Trego's Mountain Ear

"Serving North Lincoln County"

Articles

  • Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes

    I’ve just watched a couple videos out of Minneapolis. A woman is dead in a confrontation with ICE agents. The old saying is that pictures don’t lie. Obviously, in this day of AI, that isn’t true. (Hell, Stalin’s airbrush specialists took the truth out of pictures before I was born) That’s not my point. The whole bloody thing was avoidable.

    I feel safe from ICE, and even as an elderly stay-at-home living in Trego, I probably encounter ICE agents on the road more often than the average American. They’re kind of neighbors. I may not wave, but neither do I flip them off. It isn’t a job I ever considered, but there are a lot of jobs I didn’t consider. We’re courteous – usually friendly – to each other at Roosville.

    I recall the mojados I met when I was in the southwest – basically decent people, caught in an economic bind, trying to make a living and send money home to their families. If they got caught by La Migra, so be it – it was just one of the risks of doing business. But then it was a game with only two sides playing.

    In general, doing one stupid thing doesn’t get you killed. Doing several stupid things increases the odds of stupidity being fatal. Getting several stupid people doing stupid things at the same time increases the likelihood of someone getting hurt or killed. Perhaps Heinlein described it best: “Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.”

    Max Weber defined government: “A government is an institution that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.” Combine that with people doing stupid things, getting killed becomes too likely. Minneapolis isn’t in the southwest I knew 40 years ago. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

    michaelmccurry
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  • The Ballad of Lenin’s Tomb

    I hope everyone is familiar with Robert Service – the man who wrote “The Cremation of Sam McGee” and “The Shooting of Dan McGrew.” Watching the film of Chavez’ tomb in Caracas blowing up last weekend brought another Robert Service poem to mind. It was written in 1930 – and is reputed to be the reason his poetry was never translated into Russian – kind of like Kipling losing any chance of becoming poet laureate of England after Queen Victoria read his poem “The Widow at Windsor.” The Ballad of Lenin’s Tomb is readily available online – and I’m fairly sure its in the public domain – so until someone writes a ballad of Hugo Chavez’ Tomb, we have this Robert Service poem to remind of us the immortality of communist leaders:

    The Ballad Of Lenins Tomb

    By Robert William Service

     This is the yarn he told me
 As we sat in Casey's Bar,
 That Rooshun mug who scammed from the jug
 In the Land of the Crimson Star;
 That Soviet guy with the single eye,
 And the face like a flaming scar.

Where Lenin lies the red flag flies, and the rat-grey workers wait
To tread the gloom of Lenin's Tomb, where the Comrade lies in state.
With lagging pace they scan his face, so weary yet so firm;
For years a score they've laboured sore to save him from the worm.
The Kremlin walls are grimly grey, but Lenin's Tomb is red,
And pilgrims from the Sour Lands say: "He sleeps and is not dead."
Before their eyes in peace he lies, a symbol and a sign,
And as they pass that dome of glass they see - a God Divine.
So Doctors plug him full of dope, for if he drops to dust,
So will collapse their faith and hope, the whole combine will bust.
But say, Tovarich; hark to me . . . a secret I'll disclose,
For I did see what none did see; I know what no one knows.

I was a Cheko terrorist - Oh I served the Soviets well,
Till they put me down on the bone-yard list, for the fear that I might tell;
That I might tell the thing I saw, and that only I did see,
They held me in quod with a firing squad to make a corpse of me.
But I got away, and here today I'm telling my tale to you;
Though it may sound weird, by Lenin's beard, so help me God it's true.
I slouched across that great Red Square, and watched the waiting line.
The mongrel sons of Marx were there, convened to Lenin's shrine;
Ten thousand men of Muscovy, Mongol and Turkoman,
Black-bonnets of the Aral Sea and Tatars of Kazan.
Kalmuck and Bashkir, Lett and Finn, Georgian, Jew and Lapp,
Kirghiz and Kazakh, crowding in to gaze at Lenin's map.
Aye, though a score of years had run I saw them pause and pray,
As mourners at the Tomb of one who died but yesterday.
I watched them in a bleary daze of bitterness and pain,
For oh, I missed the cheery blaze of vodka in my brain.
I stared, my eyes were hypnotized by that saturnine host,
When with a start that shook my heart I saw - I saw a ghost.
As in foggèd glass I saw him pass, and peer at me and grin -
A man I knew, a man I slew, Prince Boris Mazarin.

