Trego's Mountain Ear

"Serving North Lincoln County"

Category: Community

  • 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.

  • Thinking of Clovis

    For years, archaeologists had a simple saying in North America – “Don’t dig below Clovis.” The Clovis points were assumed to be the oldest technology that showed up in New World archaeology. More recently sites have been cropping up that are older than Clovis.

    I was lucky when I taught at TSJC – the school once had a museum program, and the museum and as I looked it over, I realized how close the Folsom site was to Trinidad, Colorado. We had loads of artifacts that I could use to teach “Indians of the Southwest.” Even a bit of Clovis stuff – though Clovis was more distant. It was a great place to see the real stuff that, as a student at MSU, I had seen only in books. The Folsom site – where prehistoric hunters harvested mastodons – is essentially part of the Goodnight-Loving Trail. An area where cattle drives could occur in the old west (In Lonesome Dove, Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call were modeled after Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving). A good trail is a good trail – whether you use it for cattle or mastodons.

    I just can’t picture folks cautioning aspiring archaeologists with “Don’t dig below Riley’s Switch.” And Clovis was the town’s second name – it really did start as a railroad stop named Riley’s Switch. Since those early classes, archaeologists have found more and more evidence that people were on the American Continent before the Clovis culture. Monte Verde, in Chile, was being excavated as I finished college – and, since the artifacts found at Monte Verde were in peat, wooden items survived for radiocarbon dating. And, if there were people in Chile that early, the land bridge at Beringia may not have been the only path into the Americas.

  • I Started The Year With Optional Surgery

    At 7:00 am, January 2, I was on my way for surgery to correct an inguinal hernia. I had the options of wait and watch or get it fixed. I couldn’t find any record of hernias healing themselves, and getting it fixed required one morning for surgery and six weeks without lifting more than 20 pounds – which a kindly nurse assured me was like a gallon of milk.

    I figured the surgery wouldn’t be easier if I aged and the hernia got bigger – the only real win for waiting and watching is if I were to die before I needed surgery. I made my bet on living – after Valentine’s day I’ll be back running the sawmill and working on remodeling the Service Station. The remodeling goes on hold until I can lift again – but January and February are months of short days. Surgery near the solstice has it’s own logic.

    They told me to show up in loose clothes – so I showed up in my fat man jeans – 36 waist with suspenders to keep ’em up instead of a belt snugged tight on the 34 denims. Roads were a bit dicey going in – not particularly slick, but ruts in the snow/slush. Still, a whole lot better going in than going home – the medical establishment has this belief that I’m better off with my wife driving for the first 24 hours after surgery, while the narcotics wear off. It’s possible that they’re right. Either way, I’m home and starting my restful recuperation. Hopefully, I have the year’s surgical visits completed.

    All told, I’m a great believer in the American medical experience. I admit that the final experience is likely to be disappointing – but so far the folks who wear the caduceus have been very good to me.

  • We Still Have The Basic Rule

    Way back when I started driving, I listened to folks tell me that Montana had no speed limit. I eventually learned to just shut up and let them prattle. I knew Montana’s Basic Rule – and despite the fact that we now have speed limit signs, that rule is still enshrined in our traffic codes.

    The basic rule, outlined in Montana Code Annotated 61-8-303, requires drivers to travel at a speed that is reasonable and prudent under existing conditions, considering factors like weather, visibility, traffic, and road conditions. Drivers can be cited for speeding even if they are below the posted limit if their speed is unsafe for the circumstances. https://legalclarity.org/montana-speeding-violations-laws-penalties-and-defenses/

    It’s a good rule for writing tickets – if you leave the road, or hit another vehicle because it’s slick out, the cop can write ‘Basic Rule’ and you don’t have any argument to take into the JP’s court. Back in the old days, Montana’s speed limit was ‘reasonable and prudent’. I guess it still is, really – the posted limits just provide caps under good conditions.

    I got a basic rule ticket years ago for my first really impressive car wreck. After I got in good enough shape to realize the A-frame had let go, I thought about arguing the ticket – but I realized that improper maintenance of a motor vehicle cost the same. Basic Rule is like Heller’s Catch 22 – it’s one heck of a rule that we still have in Montana.

