So there’s this deer – a young buck in velvet – that’s been hanging around the house. He’s small and skinny, but he seems to be in good health. His fuzzy antlers only have one fork apiece, but that’s pretty common for a yearling.
The days have been warm, and he likes to lie down in the shadow of the roof overhang. There’s a spot near the kitchen window where he’s scratched out a bed and curls up. That’s why Joan named him Curly. His bed gets a nice breeze, but when it dies down, the flies bother him, and he swats them away with his big, muley ears.
He’s gotten used to me and Joan walking by the window while we’re cooking or doing the dishes, and he ignores us for the most part. We can go outdoors as long as we stay on the other side of the building. When we stick our head around the corner, he takes off. But he doesn’t go far, and if we leave him alone, he comes back in a couple of minutes.
The other day we had a few folks up for supper, and right on cue, Curly walked up for everyone to see. Posing for a few pictures, he regarded the crowd of faces in the window with curiosity, and then he wandered off to eat.
While everyone was staring at the little guy, I noticed a big buck walking across the hilltop. He was a 3 or 4 year old with a beautiful set of antlers, and his thick, muscular body showed the weight of this spring’s plentiful grass. He loped easily over the hill, out of sight from the guests who were gawking at Curly.
The other day I took a picture of him and posted it on my facebook page. (That’s right…I’ve been sucked in. If you want, you can follow me or be my friend or whatever the hell it is.) After I put the picture online, I regretted it, because that’s exactly the sort of thing that makes more folks want to move to this area.
That got me to thinking.
I admit that I’m a selfish man. I want to keep the rugged beauty of the Bitterroot National Forest all to myself. I was hoping that after I got to Montana, they’d shut the doors behind me and not let anybody else in.
It’s not that I’d deny folks the right to enjoy the natural splendor of the area that I call home; it’s that I want them to do it somewhere else and leave me alone. It’d be fine with me if I never saw another human being while I hike and fish and hunt in the 3 million acres of public land that I call “the backyard.”
If Sesame Street taught me anything, it’s that sharing is a good thing…like Bert and Ernie sharing a bed. But when they were teaching me how to count pineapple upside-down cakes, we never got to numbers big enough for me to count all the loud, obnoxious circus freaks who tear through my forest on 500cc’s of smoke-belching, solitude-shattering, four-wheeled fury.
Sometimes, having enough for everybody to share can get you into trouble. Like rock star and realty show hero Bret Michaels. Through 3 seasons of the show Rock of Love, he shared his quest for the perfect mate. Although the producers selected the finest group of sluts, skanks, and drunken strippers for him to choose from, Bret was unable to make a lasting love connection.
If you ever get a chance to watch that show, you should definitely check it out. It’s seriously funny, not like The Bachelor at all. But that wasn’t the point I was trying to make.
Last week, police in DeKalb County, Indiana pulled over Bret’s tour buses because one of the trailers that they were pulling had a light out. K-9 units alerted officers to the possible presence of drugs.
According to the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, “Officers searched both buses and found marijuana on each, as well as unidentified controlled substances. It was unclear how much was found on the buses.” No one was arrested, but charges have been forwarded to the DeKalb County Prosecutor’s Office.
Back in school, if you got caught chewing gum, the teacher would ask if you brought enough for everybody. That may be a good policy with gum but not with drugs. When the police pull you over and you’ve got enough drugs to share with 2 busloads of rock musicians, that’s going to wind up costing you.
So you see…sharing can cause all kinds of problems. Whether you’re talking about your forest or your stash, it’s best to keep things to yourself.
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Office Politics
So there were plenty of folks on the river, and the boats were lined up like the “it’s a small world” ride at Disneyland. But when you’re trying to imagine that you’re fishing alone in the back-country wilderness, you’re looking for solitude not a feeling of togetherness and harmony with all the people on the planet.
Me and Hippie Dave knew there wouldn’t be any solitude that afternoon. We were just trying to sneak in a few hours of fishing before heading over to Logger Days in Darby.
