Author: michaelmccurryphd

I didn’t see Thunderbolt and Lightfoot when it first came out – and later I spent several years working along the highline where it was filmed.  It showed up on youtube – free to view if you’re willing to put up with ads – and, with the familiarity with the area, and the fact that I was in my early 20’s when it was filmed, I enjoyed a Clint Eastwood movie that I hadn’t seen.

The movie starts with Clint preaching a sermon – only to be interrupted by a guy trying to shoot him with a broomhandle Mauser.

Dad had told a story about pre-revolution Chinese officials shooting out his tires with Brooms in China before I was born – I’m not sure the Marine sergeant that pulled him out of the jam wasn’t the source of my name “Michael.”  So it starts with a church I’ve seen, and Eastwood under fire from a gun I enjoyed rebuilding in the late eighties – until Bill Clinton froze my source of Chinese Broomhandles.  If I’m remembering correctly, the old church in Hobson was taken down in the eighties, and moved (either in part or total) to Troy – but memory is a fickle thing.

The cars – first Thunderbolt and Lightfoot liberate a 72 Buick Riviera.  Dad had one – the same tan color (the one pictured looks a lot nicer).  The guy who was trying to shoot Eastwood with the broomhandle was driving a 51 Mercury club coupe – in high school and college, I drove a 50.  Gerald Johnson gave me a transmission from his 51 when that engine blew.  I’d never realized that my car choices were so close to Eastwood’s.

While I was working in Chinook, I met a deputy whose Model 29 Smith had Eastwood’s autograph on the butt.  Not a bad thing, but he had added a bunch of clear sealant to protect the autograph, and couldn’t get the grips off when the bloody thing went out of time.  A Clint Eastwood autograph undoubtedly has value – but I really like having a firm belief that my revolver will be in time, and go bang, when I squeeze the trigger.

Then there was the gun that gave Clint’s character the name “Thunderbolt”.  So help me, a 20 mm Oerlikon.  The most produced anti aircraft cannon of World War II.  Responsible for almost half the Japanese aircraft shot down during the war.  Dad’s comment was that he got nervous when the 20 millimeters opened fire – those Japanese planes were too close to his ship.  Still, the Oerlikon was the late war Kamikaze killer.

Clint was using the Oerlikon to create an opening in the bank vault.  Now the Oerlikon is the only cannon I know of that fires from blowback – like a 22.  Like a Hi-Point.  I’m kind of accustomed to some sort of locked breech even in pistol calibers – but the Oerlikon firing pin hits the primer before that 50 pound breechblock even closes.  I mean, yes, it was the most common cannon in the US Fleet – but a 20 mm cannon just seems a little too much for blowback.

I’m pretty sure the schoolhouse where the loot was hidden is alongside the highway by Saco.  If you drive by on highway 2, look for it.  I liked the scenes in Fort Benton – the trees have grown since 1972, but it’s still identifiable.  Great Falls, over 50 years, has seen a lot of rebuilding.  Still, if you have spent time in central Montana and along the High Line, I hope you can enjoy the old movie as much as I.  I do wish that I had been able to watch it with Dad – and put the movie on pause to talk about everything we would have recognized.

It’s reached a point where 9mm ammunition is the cheapest centerfire cartridge available.  When I was younger, that title belonged to 38 Specials – but somewhere along the years, it moved to the old 9mm parabellum.  Back in the revolver day, it made sense (at least to me) to have a revolver and a lever action carbine in 357 magnum – where I could feed either with 38 specials or 357 magnums.  Now, as revolvers have given way to semiautomatic pistols, the default option is 9mm.

The chart shows the power advantage that a carbine has over a pistol – and the carbine makes hitting the target a bit easier.  The next chart  shows the differences between velocity based on barrel length for the 357 magnum. 

Since velocity correlates with power when the same bullet weights are used, that 16 inch barrel offers about 17% more energy than the 6-inch barrel on my revolver.  Going back to the 9mm, the carbine bounces the power up by about 46% over the pistol (and it’s worth mentioning that my 9mm pistol barrel isn’t quite 4 inches long).

A century and a half ago, the combination was in 44-40 – the Colt Frontier revolver and the Winchester model 1873.  That carbine showed the same 17% advantage as the 357 magnum charts – the bottom line is that the longer barrel offers more power and is easier to hit with.  The combination in the same caliber meant that the same box of ammunition could feed both rifle and revolver.