    I read of an accident a few miles up the creek – first on Facebook, then in the TVNews. It was an obvious spot to write a ticket for Basic Rule – when it’s really slick out, the Basic Rule violation occurs as you drive onto the highway. I recall driving back from Spokane, before Highway 37 was completed. There was an Idaho state trooper stopping traffic at the state line, and he accepted my argument – “I have studded tires and four wheel drive. I can handle it.” It took 13 hours to make it back to Trego – and that confident, erroneous phrase came back several times each hour. I think I violated the Basic Rule for 130 miles and half a day.

  • Not Made in This Millennium

    I have the habit of looking for low mileage older cars. That’s why my two main rigs weren’t made in the 21st century. The Talon is a 1995 with 65K miles on the odometer. The Suzuki Vitara is a 1999, that has just rolled past 90K. My last trip out with it, in the darkness before 8:00 am, and with bright lights close behind me, I clipped a deer’s right hind leg – cracked the edge of the plastic grill and left a small dent in the right fender. I don’t enjoy denting my cars – particularly when lights from the rear, close to my bumper, are a fellow driver’s way of saying I should speed up in deer country.

    My wife drives the “new” car – it’s a 2009 Chrysler PT Dream Cruiser – built in this century. It has a device to tell when the air pressure in a tire gets low. It reported a lot of low tire pressure – I had to inflate the tires to 40 psi to turn the light off. Then I started researching. For the car to monitor tire pressure, it takes a small battery operated device in each tire. After 16 years the batteries probably are a bit tired. I can get new sending units, with new batteries through Amazon for $16 each. I suspect that to make things work right I probably need four for the summer tires and four more for the winter tires. That’s $128 plus the cost of taking each tire off the rim. For years I’ve made do with a tire pressure gauge. I’m still making do with a tire pressure gauge, but I have an annoying light on the dash – not to mention tires that were ran overinflated until I figured out that it’s another spot where modern technology and I aren’t particularly compatible.

    It got me to realizing – I drive cars that were built in the previous millennium. Not just the previous century, but the previous millennium is just as accurate, and shows that I am definitely driving old cars. The state of Montana thinks that because of my advanced age they only need to give me a drivers license that’s good for four years at a time. The bastards may be correct.

  • What Ph.D. Means

    I can, and occasionally do, put the letters Ph.D. behind my name. I know what the letters signify – and I just saw a commentary that Canada and Mexico have both elected leaders with Ph.D. behind their names, while the US has Trump.

    So let’s look at what the letters Ph.D. actually imply – that I have done original research in a satisfactory manner while supervised by a Ph.D. holding faculty member. That’s all the title actually tells of what I, or anyone else who holds the Ph.D. has accomplished. I take some quiet pride in the fact that current researchers are still citing my dissertation – but that isn’t a necessary part of getting the letters behind your name. And, despite the fact I feel good about those citations, there aren’t nearly so many people citing the dissertation as read this blog. Most dissertations are filed away and never cited.

    Einstein’s dissertation was “A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions.” In his thesis, he developed a methodology for calculating Avogadro’s number from the Brownian motion in sugar water. It was original research – which means that nobody had done it before. It was good quality research. But when we associate Einstein with research, we tend to recall his later research – the spot where he quantified Energy as equal to mass times the square of light speed. The point being, we don’t recall Einstein because of his first piece of original research.

    Generally speaking, whenever someone tells you “If you want to know about X you should read my dissertation.” you probably don’t want to read it. The document represents several years work, and we tend to think of our dissertations as important – but most are not.

    Research for a Master’s degree doesn’t need to be original. It doesn’t even need to be done – a Master’s can be awarded just for coursework. If there’s no thesis, the degree is called a terminal masters, not qualifying for admission into a Ph.D. program. (My M.Ed. was a non-thesis masters, so I had to research and write a separate thesis to make up for the lack of a thesis.)

    Jill Biden’s Ed.D. thesis is available online (all 137 pages) at https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20407101-jill-jacobsbiden_dissertation/ and can be downloaded without cost – the title is Student Retention at the Community College: Meeting Students’ Needs. It is nice to have this available to help people understand what can go into a doctorate.

    We (the United States) elected a guy with a Ph.D. to the office of President once – well, actually twice, over a century ago. Woodrow Wilson, Ph.D. Once he was elected, he segregated the federal work force. I don’t have any evidence that he belonged to the KKK – but they missed a great prospect if they didn’t recruit him. His dissertation – from back in 1885 – it titled “Congressional Government” and describes the government of the United States. There is nothing in Woodrow Wilson’s dissertation that you can’t get out of a high school government text.