Floating up to one of my favorite holes, we ran into 2 rafts that were pulled over to the side. The 2 guides were out of their boats yelling at each other, and both sets of clients had scared looks on their faces, like an old elk who’d fallen behind the herd as the wolves closed in.
Dave rowed over to shore, and we waited to see where this was headed. The last thing we wanted to do was get involved, but it was clear that this situation was about as friendly as a phone call between Mel Gibson and Oksana Grigorieva.
“I know those dudes,” said Hippie Dave, “Rudy Heberding and ‘Fish Finder’ Clapton. They work for the same outfitter in Missoula.”
“Looks like they missed the corporate teambuilding retreat,” I replied.
Dave laughed, “It’s just office politics on the Bitterroot River.”
That was when Fish Finder gave Rudy a shove and started back to his boat. But he shouldn’t have turned his back, because Rudy grabbed an oar and whacked him in the back of the head. Fish Finder fell face first into the shallow water.
Me and Dave jumped up, and went running over to help. Dave grabbed Rudy and dragged him off to his boat. Fish Finder was coughing and choking as I helped him to his feet. We got them calmed down and sent Rudy and his clients on their way.
As we made sure Fish Finder was OK, he told us, “Rudy came after me because he felt like I’d been cutting him off all day. Our clients had said they wanted to fish together, so I was just staying close.”
Money is tight, and it can get downright competitive on the river. But I doubt either one of them got a decent tip that day, and they certainly didn’t do much to help promote Montana tourism.
That got me to thinking.
When times are tough, even folks who want to achieve the same things can start fighting amongst themselves. Like the Democrats in Washington.
The other day, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told Meet the Press that the Democrats could lose control of the House of Representatives. He said, “But I think there’s no doubt there are enough seats in play that could cause Republicans to gain control.”
Well, that got Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s waders in a bunch. She feels that showing any possibility that the Democrats are vulnerable might have Republican voters smelling blood in the water and get them out to the polls. Plus, it’s a sound bite that’ll be used in campaign ads throughout the country.
House Democrats are concerned that lobbyists might sense a potential change in leadership and start funneling more money to Republicans. Gibbs responded that he was only stating “the obvious.”
There’s also speculation that President Obama actually wants to see the Republicans gain control this fall. That way, when he runs for re-election in 2012, he can say, “I had things running great. We passed health care reform and finance reform, but then the Republicans took charge and everything went to Hell. Don’t blame me that there aren’t any jobs and the economy hasn’t recovered. Blame them.”
Pelosi and other top Democrats went to the White House to meet with the President, who told them that he was backing them 100%. According to foxnews.com, he handed out a memo that said, “The President, Vice President, First Lady, Cabinet officers and senior staff have participated in 187 political events in the last 18 months, all with the intention of directly supporting candidates on the ballot in 2010 or building up the infrastructure of party committees. Forty more events are currently or tentatively scheduled and dozens more will be organized in the next few months.”
Now here’s my big problem with all this, and it applies to both parties, equally. As the leader of the free world, shouldn’t the President be focused on employment, the economy, world peace and stuff, instead of local fundraising campaigns?
We pay him good money to do a job, and attending hundreds of events to support his party’s candidates isn’t that job.
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
Me and Hippie Dave knew there wouldn’t be any solitude that afternoon. We were just trying to sneak in a few hours of fishing before heading over to Logger Days in Darby.
Floating up to one of my favorite holes, we ran into 2 rafts that were pulled over to the side. The 2 guides were out of their boats yelling at each other, and both sets of clients had scared looks on their faces, like an old elk who’d fallen behind the herd as the wolves closed in.
Dave rowed over to shore, and we waited to see where this was headed. The last thing we wanted to do was get involved, but it was clear that this situation was about as friendly as a phone call between Mel Gibson and Oksana Grigorieva.
“I know those dudes,” said Hippie Dave, “Rudy Heberding and ‘Fish Finder’ Clapton. They work for the same outfitter in Missoula.”