Occasionally, someone asks about the best pistol cartridge for bear country.  I’ve never had to deal with a bear attack.  I have had a fistfull of 22, of 38, of 357, and of 45 when I’ve been fairly close to a large grizzly – if you go back and click the link, you will quickly see that no handgun fills me with absolute confidence.  Despite that, it is easy to remember that Bella Twin used a single-shot 22 rifle, with 22 long (not even long rifle) cartridges to take the world record 1953 grizzly in Alberta.  This photo shows Bella Twin’s bear rifle:

Robert Ruark wrote the book Use Enough Gun.   The chart below suggest that a big part of using enough gun is having a long enough barrel.

At any rate, there is an argument to be made for pistol caliber carbines – whether in bear country or facing a paper target.  My own, from the pre-cataract surgery days, is a Hi-point 9mm with a simple red dot sight added.  It isn’t enough gun – but it beats praying.

My thoughts go back almost 35 years – to a time with a vertebrae smashed with a compression fracture, a brace that I wore constantly, and a 10 pound lifting limit. Fundamentally, the back part of the vertebrae had been converted to bone mush, and I was fortunate in having trained people calmly get me strapped to the backboard and hauled out.

After that, the medical part was just living in the brace, walking in my one pair of slip-on shoes, and doing nothing. As Fall moved into winter, I was visited by two old friends – Winton and Hallie Weydemeyer. I had known for years that Hallie was a Christian Scientist – but I had never expected to have Hallie show up to use the power of prayer to heal me.

With snow covering the ground, Renata abandoned me (after hiding my shoes) to Hallie’s prayers. Winton threw in a few (kind of like a relief pitcher) whenever Hallie would run down, and then she would return with new vigor to pray me better.

I don’t know whether the prayer was effective or not – the initial x-rays show a vertebrae that slopes down at about a 45 degree angle – not safe in any sort of a fall or strain. A future surgery to fuse things to better protect the spinal cord was a strong option. The post-prayer x-rays show a shorter vertebrae, still sloping, but at probably 5 or 6 degrees. It could be that the bone, turned into mush by the impact, just reformed as best it could as I spent the months of recovery in a brace, 24-7. It could be that Hallie and Winton got the divine intervention they requested.

And when people come to heal you with several hours of tag-team prayers, you really do have to be polite. After all, I don’t have any evidence that it hurts recovery.

I noticed this cartoon – and it holds a message that doesn’t come from the typical guidance counselor’s office:

It’s a slightly different way of displaying the bell curves that explain IQ (intelligence, the G factor)

The article describes parts of the author’s life after the brain injuries associated with multiple concussions – “Two standard deviations below the mean is considered to be low IQ or mentally handicapped. We accept that people with low IQ fall outside the norm and may need additional assistance to adapt and be successful in society. Sadly, the same compassion and understanding does not often exist for people more than two standard deviations above the mean.  The existence of only “positive” words to describe IQ on the high side is an example of that. A big difficulty for people with high IQs is that they are sorely in the minority.  Though there is a long tale to the bell curve it is a narrow one.  96% of all people fall within 30 points of the mean IQ of 100.”  Clicking the link takes you to her page, where she discusses her own experiences of high intelligence and traumatic brain injury.

“One of the biggest difficulties for Gifted/Brain Injured adults is that all of our life we have been able to rely on our ability to pick things up quickly, make the thought connections between disparate ideas, multitask, multi-think . . .  We relied on it even if we were unaware that we were doing so. Suddenly those abilities have been stripped from us.  That is huge. We are completely at a loss how to navigate life.  Even with a very mild TBI executive functions involving planning, multitasking, and sequencing are usually compromised.  Because the gifted tend to “coast” relying on the enhances abilities, this fall from grace is into an especially deep pit.”

Note the verbal, the grammatical  error in the statement, and how they support the situation she describes.  Her writings are worth the click and the time it takes to read them.

In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that the National Guard is controlled by the federal government and not an independent state militia.  It wasn’t a second amendment case – the governor of Minnesota was objecting to the Minnesota Guard being sent to Central America.

He lost at the Supreme Court –

“Held: Article I’s plain language, read as a whole, establishes that Congress may authorize members of the National Guard of the United States to be ordered to active federal duty for purposes of training outside the United States without either the consent of a state governor or the declaration of a national emergency. Pp. 496 U. S. 347-355.

(a) The unchallenged validity of the dual enlistment system means that Guard members lose their state status when called to active federal duty, and, if that duty is a training mission, the training is performed by the Army. During such periods, the second Militia Clause is no longer applicable. Pp. 496 U. S. 347-349.