Now do not think because I drink I love the flowing bowl;
But liquor kills remorse and stills the anguish of the soul.
And there's so much I would forget, stark horrors I have seen,
Faces and forms that haunt me yet, like shadows on a screen.
And of these sights that mar my nights the ghastliest by far
Is the death of Boris Mazarin, that soldier of the Czar.

A mighty nobleman was he; we took him by surprise;
His mother, son and daughters three we slew before his eyes.
We tortured him, with jibes and threats; then mad for glut of gore,
Upon our reeking bayonets we nailed him to the door.
But he defied us to the last, crying: "O carrion crew!
I'd die with joy could I destroy a hundred dogs like you."
I thrust my sword into his throat; the blade was gay with blood;
We flung him to his castle moat, and stamped him in its mud.
That mighty Cossack of the Don was dead with all his race....
And now I saw him coming on, dire vengeance in his face.
(Or was it some fantastic dream of my besotted brain?)
He looked at me with eyes a-gleam, the man whom I had slain.
He looked and bade me follow him; I could not help but go;
I joined the throng that passed along, so sorrowful and slow.
I followed with a sense of doom that shadow gaunt and grim;
Into the bowels of the Tomb I followed, followed him.

The light within was weird and dim, and icy cold the air;
My brow was wet with bitter sweat, I stumbled on the stair.
I tried to cry; my throat was dry; I sought to grip his arm;
For well I knew this man I slew was there to do us harm.
Lo! he was walking by my side, his fingers clutched my own,
This man I knew so well had died, his hand was naked bone.
His face was like a skull, his eyes were caverns of decay . . .
And so we came to the crystal frame where lonely Lenin lay.

Without a sound we shuffled round> I sought to make a sign,
But like a vice his hand of ice was biting into mine.
With leaden pace around the place where Lenin lies at rest,
We slouched, I saw his bony claw go fumbling to his breast.
With ghastly grin he groped within, and tore his robe apart,
And from the hollow of his ribs he drew his blackened heart. . . .
Ah no! Oh God! A bomb, a BOMB! And as I shrieked with dread,
With fiendish cry he raised it high, and . . . swung at Lenin's head.
Oh I was blinded by the flash and deafened by the roar,
And in a mess of bloody mash I wallowed on the floor.
Then Alps of darkness on me fell, and when I saw again
The leprous light 'twas in a cell, and I was racked with pain;
And ringèd around by shapes of gloom, who hoped that I would die;
For of the crowd that crammed the Tomb the sole to live was I.
They told me I had dreamed a dream that must not be revealed,
But by their eyes of evil gleam I knew my doom was sealed.

I need not tell how from my cell in Lubianka gaol,
I broke away, but listen, here's the point of all my tale. . . .
Outside the "Gay Pay Oo" none knew of that grim scene of gore;
They closed the Tomb, and then they threw it open as before.
And there was Lenin, stiff and still, a symbol and a sign,
And rancid races come to thrill and wonder at his Shrine;
And hold the thought: if Lenin rot the Soviets will decay;
And there he sleeps and calm he keeps his watch and ward for aye.
Yet if you pass that frame of glass, peer closely at his phiz,
So stern and firm it mocks the worm, it looks like wax . . . and is.
They tell you he's a mummy - don't you make that bright mistake:
I tell you - he's a dummy; aye, a fiction and a fake.
This eye beheld the bloody bomb that bashed him on the bean.
I heard the crash, I saw the flash, yet . . . there he lies serene.
And by the roar that rocked the Tomb I ask: how could that be?
But if you doubt that deed of doom, just go yourself and see.
You think I'm mad, or drunk, or both . . . Well, I don't care a damn:
I tell you this: their Lenin is a waxen, show-case SHAM.

 Such was the yarn he handed me,
 Down there in Casey's Bar,
 That Rooshun bug with the scrambled mug
 From the land of the Commissar.
 It may be true, I leave it you
 To figger out how far.
    michaelmccurry
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  • An Encounter With a Lawnmower Thief

    You can probably rate a town’s crime by what people steal. I got by in Trinidad, Colorado without encountering thieves for my first two years – and then came the third. I was teaching a Saturday class called computerized farm and ranch management, off campus, at Branson, Colorado. Branson is the southernmost town in Colorado, on the Goodnight Loving Trail, and is basically cattle country – the descriptive phrase was “good country for men and cattle, hell on women and horses.”