“Looks like they missed the corporate teambuilding retreat,” I replied.
Dave laughed, “It’s just office politics on the Bitterroot River.”
That was when Fish Finder gave Rudy a shove and started back to his boat. But he shouldn’t have turned his back, because Rudy grabbed an oar and whacked him in the back of the head. Fish Finder fell face first into the shallow water.
Me and Dave jumped up, and went running over to help. Dave grabbed Rudy and dragged him off to his boat. Fish Finder was coughing and choking as I helped him to his feet. We got them calmed down and sent Rudy and his clients on their way.
As we made sure Fish Finder was OK, he told us, “Rudy came after me because he felt like I’d been cutting him off all day. Our clients had said they wanted to fish together, so I was just staying close.”
Money is tight, and it can get downright competitive on the river. But I doubt either one of them got a decent tip that day, and they certainly didn’t do much to help promote Montana tourism.
That got me to thinking.
When times are tough, even folks who want to achieve the same things can start fighting amongst themselves. Like the Democrats in Washington.
The other day, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told Meet the Press that the Democrats could lose control of the House of Representatives. He said, “But I think there’s no doubt there are enough seats in play that could cause Republicans to gain control.”
Well, that got Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s waders in a bunch. She feels that showing any possibility that the Democrats are vulnerable might have Republican voters smelling blood in the water and get them out to the polls. Plus, it’s a sound bite that’ll be used in campaign ads throughout the country.
House Democrats are concerned that lobbyists might sense a potential change in leadership and start funneling more money to Republicans. Gibbs responded that he was only stating “the obvious.”
There’s also speculation that President Obama actually wants to see the Republicans gain control this fall. That way, when he runs for re-election in 2012, he can say, “I had things running great. We passed health care reform and finance reform, but then the Republicans took charge and everything went to Hell. Don’t blame me that there aren’t any jobs and the economy hasn’t recovered. Blame them.”
Pelosi and other top Democrats went to the White House to meet with the President, who told them that he was backing them 100%. According to foxnews.com, he handed out a memo that said, “The President, Vice President, First Lady, Cabinet officers and senior staff have participated in 187 political events in the last 18 months, all with the intention of directly supporting candidates on the ballot in 2010 or building up the infrastructure of party committees. Forty more events are currently or tentatively scheduled and dozens more will be organized in the next few months.”
Now here’s my big problem with all this, and it applies to both parties, equally. As the leader of the free world, shouldn’t the President be focused on employment, the economy, world peace and stuff, instead of local fundraising campaigns?
We pay him good money to do a job, and attending hundreds of events to support his party’s candidates isn’t that job.
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Rocket Science
So who would’ve thought that beer could sidetrack such a simple project? All we had to do was stain a deck…no problem.
My buddy John the Baptist asked me, Hippie Dave and Stinky Pete if we’d help him treat his deck in exchange for some cold brews. That sounded like a fair trade, so we all showed up at his place on Saturday ready to work.
After we sat around talking about fishing for an hour, John convinced us to pick up our brushes and get started. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sun was nearly at its peak. I was thirsty, and even though it wasn’t quite noon, I opened a beer.
“Those are for when we’re done,” John hollered from the far end of the deck.
Stinky and Dave joined me. We drank a couple, and then went back to the task at hand. It wasn’t long before our thirst got the better of us and we were back at the cooler.
We quenched and refreshed while John painted like Thomas Kinkade on amphetamines and No-Doze. The subject of fishing came up again, and Stinky started telling me about a new fly pattern he was working on – an articulated leech. I couldn’t picture how he was tying it, so he volunteered to get his vice from the truck and show me.
John was yelling something about getting back to work, and Dave wandered over and accidentally knocked over a can of stain. John gave up, grabbed a beer, and joined in Stinky’s tying lesson.
That got me to thinking.
