Caveman

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Sometimes I like to think about how Paleolithic people would have reacted to modern situations. I took my girlfriend and son out to Harrah's Steakhouse for her birthday. It's our tradition. I can't remember what was happening at that exact moment. I think we were just served our entrees. But for just a second, everything seemed so pretentious, and I pictured Ancestor Brian, sitting at the table with us, looking down at the giant cut of prime rib, and I wondered just what he'd do.

Those people were as smart as us. They were probably kinder because their experience of violence almost always had instant consequences. I'm sure they'd react much as one of us would, should we somehow be transported back to their time. Obviously, they wouldn't know how to use a fork and knife, but since they'd be in a strange environment, they wouldn't just dig in with their hands and faces. They'd watch what we'd do and try to imitate our behavior. Or would they? Would Ancestor Brian have already gotten up and taken the food from a table of people who'd already been served? Possibly patted the guy on the head who couldn't stop loudly talking about his game-changing real estate investment in land Washoe County was unloading.

I'm sure of one thing. If hypothetical Reno Man had been sitting there when the waiter brought that dry ice fog-spewing bowl of chocolates to the table, he'd have moved away.

You know why I'm thinking about this stuff these days? It's because every day I feel that extra minute or two of sunshine, and I know Ancestor Brian would have known that spring was coming. We've kind of broken that natural cycle. George W. Bush extended daylight saving time hours, which I for one consider the crowning achievement of his administration.

The concept of getting up and going to bed by a constructed passage of time based on numbers would probably be really hard for Ancestor Brian to take. Probably about as hard as having someone bring him a big, juicy piece of meat that he didn't have to kill himself.