(b) This view of the constitutional issue was presupposed by the Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U. S. 366, 245 U. S. 375, 245 U. S. 377, 245 U. S. 381-384, which held that the Militia Clauses do not constrain Congress’ Article I, § 8, powers to provide for the common defense, raise and support armies, make rules for the governance of the Armed Forces, and enact necessary and proper laws for such purposes, but in fact provide additional grants of power to Congress. Pp. 496 U. S. 349-351.

(c) This interpretation merely recognizes the supremacy of federal power in the military affairs area, and does not significantly affect either the State’s basic training responsibility or its ability to rely on its own Guard in state emergency situations. Pp. 496 U. S. 351-352.

(d) In light of the exclusivity of federal power over many aspects of military affairs, See Tarble’s Case, 13 Wall. 397, the powers allowed to the States by existing statutes are significant. Pp. 496 U. S. 353-354.

(e) Thus, the Montgomery Amendment is not inconsistent with the Militia Clauses. Since the original gubernatorial veto was not constitutionally compelled, its partial repeal by the Amendment is constitutionally valid. Pp. 496 U. S. 354-355.

880 F.2d 11 (CA 8 1989), affirmed.

STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

The second amendment says “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Perpich decision, ruling that “During such periods, the second Militia Clause is no longer applicable” plays hob with the argument that the second amendment exists to arm the National Guard.  It doesn’t make any difference that the guard is “well regulated” if it isn’t a militia.  I’ve spent a lot of my life around college campuses, and heard that argument many times – but I never took the time to find Perpich and read it.  I kind of wish I’d had it on hand when my Dean pushed that National Guard argument on me – but research too late doesn’t change decisions.

Trego has completed its school board elections – for the first time since 2007.  Sixteen years – a long time for a democratic institution to operate in the absence of voter input.  It isn’t a stretch to say that the people who make democracy work aren’t the people who win elections – democracy works at this basic level because of the people who lose elections.

I’ve been appointed to the board once – to fill a vacant position.  Appointed to the board, by the board.  After that, I was elected by acclamation.  That means I was the only person to apply for the position, and there was no election.  After all, there is no point in holding an election if there is just a single candidate.  The actual expense of the election at Trego was $3,315.19 (not including the time the school clerk spent setting it up).  For a change, for the first time in at least 16 years, the majority of our school trustees have been elected by the voters.

And the election occurred because there were enough candidates to have losers as well as winners.  Without losers, voting doesn’t occur, and the winners are elected by acclamation.  My term has 2 more years to run – and I hope that I am the last trustee elected by acclamation.

Only 15% of registered voters bothered to vote.  That seems like a small percentage – but without the candidates who chose to run, who lost the election, no voter input would have selected the trustees.  School trustees were the first ‘officials’ where elections were abandoned for ‘acclamation’.  It’s understandable – the position, when done correctly, is notably unrewarding.  Here, in Trego, in 1988, nepotism had reached a point where the County School Superintendent, Cindy Middig, was actively trying to correct it.

Cindy left office before her term was over, and the commissioners appointed Mary Hudspeth – about eight years later, I asked Mary why she didn’t do something about the nepotism at Trego.  The answer was simple – Trego’s clerk completed the year-end reports perfectly, and that made the nepotism tolerable.  Long story made short – for over 30 years, the county superintendent’s office ignored and enabled nepotism at Trego school.

So here’s to the folks who run for school boards and lose.  The winners – elected by ‘acclamation’ – may well attempt to do things properly . . . or at least the best they know how.  But without the people who are willing to run for office and lose the election, we lack actual public input, public decision making – hell, we lack any choice.  We need those losers to have legitimate election winners.

Of course, Trego’s past problems – and the record of 16 years between the most recent elections doesn’t argue strongly that competitive elections will continue – are not unique in Lincoln County.  The County had a single-party election in 2022.  Part of that was a single word in the election codes: may.  Had that word been exchanged for shall, the unelected county election administrator would not have had the power to guarantee single party dominance of Lincoln County’s political structure – subsection 7 would have been allowed to function.

The people who lose elections do as much or more to keep the democratic process functioning as the people who win.  In general, I don’t mark the ballot for an unopposed candidate – but that isn’t enough – if we don’t have enough candidates to make sure that every elected position is contested, we’re on the same path that Cindy Middig tried to correct in Trego back in 1988.  Democracy may well die in darkness – but elections by ‘acclamation’ and unopposed general elections probably qualify as darkness.

Thanks to our losing candidates.  In Trego, each performed a larger service by legitimizing the winning candidates.