Sometimes it’s easy to get distracted and lose sight of your mission. Take fer instance, NASA. On their website it clearly states, “NASA’s mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”
Somewhere along the line that mission got confused. The National Space Policy of the United States of America dated June 28, 2010 is a 14 page document published by the White House. Other than in a quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower at the beginning of the report, the words “explore” or “exploration” appear 7 times.
The word “commercial”, meaning private enterprise, is in there 39 times. In fact, the policy is so heavily weighted to the private sector that it states that the government won’t develop any of its own space technology unless “there is no suitable, cost-effective U.S. commercial or, as appropriate, foreign commercial service or system that is or will be available.”
Reading the report, it seems like NASA’s new role as the pioneer in the future of space exploration is to administer contracts from private companies and to make sure that all those TV satellites orbiting around up there don’t bump into each other, blacking out this week’s shocking episode of The Bachelorette. So much for boldly going where no one has gone before.
Interestingly, the phrase “international cooperation” is in the policy 4 times. This might help explain some of the recent things said by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
Last month, in an interview with the TV network Al Jazeera, he had this to say about President Obama’s goals for the space program, “When I became the NASA administrator – or before I became the NASA administrator – he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science…and math and engineering.”
NASA used to be about scientific discovery, bold innovation and the daring conquest of the unknown. Now its foremost purpose is to raise everybody’s self-esteem like a motivational speaker giving lectures at the Holiday Inn banquet room for $50 a ticket.
First of all, I think it’s insulting to Muslims for us to say, “Don’t feel bad. You’ve had plenty of really great scientists, and with our help and encouragement, maybe you could have a few more.”
Secondly, this isn’t pee-wee soccer where everybody’s a winner. It’s not a situation where everybody gets to play even though they have asthma, can’t take two steps without tripping over themselves, and have to wear a helmet to bed.
It’s rocket science.
Whatever happened to the idea of our country’s best and brightest achieving impossible goals with enough time left over to help Hasbro design a better Nerf Glider?
Oh, look. There’s something shiny – looks like a beer can. Wait…what was I talking about?
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
My buddy John the Baptist asked me, Hippie Dave and Stinky Pete if we’d help him treat his deck in exchange for some cold brews. That sounded like a fair trade, so we all showed up at his place on Saturday ready to work.
After we sat around talking about fishing for an hour, John convinced us to pick up our brushes and get started. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sun was nearly at its peak. I was thirsty, and even though it wasn’t quite noon, I opened a beer.
“Those are for when we’re done,” John hollered from the far end of the deck.
Stinky and Dave joined me. We drank a couple, and then went back to the task at hand. It wasn’t long before our thirst got the better of us and we were back at the cooler.
We quenched and refreshed while John painted like Thomas Kinkade on amphetamines and No-Doze. The subject of fishing came up again, and Stinky started telling me about a new fly pattern he was working on – an articulated leech. I couldn’t picture how he was tying it, so he volunteered to get his vice from the truck and show me.
John was yelling something about getting back to work, and Dave wandered over and accidentally knocked over a can of stain. John gave up, grabbed a beer, and joined in Stinky’s tying lesson.
That got me to thinking.
Sometimes it’s easy to get distracted and lose sight of your mission. Take fer instance, NASA. On their website it clearly states, “NASA’s mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”
Somewhere along the line that mission got confused. The National Space Policy of the United States of America dated June 28, 2010 is a 14 page document published by the White House. Other than in a quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower at the beginning of the report, the words “explore” or “exploration” appear 7 times.
The word “commercial”, meaning private enterprise, is in there 39 times. In fact, the policy is so heavily weighted to the private sector that it states that the government won’t develop any of its own space technology unless “there is no suitable, cost-effective U.S. commercial or, as appropriate, foreign commercial service or system that is or will be available.”
Reading the report, it seems like NASA’s new role as the pioneer in the future of space exploration is to administer contracts from private companies and to make sure that all those TV satellites orbiting around up there don’t bump into each other, blacking out this week’s shocking episode of The Bachelorette. So much for boldly going where no one has gone before.