    In the middle of the afternoon, the school’s office phone rang – it was Renata calling to tell me that our lawnmower had been stolen. I was an hour away from from Trinidad, so the only choice was to finish teaching the class, pack my 5 apple //e computers up in the school’s Chevette, take them to campus, unload everything, and get home for a late dinner.

    So I’ve just got home, and have sat down, cracked a can of Colorado kool-aid, pulled my boots off, when Renata yelled “They’re back and they’re taking the rototiller. Since she had added chains and padlocks to the gates, the thieves were slowed, and had to carry the rear-tined tiller along the side of the house. Barefoot, I headed out the front, and yelled “Stop thieves.” That order may work for someone like Batman, but both of my thieves dropped the tiller and fled. A jump from the front porch put gravity on my side, and I grabbed the slower thief by his T-shirt, rabbit punched him as he tried to put on more speed, and broke my right wrist. Fortunately, the thief was out cold, so I put a couple twists on the T-shirt, got a left-handed death grip on his T-shirt and belt, and instructed Renata to call the police. Then I told her to take my Python back inside, explaining that Colorado law didn’t allow you to shoot in defense of property. (I really didn’t want my Colt impounded.) As she left, a car stopped for the thief and me (we took up his lane) – the driver asked “What’s going on?” and received two replies – mine was “I’ve caught a thief.” The thief’s was, “This gringo is beating me up.” The driver asked a second question, “Which one of you is telling the truth?” I replied “We both are.” and he asked if I needed any help. About that time, Renata returned, she had made the call and brought along a shovel.

    Hearing that the police were coming, my helper asked if, since I had my wife there to help, would I mind if he left before the police arrived. It seemed impolite to force a man who was willing to help beat on a thief to wait for a meeting with the police – it was obviously something he didn’t want – so I agreed we could handle it without him, while Renata kept the shovel jiggling in front of the thief’s face, and asking, “Where is my lawnmower?” It was a cultural moment – the mower thief, quiet to my questions, was now facing a shovel in the hands of an enraged woman. He sang like a canary. Culture, I tell you. I remember a woman charged with knifing an abusive boyfriend: “No sir, I did not stab him. I held the knife to protect myself and he walked into it.” “He walked into it three times?” “Si. Three times he walked into it.” My thief wasn’t nearly as afraid of me as he was Renata.

    When the police car showed up, the thief was joyful – he knew that Trinidad’s jail was safer than staying near the gringa loca with the shovel. The police officer had been part of a class I taught on computers for cops, so we knew each other. He identified Cortez, cuffed him, and put him in the back of the cruiser, and I promised to show up downtown to give a statement. He wasn’t so pleased with me when we spoke later at the police station – our boy had a .25 automatic in his pocket – “What would you have done if he shot you with it?” I answered “Probably killed him.” Just because a guy is enough ahead of the curve to teach computer applications to police doesn’t mean he knows enough to pat down a prisoner.

    So we kept our rototiller, but never did get the lawnmower back – it was recovered in a town a couple hundred miles away – had been sold in a bar for $20. By the time it was recovered, we were back in Montana – and a 2000 mile round trip was more expensive than a replacement lawnmower.

    michaelmccurry

  • County Property Taxes

    It’s time to update the annual county taxation article.  From a secessionist point of view, with three high school districts, it’s easy to figure out which communities provide the funds that keep our county going.

    Market Value Taxable Value Percentage

    Libby $2,126,453,001 $18,524,862 36.3%

    Troy $1,099,398,488   $  9,565,190 18.8%

    LCHS $2,630,229,684 $25,045,480 44.9%

    Total $5,856,081,173  $53,135,632 100%

    Data taken from Montana Certified Values 

    Market value has increased dramatically, taxable value has gone down.  Troy’s taxable value percentage has increased by 0.4%, while both Libby and North County have slightly decreased. While the reduction in taxable value looks nice, it is an easy number for them to change.

