Trego's Mountain Ear

I went to Kalispell on Friday – doctor appointment after the hernia repair surgery. With the ability to combine activities, Renata gave me a shopping list for Wal-Mart. I have a 15 pound lifting/exertion limit until mid-February (I tried to find a loophole, but the Doc was adamant). All told, it was a good trip – there is nothing like trying to get every item on a single page, two column shopping list that makes you understand the complexity and strenuous activity she does in shopping. The aisles were cluttered with store employees shopping for folks who call in their orders. While they are definitely obstructions to traveling the shopping lanes, these people are definitely tops at telling you where to find things. I failed only in getting smoked peppers.

As I went from the groceries toward the north, to find copy paper and sharpies, I pushed my cart past three young men – not dressed quite right for the area, and as I went past, speaking the rapid Spanish that you hear south of the border. Fortunately, I’m not connected with ‘la migra’, so I could smile and go past. They may have been legal – but chances are that they aren’t. Seeing them brought me to the realization that I see different levels of illegal within the term illegal immigrants. These were Mexicans – neighbors. Maybe it’s an age thing. Maybe it’s spending time in the southwest. Maybe it’s being an aggie – being accustomed to a system that, in extremes saw a rural ranching job split between three Mexican nationals, each working 4 months, making a year’s worth of Mexican pay, then going home to their families for the next 8 months. Kind of like a non-governmental deployment.

I needed that brief exposure in Wal-Mart to bring clarity to my thinking. Somehow, the Mexican illegals hold a different status in my mind. I think it’s because they’re neighbors whose homeland is not so nice as ours, does not offer as much – and I’ve known several who were north of the Rio just to make a living for themselves and families, then return home. I guess I tend to put the Mexican illegals in the category of good non-citizens. They’re here. They’re illegal. But it isn’t like Minneapolis. And I wonder how much George W. Bush attempts at developing a better immigration policy ran aground because of Al Quaeda, the twin towers, and 9/11?