Trego's Mountain Ear

"Serving North Lincoln County"

Tag: family

  • You Have To Beat Darwin Every Day

    There are Darwin Awards out there – and you have to win every time you’re in a spot to get a Darwin. (The Darwin awards are in recognition of removing oneself from the gene pool by one’s own foolish actions) Darwin, like Malthus, only needs to be right once. Winning means not getting a Darwin award.

    It’s why stupidity, according to Heinlein, is a capital offense. Martin Luther King said “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Jennifer Lee Carrol described it: “Stupidity makes you dangerous to yourself and everyone around you.”

    Perhaps John Farnam’s rule of stupid is what we most need: “Don’t go to stupid places; don’t associate with stupid people; don’t do stupid things.” In Minneapolis, we saw Farnam’s rule violated – and then, seeing the results were not what they wanted, the folks against deporting illegals doubled down, even more came out of the woodwork, with a story that denied Good’s contribution to her death. Then ICE doubled down and sent in another thousand agents.

    Some of our mojados survived the trip through the Darien Gap, the rest of central America, Mexico and across the Rio Grande – others died on the way. I think of Gonzalo’s mother – a pregnant teen, sixty years ago, going north from Yucatan so her baby would be born in the US and Gonzalo would have opportunities that she didn’t. She took the risks knowingly, won her gamble, and was promptly deported back to Mexico, with newborn US citizen Gonzalo. That was a different, calculated decision.

    In the woods, don’t hang out under widowmakers. I have one here on the place, that my father pointed out to avoid over sixty years ago. I’m looking forward to sharing it with my grandsons – let’s see how many generations can share that hazard. There’s a reason to wear a brainbucket when you’re using a chainsaw.

    Hanging out with stupid people can be hazardous – the type of friend that says or does exactly the wrong thing and gets the entire bar PO’d at two or three people. Come to think of it, part of that may include going to stupid places and doing stupid things. Right now, the news kind of focuses me on Minnesota and ICE – but there are a lot of other opportunities to go to stupid places and do stupid things with stupid people. The point is to avoid them – and at 76, I’ve probably been lucky more than skillful. Not having a Darwin Award for the wall is a good thing.

  • 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.

  • I Wish I Could Get Dad’s Opinion on Mark Kelly

    For folks who don’t know, Dad retired from the Navy as a CWO4 – Chief Warrant Officer. Most of his neighbors here didn’t really understand what a warrant officer was, and he didn’t make it easier for the questioners when he would explain “Jesus Christ was a Carpenter’s Mate.” Folks who had served around warrant officers understood and accepted the comparison. At the time he retired, CWO4 was the top warrant officer. Dad and Ed Ruhl both retired as CWO4 – Ruhl was Marine Corps and had one day of seniority on Dad.

    One of our conversations touched on the conditions of his retirement – that he could be called back in the Navy needed his skills, or if he violated civil law or UCMJ to embarrass the Navy. The conversation was a long time ago, and kind of in passing – perhaps driving down the road. Mark Kelly wouldn’t be in the crosshairs of an investigation had he been in the passenger seat paying attention to the old boatswain.

    Instead of having a deck division to supervise, Kelly had an airplane to fly, then went on to become an astronaut. I wish I had Dad to comment on Kelly’s situation – not for an analysis of whether Kelly did right or wrong – I’m sure Dad would have looked at his video appearance as foolish at the least. I’d like to hear Dad’s analysis of how a Navy officer could retire as Captain – with the bird on his shoulders – and still either not be aware of the circumstances governing his retirement, or somehow figure that the rules just don’t apply to him. Somehow, the CWO4 knew the situation when he retired, and the Captain did not. There are a lot of times when I still wish I could telephone Dad and get something he said years ago clarified. Most times it isn’t something on the national news that makes me feel that way.

  • Actuarial Thoughts on Turning 76

    As the 75th year moves to the 76th, there are some actuarial thoughts that come to mind. Table 10 (Social Security Administration) gave me a life expectancy of 65 years and 3 months at birth – obviously, since 52% of my age cohort is still on the grass side (as opposed to the root side) we’ve made some long strides in medicine, health and life expectancy. It’s not until the 80th birthday that 50.7% of us will be gone.

    That translates to a calculated mean life expectancy of 11.29 more years at my next birthday. On the other hand, if I’m still kicking for that 87th birthday, the table shows another 5.6 years – and nearly 30% of the original birth cohort will be there for the 87th birthday.