    The Census offered these population estimates from the American Community Survey in 2024 (the ACS is not an enumerated census and its accuracy suffers in small communities)

    Zip CodePopulationCity
    599239,545Libby
    599175,001Eureka
    599353,505Troy
    59934763Trego
    59930697Rexford
    59918625Fortine
    5993321Stryker

    Since Eureka, Trego, Rexford, Fortine, and Stryker are all in High School District 13, the relative populations calculate:

    Population Percent Population Tax Base

    Libby 9,545 (47%) 36.3%

    Troy 3,505 (17%) 18.8%

    LCHS 7,107  (35%) 44.9%

    The tax numbers are both precise and accurate – the source is listed should you want to check.  I am not satisfied with the quality of the American Community Survey data, but it is the Best Available Data.  It is probably coincidental that the abbreviation for best available data is BAD.

    Sam

  • A Big Loss in 2025

    Looking at the end of the year, the biggest loss was John Mee. If you didn’t know Big John, you have my sympathy.  He was one of those rare people whom it was always a pleasure to know.  In the past several years, less than stellar health has confined me more to home, so I hadn’t seen him recently – and I will not see him again.  And that is not just a loss to me, but to all of our community.

    So be it.  Big John was always bigger than life, not just in size, but in personality and character.  Let me write some of my memories – if you knew John, you may enjoy the snapshots of his character.  If you didn’t know him, you may get a glimpse of the man and of a boy that it was a privilege to know.

    One memory is of a time when 4-H was helping set things up for a LEC annual meeting.  I was still in high school, so John was ten or less.  I’d been given the task of organizing kids to handle the lunch tables – so I dropped the task of setting up the dessert table (all the pies and cakes) onto Big John.   If I was 15, John may have been 9 or 10.  He had the size to handle the task, and, more important, took his work seriously.  An adult 4-H parent (from a community other than Trego) appointed herself to correct Big John, yelling and confronting him about being too young for an important job like handling cakes.

    He took it well – far better than I.  My response was to explain that she needed a better view of reality, and might get it if she would only remove her head from her fundamental orifice.  She left John alone, and went off to complain to my parents.  So be it – both John and I liked cakes and pies, and he handled his task competently.  On the other hand, I left with the suggestion that I might learn to be a bit more tactful.

    Big John had challenges reading – he was a victim of our education system.  Figure it was 1966 – Trego had a challenge hiring teachers, and Wilda B. Totten, the County Superintendent, passed on the names of a young married couple.  Oklahomans, I believe.  Long story short, they were hired before their transcripts arrived, and I remember Dad’s comment: “They didn’t even attend college long enough to flunk out.”  Somehow, in the rushed schedule to get school going for a massive increase in students, they had hired a pair of non-readers to teach.  To be fair, it was an easy mistake to make, and they left shortly thereafter. I think this story comes from the last conversation John and I had, with him reminding me of the importance of good teachers.

    Big John liked lever action rifles – one of my treasured memories is watching the lengthy transactions – it wasn’t really haggling – between Big John and Dad about one Winchester lever gun or another.  Or a Marlin.  It wasn’t a commercial transaction – it was a friendly visit, over a topic that the two enjoyed.  I recall catching guff from Dad for no greater misconduct than selling a rifle ‘before Big John had a chance to even see it.”  Selling it at a good profit wasn’t the point of business – the sale, the negotiations that could go on for most of a week was.  Lever action – his father’s bolt action Swedish rifle was just a bit too modern.  The gas-operated semi-automatics I used after a shoulder injury just never held the appeal of the old lever guns – and that was in the 20th century.

    I don’t know if Big John ever had a drivers license – he told me he didn’t.  I always suspected it came from the poor instruction at school during those early tunnel years.  He explained that he had to be more law-abiding on the road than I did because of the lack – and I’m sure he was.

    I remember John’s comment a few years back – that the best paid years of his life were in the seventies.  I suspect the seventies ran from 75 to 85 for Big John – but it was a time when a strong man with a chainsaw could make a good living in the woods.  I guess, in a way, Big John was born 30 years too late – but if he hadn’t been, a lot of us would have never known him.

    So my farewell to a man whose life often brushed against mine.  My condolences to Sylvia, and to all he left behind.  There are more stories I could tell, memories I will revisit – but we shall not know his like again – a friend, a good man, larger than life in stature, personality and character, born into a time where he almost, but never quite, fit.  A heart attack somehow seems appropriate – no heart could ever be strong enough to last the man I knew.  I think that losing John was the biggest loss to my community in 2025.

    Sam