Friendship, families and life in Carson City

Friendship often extends beyond the grave.

Jim Lewis was 43 when he died on May 1, according to his mother, Lela.

His lifelong friend, Brad Wood, from Chico came out Saturday to install a memorial at Jim's grave.

"He made it in the shape of the Chevy bow tie, put his name on it and when he was born and when he died," the Silver Springs resident said. "Brad encased it in cement block, painted the whole thing white and bought some white rock and some concrete scalloping. Then he put a red, white and blue ribbon on the memorial to remember the people who died Sept. 11."

Lela said Brad and Jim both attended kindergarten at Parkview Elementary School and Chico Senior High School.

"They stayed friends even after Jim got married and moved out here," she said. "There was never a time when they weren't in contact with each other."

Only one thing separated the two friends besides distance, and that was their preference in cars.

"Jim was a Chevy man and Brad was a Ford man," she said.

A little red trolley is tooling around the streets of Carson City thanks to Kathy Aguirre of Kathy's Someplace Else.

The barkeep indulged her first love, catering, buying the modified Cushman Hauler to sell snow ice at special events and just wandering around town.

Kathy's lived in Carson City for 18 years and has run the Someplace Else out on Highway 50 since 1991.

She used to own a couple of catering wagons, but gave them up when her husband wanted to buy a bar.

She said she had to go to Georgia to find the little trolley. It took a couple of trips from Indiana and back to make it street legal.

When she showed up at the Department of Motor Vehicles, it took a little wrangling before the state decided it was a wide tractor.

"It's just a kick and the kids love it," she said, playing the music from the cart, which goes 15 mph with a tailwind and only has two gears, forward and back.

So far, Kathy has only put about six gallons of gas in the trolley and has gone 75 miles. She said it can hold 400 pounds of ice for 600 to 800 ice cones.

Kathy will be driving the cart around through the end of October, when she plans to move to Hawaii for six months or so.

Her daughter will run the bar while she is in the islands.

Washoe Valley resident Kit Miller produced a film being shown at the Tahoe International Film Festival this week.

"I Was Born a Black Woman" is the story of Benedita da Silva, the first Afro-Brazillian woman to be elected to Brazil's Senate. The 44-minute documentary is directed by Maisa Mendonca and Vicente Franco.

The film, which won best documentary 2000 Latino Film Festival of San Francisco, Marin and Berkeley, appeared Friday and Saturday at Squaw Creek. The festival continues through Tuesday. For more information, check in at www.tahoefilmfestival.org.

Kit is in the rotation for the FreshIdeas column on Wednesdays and participated with her husband Jon Christensen in the Appeal's Millennium package.

I saw former Douglas County Superintendent Greg Betts while shopping at Wal-Mart last weekend.

I asked him what he's been up to since he retired nearly a decade ago.

"I've been hunting and fishing and all the things you do when your retired.

I mentioned that Douglas was looking for a superintendent, and that he should see he could get a little double dipping in, but he wasn't interested.

"It's not enough," he answered.

Funny, that was the same answer my mom gave when I suggested that my dad might be interested in going back to teaching.

Jennifer Hollister was driving back from Genoa on Thursday when she came across something odd on Jacks Valley Road.

Bags of buns were lying near the entrance of Sierra Nevada Golf Ranch.

"I knew someone was hauling them down to Candy Dance," she said. Jenn gathered up the buns and took them back to Genoa. Apparently, they had blown out of the back of someone's vehicle.

"They invited me to come down and have a hamburger, but I told them I didn't want one of the buns that blew out of the truck."

Al Bertone brought in a page about Banned Books Week from the Tampa Tribune on Friday that his wife sent him from Florida.

"She told me to bring this down to the newspaper," the retired Rhode Island state policeman said.

Banned Books Week ended Friday. Al says his wife will be flying out to Carson City as soon as the airlines are squared away.

October is one of my favorite months in Western Nevada. The leaves turn, it is Nevada's birth month, Halloween is coming.

Bill and Dottie Kelly have a reason to celebrate October. The first of four concerts in Carson City is on Oct. 13 and features violinist Linda Wang.

Membership for the community concerts costs $45 for all four concerts, plus five more at the Pioneer Theater in Reno. For more information, call Judy Harris at 246-5783.

Kurt Hildebrand is assistant managing editor at the Nevada Appeal. Contact him at 881-1215 or Kurt@Tahoe.com