submit their bids and he expects to award the contracts by Dec. Seale estimates that $22 billion is run through the state's commercial account alone each year and there are more than 100,000 checks processed each month. Bank of America now has the master contract awarded in 1991.

But this year Seale is "unbundling" the contracts. He's asking for separate bids on the commercial account, custody services, securities safekeeping, lock When it comes to appearances, a News Capsules SALE Only! Wholesale prices to public. Featuring oak framed prints by famous well-known American artists. Sizes from to boxes and a number of other functions banks perform for the state. These can be profitable accounts for banks.

For instance, Seale says the state pays 10 cents for each check cashed on its account and 2 cents for each deposit. Seale's office handles all the banking business for the state except for the State Industrial Insurance System, the University and Community College System of Nevada and the Colorado River Commission. While the smaller banks in Nevada may not be able to handle the $22 billion commercial account, they might end up winning the contracts for such things as the trust or custodial business. Another part of the bidding is for the accounts of the state Employment Security Department, now handled by Wells Fargo. That aver beautiful smile can be improved upon.

00 $6 $119 to your most important asset. And fortunately, your smile is one feature that can easily be (includes frame and matting.) I ko Red Lion I nn Casino Humboldt Ballroom. Saturday, November 1 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Sunday, November 2 10:00 a.m.

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