Trego's Mountain Ear

"Serving North Lincoln County"

Tag: writing

  • Second-hand Information

    Most of my information, my knowledge, is second hand. I know Venezuela exists because I have been there – but my knowledge of Viet Nam comes from other people, their spoken stories and written ones. The world is too big to have a preponderance of experience.

    I’m looking at the photographs and videos posted on the internet about the flooding in south Lincoln County. My first-hand information is from floods down Libby way in the 70’s and 80’s when I worked for the Soil Conservation Service. My second-hand information is from people taking pictures with cell phones and drones yesterday and today. It’s a lot more relevant than my first-hand information. The change in technology though – that is impressive. I recall driving down to Libby with my 35mm camera, and vividly recall calling Oly Euland at the state, to fund a flight to get photos of the flood before it receded, the weather turned cold again, and snow covered all the damage.

    My first-hand knowledge won’t do anyone any good. Although there may be a chuckle at the expense of a landowner on Callahan Creek, who saw my government truck as I was photographing the flood, came up to me, said something nice about the government doing well to get there so quickly, then cursed me when I responded to his question of “You have a check for me, right?” with “No.” It was interesting to meet a man who went so quickly from compliments to curses.

    For the folks who are looking at Lincoln County being declared an emergency – up a Trego, we’re a little damp, but fine. Down Libby way, they’re at about 2,100 feet above sea level. Troy is about 1900 feet. We’re at 3,100 feet. The general rule is that you lose 5.2 degrees Fahrenheit for every 1000 feet of elevation increase. (That’s second-hand information, too – someone better than I did the calculations) Troy (well, actually where the Kootenai leaves Montana for Idaho) is the lowest point in Montana. That low elevation makes Libby and Troy very susceptible to flooding during winter thaws. On the other hand, there’s a big advantage in having Libby Dam, where the Corps of Engineers can crank the flow down and minimize the Kootenai’s impact on the flooding.

  • 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.

  • Glock Switches Change Faster Than Glocks

    Glock had some problems with anti-gun groups and the California legislature (I may be repeating myself there) because of a device known as the ‘Glock Switch.’ What it amounts to is a device that makes the Glock pistol go full auto – basically changing a semiautomatic pistol to a machine gun. Put simply, the device is illegal as all hell. It’s a combination of old gunsmithing skills and computer use to build interchangeable parts with a 3D printer. There is nothing particularly new about the idea – one of Dillinger’s guns, built by Hyman Lebman was a model 1911 converted to full auto – as this photo shows:

    I don’t believe I would enjoy shooting this – but at the time Lebman was building them (and converting Winchester 1907 rifles to machine guns) the National Firearms Act was still a gleam in some politician’s eye. Unlike Lebman’s San Antonio operation (1933), Glock switches are sold on the internet – my personal recommendation is don’t even think about buying one. Ethics aside, the fines and prison sentences are too large. Even if the switch is advertised at only $13.

    Anyway, with Everytown for Gun Bans and the California legislature closing in, Glock decided to redesign all of it’s handguns, and come out with a Glock V that wouldn’t take the switch. Intriguing enough, by the time the Glock V was moving in the supply chain, the new switch for the Glock was on the market.

    Like I said before – I’ve never fired a Glock. I’ve never converted a semiauto to full auto. I have repaired a few semiautomatics that, because of one worn or broken part or another had problems with multiple discharges. The problem is that it looks technically easy to convert many semiautomatics to full auto. I can’t say for sure – the only work I ever did was to make sure semiautomatics didn’t go full auto. But it looks easy enough to me. I suppose, if you gave me the task of building a semiautomatic that couldn’t be converted to a machinegun, I’d start by making it hammer fired and double action only. That way, you still might make it go full auto, but you’d have to spend big dollars changing a whole lot of parts.

  • Village Idiot or Village Midwit

    Time was when our phraseology suggests a belief in one idiot per village. Then came the internet and Facebook. The postings bring suggestions that we have more than one idiot per village. Fortunately, the internet is available, so we can hopefully download a measurable definition, and then use the old bell curve to find out if idiots are actually so common.

    So a search for ‘clinical definition idiot’ led me to this website: https://www.languagehumanities.org/what-is-the-difference-between-a-moron-imbecile-and-idiot.htm This is the fourth sentence (emphasis added):   “Those with an IQ of 0 to 25 (an IQ of 100 is average) were called idiots, 26 to 50 were called imbeciles and 51 to 70 were called morons. “

    That makes idiots pretty darned rare – the likelihood of encountering an idiot is the same as that of encountering someone with an IQ of 175 or more. Using a 15 point standard deviation, the chance of encountering an idiot is 0.0000287105%. ( https://iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx )

    So, taking the definition and the probability, it doesn’t look like idiots are something we encounter daily, or even monthly. We don’t have a great increase in village idiots. I think the problem has to be village midwits – so here’s what I get for a definition of midwit: “Noun. midwit (plural midwits) (neologism, chiefly Internet slang, mildly derogatory) A person of middling intellect; someone who is neither particularly dumb nor notably intelligent, especially if they act as if they are smarter than they are.” Again the emphasis is added. I think the problem is that we have a lot more people who “act as if they are smarter than they are.“

    So I assume midwittery begins with an IQ of 108 (half a standard deviation above the norm) the chart tells me that 30% of the population will score above 108. If I arbitrarily put the cap on at 115, I have a group that includes 14% of humanity – and that’s basically one out of every 7 people I encounter.

    I don’t believe we have more village idiots than ever before – but we do have more opportunities for education. According to the Census:

    “In 2022, the highest level of education of the population age 25 and older in the United States ranged from less than high school to advanced degrees beyond a bachelor’s degree.

    9% had less than a high school diploma or equivalent.