    I suppose that living is kind of one of those habitual things. I can’t help feeling fortunate for the many advances that have occurred in my lifetime. So what do I plan to do with those next ten years? When I lived past the June, 2012 expiration date my oncologist gave me, I came to the conclusion that my best purpose was to look out for wife and daughter. It’s been a good purpose – but the next ten years are for my grandkids. I want to teach the little ones to sail – and I think I can do that on the pond, by combining a small lateen sail with a slow hull. I want to teach them marksmanship – and I will probably start with airguns and little steel chickens, pigs, turkeys and rams. If the health holds out, we’ll combine forest management with entrepreneurial attitudes as we continue thinning the woods. I may not ride a bicycle to their house – but I am sure that they will ride bikes to mine. Bicycles are a good place to develop mechanical skills – and seven speeds seem like plenty to me. There is a chance that we can rebuild the fences, and get a few Guernsey or Jersey cows. Remi already has his two little goats – and one watches his little crawling brother through the window. By the time a kid is ten, leading and brushing a dairy heifer is a reasonable task. At ten, a kid can learn the mechanics of a single or double barrel break in the middle gun. And, with any luck, I will be able to share the joy that can be found in mathematics, in reading, design and research. It is enough. Not everyone has a 76th birthday with so bright a future.

  • Veteran Confusion

    So I get an email that tells me that Veteran’s Day sales have been extended. I’m not a veteran – I had to damn near beg the physician to get a 1Y deferment instead of a 4F. Really don’t know why it was important to me, but I suspect it was my mother’s tone of voice when she talked about 4F’s. Anyway, South Dakota has some very active Veterans coordinators in each county, and, so near as I can tell, the one in my county learned the clearance I had – since I had access to air photos that showed locations of missile silos as well as agriculture, and wanted to recruit me as a veteran. I’m not real sure of his motivation, and he was disappointed to learn I wasn’t eligible for his services. Somehow, I didn’t disappear off his list, and the American Legion offered membership. Again, I gave a polite thanks and explained that I didn’t qualify. And that ended the folks who were mistaking me for a veteran.

    Until I wore an old T-shirt Dad had given me from the Kenneth Whiting’s 50th anniversary. The shirt was probably 20 years old, and I wore it into Great Clips. The hair stylist looked at me, looked at the shirt, and long story made short, I walked out with a high and tight haircut and a veteran’s discount. The next stop was Cabela’s – where the T-shirt and the haircut got an unsolicited 5% discount on a couple boxes of ammunition. Didn’t notice until I got home and looked at the receipt. Then Lowes, and a 10% discount. I now only wear the shirt around Trego. It’s too easy to be the accidental stolen valor kid. The closest I came to actual service was accompanying a National Guard officer to South America when I was an adjunct professor for the Navy grad school – I’m pretty sure academic rank doesn’t count – though Dad was pleased that I somehow got into his Navy.

  • The Lady in the Latrine

    In telling this story, I have to go back about 40 years, to my first time teaching college. Somehow, Colorado had gotten off on the idea of workfare – that people physically capable of work should have a job to qualify for welfare benefits.

    The science building had a janitor – nice guy, worked a 4 to midnight shift, which meant that he had the time to clean the classrooms, labs and offices when they were empty. The building, built back in the sixties, had the janitor’s workspace located in the men’s room. I was a bit surprised at about 3:00 pm one afternoon, I headed for the head, and was greeted by a woman about my age and her 10-year-old daughter as I walked into the room. She explained she was there to help our janitor, I agreed that was nice – and then I walked down the hill to the restroom in the admin building. There was no point in warning my colleagues by sharing the story – they would have laughed at me.

    Turned out, I should have said something. I was one of the younger faculty – I didn’t think much of an 80 yard walk, outside, to find a facility that didn’t have a pre-teen girl and her mother as observers. And, having moved to southern Colorado from northern Montana, there weren’t many afternoons when the trip required a coat. But a lot of my colleagues were in their sixties. Now I recognize the difference. Then I didn’t. When the college president realized the hardship on our old biology instructor – past 70 and with prostate problems calling for a lot of trips – well, our little school went out of being a site for the workfare program.

    It probably seemed like a good idea – but reality has a way of showing the problems that come with good ideas. Single parents and the janitorial space located in the men’s room created a situation where working for the welfare benefits cost the school more in (male) faculty time than the help cleaning the building was worth. And unpaid labor didn’t leave her many options for childcare.