Interestingly, the phrase “international cooperation” is in the policy 4 times. This might help explain some of the recent things said by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
Last month, in an interview with the TV network Al Jazeera, he had this to say about President Obama’s goals for the space program, “When I became the NASA administrator – or before I became the NASA administrator – he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science…and math and engineering.”
NASA used to be about scientific discovery, bold innovation and the daring conquest of the unknown. Now its foremost purpose is to raise everybody’s self-esteem like a motivational speaker giving lectures at the Holiday Inn banquet room for $50 a ticket.
First of all, I think it’s insulting to Muslims for us to say, “Don’t feel bad. You’ve had plenty of really great scientists, and with our help and encouragement, maybe you could have a few more.”
Secondly, this isn’t pee-wee soccer where everybody’s a winner. It’s not a situation where everybody gets to play even though they have asthma, can’t take two steps without tripping over themselves, and have to wear a helmet to bed.
It’s rocket science.
Whatever happened to the idea of our country’s best and brightest achieving impossible goals with enough time left over to help Hasbro design a better Nerf Glider?
Oh, look. There’s something shiny – looks like a beer can. Wait…what was I talking about?
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Cleaning Up
So the sound of hail bouncing off the steel roof woke me up. I looked at the clock – 10:30. I’d been asleep for 30 minutes.
The hail was replaced by a driving rain. At 10:45 the power went out, but because of the constant lightning, it was brighter than most of the afternoons we had this spring.
The wind roared, and the trees whipped around wildly, contorting like acrobats performing in a Cirque du Soleil tribute to nuclear fission. I worried that one of the big lodgepole pines might snap and come crashing down on the house.
After a while the storm calmed, and I went back to sleep. There were 2 more gales that blew through during the night like herds of stampeding buffalos. At one point, the rain poured down in sheets so heavy that I couldn’t see the trees beyond about 50 feet.
When I got up, it’d turned into a beautiful morning. The sun was shining and the birds were chirping. And there were limbs and debris everywhere.
I made some coffee, had breakfast, and read my e-mail. It was obvious that I didn’t want to go outside and survey the damage.
Eventually, I ran out of excuses, so I got up to check on the condition of the property. Maybe because I’d braced myself for the worst, it didn’t seem so bad. Don’t get me wrong, there were a couple of trees down, the porch furniture was halfway to Dillon, and the whole place looked like a mess. It was time to start cleaning things up.
That got me to thinking.
There are a lot of messes in this country that need to be cleaned up. Take fer instance, the oil spill in the Gulf. President Obama should be all over that like Al Gore on a Portland massage therapist. Instead, he’s purposely letting it get worse to put pressure on Republicans to vote for his cap-and-trade and energy bills.
Since the day he got in office, the President promised that he would focus on creating new jobs. So far, he’s hired a bunch of census workers who get paid for not showing up and thrown billions of dollars at temporary road construction jobs. Now we have out-of-control spending, massive debt, 14.6 million folks unemployed, and the President wants to shut down drilling in the Gulf, putting millions more out of work.
The economy’s in the toilet, and Obama wants to pass a finance reform bill that will limit the ability of banks to provide lower rate loans to home buyers and business. Illegal immigration is rampant, and the President refuses to do anything to secure our borders until he gets his immigration reform passed, creating an easy path to citizenship for 11 million potential new Democrat voters.
The other day, Vice President Joe Biden walked into a Wisconsin custard shop, with cameras in tow, to show everybody that he’s a man of the people. He received a cone of frozen custard with what looked like some kind of chocolate topping. When he asked the store owner how much he owed, he was told it was on the house. Then the owner joked that if Biden lowered taxes, he’d “call it even.”
Biden replied angrily, “Why don’t you say something nice instead of being a smartass all the time?”
First of all, they’d never met before, so how does Joe know if the guy’s a smartass “all the time.” Secondly, the VP just got a free frozen custard. He should appreciate it, rather than chewing the feller out for making a legitimate request, especially since it was made jokingly.
