Trego's Mountain Ear

"Serving North Lincoln County"

Tag: life

  • You Haven’t Met All The People . . .

    One morning I saw a meme – maybe an unattributed quote: “You still haven’t met all the people you’re going to regret ever meeting.” I’d been ill with chest congestion for several weeks, so on that hand it was an upbeat message. On the the other hand, it’s a depressing description of the world as it is. On the third hand, I may well be one of the people folks regret ever meeting.

    So I got to thinking – and the people I remember have all enriched my life in some manner. The narcissist, whose rage provided the motivation to study up on narcissism, taught me to look beyond the presentation of self. It’s a wonderful gift, to see others more as they are, and go past the disguises that cover up the problem. Some people really do have value as bad examples.

    Others add amusement to life just by being there – I recall one character on one of the main drags of Missoula, as I walked from the motel to a restaurant for breakfast. As he stood in front of me, and whipped his overcoat open, I had time to think, “I surely don’t need a flasher this morning.” I was wrong – the lining of his coat was covered with bible verses that he used in his missionar2y work of bothering people before breakfast.

    In South Dakota, we had biennial visits from Wisconsin Jehovah Witnesses – nice people on a mission to spread their gospel in an area they believed was devoid of their reality. They’d stop by for 15 or 20 minutes, every other year, with no real expectation of making converts. I liked them. Missionaries that stop by for 15 minutes every other year are very tolerable people. More frequent encounters may lead to becoming people you regret meeting.

    The one man I quickly regretted meeting was the county cop who busted me for speeding through Ashland on my next to last trip moving back home to Montana, He did make a point of cheerfully welcoming me back home – but he did it with a forty-dollar bond I forfeit for the crime. Never saw him again, but I was still out forty bucks.

    In general, karma tends to reach a balance – and that’s enough for the people I regret meeting.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.