    28% had high school as their highest level of school completed. 

    15% had completed some college but not a degree.

    10% had an associate degree as their highest level of school completed.

    23% had a bachelor’s degree as their highest degree.

    14% had completed advanced education such as a master’s degree, professional degree or doctorate. 

    When we add those numbers – 15, 10, 23 and 14 – we come up with a total between 62 and 63% of Americans (over 25) who have attended college. That’s five out of every eight people.

    When 5/8ths of the adult population has attended college – and 47% hold one level of college degree or another – perhaps there is nothing particularly elite about attending college. Sometimes we’re just one more village midwit. I’m not certain that village idiots aren’t less harmful than village midwits.

  • The Old Man and The Boy

    I’ve been reading the collection of essays that compose Robert Ruark’s book The Old Man and the Boy. The tales are from a century past – but Ruark makes a case that having the old man around is good for the boy. I recall my own grandfather, who died when I was five – but whose positive regard for me has been a big part of the good things that have happened, the successes and challenges of my entire life. Any failures, any rough spots, were eased by the memory of an old man who treated me as the most worthwhile person of his life. Yes, I was heartbroken when he died. At five, I didn’t get the experiences Ruark did – his grandfather lasted until he was 15 – but like Captain Ned Adkins and Robert Ruark, Gust Fahlgren has been a pleasant memory away for my last 70 years.

    Remi got me thinking of these things with his first complete sentence to me: “I need a goat.” He was right – and I have enjoyed watching the two little Nigerian Dwarf does I purchased for him. The goats, as former 4-H animals, just regard me as the supplier of hay. Remi, on the other hand (or hoof, as the observing species may have) is their kid, whose pockets need to be sniffed and examined until he learns to always have treats for them. The old man is a significant part of the boy growing up.

    But I am a demographer who will soon turn 76. Unlike Captain Ned, I have actuarial table that can provide some idea of how much time I have for Remi and Nathaniel – for the next 10 years and 4 months, we will be living the story of the old man and the boys. My grandfather died before my brother could develop memories of him – he wasn’t yet two – and couldn’t make the memories that have left me with a feeling of unconditional support all my life.

    Captain Ned left Ruark with memories of fishing, hunting, building and making repairs, developing competencies. I’m planning for the next 10 years. The pond offers a place where, with a slow hull, two little boys can learn to sail, as well as row. My little bailer, turning out 30 pound round bales, will provide a task where small boys can help with haying. I’m not certain that I will have the time to provide the training in pistol marksmanship – but I will have the time to teach the self discipline of a single shot 22 at official targets and measured ranges. Possibly the beginnings of gun repair on the simple break in the middle single barrel shotguns. I don’t believe I will have the years left to teach the more complex pump and lever actions.

    The sawmill will provide a source for the lumber little boys need for their projects. As we continue to thin the forest, they will have an opportunity to make their own firewood business – Remi already insists on hauling the wood blocks to the pickup, and loves watching the hydraulic splitter. The firewood from thinning will teach valuable life lessons – using something that would be useless without your work, deferred gratification, and conservation in the real world. I need to get the skid-steer back online – it offers a power that is much easier to learn than the tractor.

    I heard a country song on the radio, where the singer sang about what he would be doing for his next thirty years. I don’t have a next thirty years – but I can be with those two little boys for their next seventy years, like my grandfather was for me. Come to think of it, Captain Ned got Robert Ruark a goat.

  • John Buhmiller’s Rifle

    Last month, Rock Island Auction sold John Buhmiller’s African rifle (along with a lot of memorabilia). It’s on a large commercial Mauser action – and, frankly, not one of the Buhmiller rifles that interest me the most. I’d prefer to see the rifle he used at the end of his African hunting – either 470 or 500 magnum, built on a model 1917 Enfield action.

    The Mauser failed him once – he was running dry, dropped a cartridge in the magazine, and the controlled feed in the Mauser action jammed the rifle as the old man was running from an angry elephant. I admit, the Mauser makes a prettier custom rifle – but I heard the story forty years ago from Leonard Bull – who once hunted large game (and men) on the African continent. Leonard described the stock as ‘fence post ugly’ – so I suspect it might not sell for as much as the rifle that was sold in October.

    My own Buhmiller barrelled rifle is in 257 Roberts – built on a Springfield 1903 action. When Laird Byers was dying (the iron crab) he had his attendant call me – offering to sell the rifle for what he had in it. When Leonard Bull looked down the bore, he agreed that I did have a Buhmiller, and pointed out what he termed the ‘square cut’ rifling. Leonard was a Kenyan – Buhmiller’s hunting was in Tanganyika. Little things like national boundaries didn’t keep Africa’s big game hunters from meeting each other in the mid-1950’s.

    So what’s the relevance? John Buhmiller started making rifle barrels in Eureka, where he spent his working days in the rail road office, as a telegraph operator. My small caliber Springfield probably comes from those Eureka days – though the barrel may have been made in the early fifties before he moved operations to Kalispell. I’m guessing it was Eureka – by the Kalispell days he was stamping his name onto the barrels. Come to think of it, I don’t know if he was stamping the name onto barrels that wound up installed in P-17 Enfield actions.

    Buhmiller, as an old man, managed to make friends with Tanganyika’s equivalent of Fish and Game, and served that bunch, unpaid, hunting problem elephants that damaged crops and fields. He had a farmer who provided meals and housing, Tanganyika’s game department took all of the ivory, and life was good.

    Before Africa, Buhmiller was a competitive service rifle shooter, competing at places like Camp Perry. Even then, he was producing some of the world’s finest gunbarrels – though Leonard (who knew him only in his African days did look at my 257 Roberts and comment, “I didn’t know he made barrels in such small calibers.”