But that’s the attitude of this government. They want us to give and then give some more. And we’d better not complain or make any noise, because if we do, they’ll smack us down.
They forget that they work for us. There’re a lot of messes that we want cleaned up, and we don’t see the government doing anything about them. The politicians don’t care about fixing problems. They see those problems as opportunities to increase their political power.
It’s no wonder that Larry King called it quits and decided to return to his home planet.
As far as the mess in my backyard goes, I’m going to take the chainsaw and deal with it one branch at a time. Before you know it, I’ll have a nice stack of firewood.
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
Copyright 2010
The hail was replaced by a driving rain. At 10:45 the power went out, but because of the constant lightning, it was brighter than most of the afternoons we had this spring.
The wind roared, and the trees whipped around wildly, contorting like acrobats performing in a Cirque du Soleil tribute to nuclear fission. I worried that one of the big lodgepole pines might snap and come crashing down on the house.
After a while the storm calmed, and I went back to sleep. There were 2 more gales that blew through during the night like herds of stampeding buffalos. At one point, the rain poured down in sheets so heavy that I couldn’t see the trees beyond about 50 feet.
When I got up, it’d turned into a beautiful morning. The sun was shining and the birds were chirping. And there were limbs and debris everywhere.
I made some coffee, had breakfast, and read my e-mail. It was obvious that I didn’t want to go outside and survey the damage.
Eventually, I ran out of excuses, so I got up to check on the condition of the property. Maybe because I’d braced myself for the worst, it didn’t seem so bad. Don’t get me wrong, there were a couple of trees down, the porch furniture was halfway to Dillon, and the whole place looked like a mess. It was time to start cleaning things up.
That got me to thinking.
There are a lot of messes in this country that need to be cleaned up. Take fer instance, the oil spill in the Gulf. President Obama should be all over that like Al Gore on a Portland massage therapist. Instead, he’s purposely letting it get worse to put pressure on Republicans to vote for his cap-and-trade and energy bills.
Since the day he got in office, the President promised that he would focus on creating new jobs. So far, he’s hired a bunch of census workers who get paid for not showing up and thrown billions of dollars at temporary road construction jobs. Now we have out-of-control spending, massive debt, 14.6 million folks unemployed, and the President wants to shut down drilling in the Gulf, putting millions more out of work.
The economy’s in the toilet, and Obama wants to pass a finance reform bill that will limit the ability of banks to provide lower rate loans to home buyers and business. Illegal immigration is rampant, and the President refuses to do anything to secure our borders until he gets his immigration reform passed, creating an easy path to citizenship for 11 million potential new Democrat voters.
The other day, Vice President Joe Biden walked into a Wisconsin custard shop, with cameras in tow, to show everybody that he’s a man of the people. He received a cone of frozen custard with what looked like some kind of chocolate topping. When he asked the store owner how much he owed, he was told it was on the house. Then the owner joked that if Biden lowered taxes, he’d “call it even.”
Biden replied angrily, “Why don’t you say something nice instead of being a smartass all the time?”
First of all, they’d never met before, so how does Joe know if the guy’s a smartass “all the time.” Secondly, the VP just got a free frozen custard. He should appreciate it, rather than chewing the feller out for making a legitimate request, especially since it was made jokingly.
But that’s the attitude of this government. They want us to give and then give some more. And we’d better not complain or make any noise, because if we do, they’ll smack us down.
They forget that they work for us. There’re a lot of messes that we want cleaned up, and we don’t see the government doing anything about them. The politicians don’t care about fixing problems. They see those problems as opportunities to increase their political power.
It’s no wonder that Larry King called it quits and decided to return to his home planet.
As far as the mess in my backyard goes, I’m going to take the chainsaw and deal with it one branch at a time. Before you know it, I’ll have a nice stack of firewood.
I don’t know, I guess I think too hard about these things.
Copyright 2010
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