Zen and Stephen Hawking

First of all, let me thank anyone who took the trouble to come over here after my exodus from OS. I really do appreciate it.

This past weekend I went on an awesome ride to the Oregon Coast. I’ve been on a lot of awesome rides in my day but there was something different this time; something else.

I had an interesting discussion with several of my group at the bar in Pacific City at the end of Day One. One of our fastest riders said that he does it for the adrenalin. I hope you don’t mind me being immodest for a minute, but I consider myself to be pretty damned fast too; just as fast as Mr. Adrenalin or anyone else I’ve ever ridden with, but for me, it’s not about adrenalin. It’s something deeper and more spiritual and that is what made this weekend  different from past rides

Maybe I’m a simpleton because reading Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time” is about as deep into physics as my limited intellect will take me. Ever since I read it years ago, I have pondered the relationship between speed and space and time.  I will admit that my understanding is rudimentary at best.

Recently I have been studying a book called "Total Control" by Lee Parks, the guru of high performance motorcycle riding.   I like things in bite sizes so my intent is to learn about one technique at a time, practice it until I really get it, and then move on to the next, so I have only studied the very first technique in the book.

I practiced that technique on the ride and once I got into the swing of it, I was absolutely amazed at what a difference it made. I was faster and more relaxed than I’ve ever been at speed yet more in control.   I can’t even imagine what else I’ll learn that could impact my riding as much as this has.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s great Cap’n but what does that have to do with Stephen Hawking? Keep your shirt on, mateys, I’m about to tell ya.

Riding fast in the twisties brings an unexplainable Zenlike connection to the universe. I have learned that some of the other fast riders feel the same way. As you lean and turn and twist and read the road and pick your line and really get your groove going, there is a oneness with the Universe that must be experienced to be believed.

Somehow, perhaps because I’m more relaxed, the Lee Parks technique took that oneness to a level I’ve never experienced before. As usual, there were three of us out in front of the pack and when we stopped, I could see in their faces that they felt the same way. I don’t know how the connection between speed and space and time works but I can tell you without any doubt that getting a fast groove going through the twisties is tied to it. Somehow.

People have tried to understand our universe for as long as there have been people. I certainly don’t know the answers and I’m quite sure that I never will.  I am also quite sure that what I sometimes experience on the motorcycle is related a part of it.

That is why I simply can’t not do this.

Flouncing to Singapore

From Wikipedia: Universal health care is implemented in all but one of the wealthy, industrialized countries, with the exception being the United States. It is also provided in many developing countries and is the trend worldwide.

John Stossel, writing at Independence Institute, states that the World Health Organization’s (WHO) ranking of the USA as 37^th in the world in health care is misleading. He said that ” The WHO judged countries not on the absolute quality of health care, but on how “fairly” health care of any quality is “distributed.” I respond by stipulating that Mr. Stossel is indeed correct. Anyone who can afford it can get top quality health care in the USA. The issue, John, is fair distribution. Whatever the solution to revamping our beleaguered health care system is, it will involve fairly distributing access to basic health care for all of us. The issue then, is the classic have’s vs. have not’s.

An ideal solution, one that would be acceptable to both the left and the right, would be one in which personal responsibility plays a role, while assuring access to all. That sounds nearly impossible until you consider that such a solution has been working in Singapore for over 20 years.

The Government in Singapore knew that they needed to revise their health care system so they did what many of us would do. They studied health care systems around the world and learned what was working and what was not. Then they implemented a system that put together the best elements from the various systems that they studied. Seems kinda logical, doesn’t it?

The aim was to give maximum responsibility and choice to patients, requiring them to spend their own money rather than that of government or insurers. At the same time, they needed to ensure that nobody faced catastrophic medical bills and that even the poor had enough money to buy medical care.

The solution was to require all citizens to maintain a savings account that can be used only for medical expenses. Achieving this savings was no problem, they simply reduced each person’s tax bill by $1,500 a year. This is roughly the cost, in taxes, of both the UK and the US public health systems. For people that pay less than $1,500 in a tax year, the government would contribute money to make up the shortfall. Since the system is compulsory, no adverse selection takes place, such as you and I face when we apply for insurance with private insurance companies.

The government then created cheap catastrophe insurance, which pays out only when a particular course of treatment is very expensive. You spend your money, from your compulsory savings account for your health care. You make your own decision about that health care, rather than having an insurance company or government agency make those decisions for you.

Your health-care savings would automatically go into a high interest bank account that would build up gradually throughout your life. For most people, medical bills are low in their younger years, so you could expect to have thirty thousand dollars in your account when you turn forty; more, if you’ve managed to keep your spending low and watched the money earn interest.

Thirty thousand dollars buys a lot of medical care, unless of course, you required a single, expensive procedure. In that case, the catastrophe insurance would restrict your expenses.

If you reach retirement age with money still in your medical savings account beyond some minimum, you can put the excess toward your pension. When you die, you can pass the savings along to your heirs. If you have a relative with ongoing medical problems, you can donate part of your savings to them.

At every point in your life you have an incentive to spend money only on health care that you feel is absolutely necessary. If you felt that the right treatment for you was a bit of preventative maintenance, that that would be your choice.

Clearly, with some imagination we can step back from out current failed system and think about how to fix it. The system I’ve just sketched out has been successful in Singapore for two decades. The typical Singaporean lives to the age of eighty and the cost of the system (both the public an private portions) is about a thousand dollars per person. That is less that just the cost of the bureaucracy alone in the United States.

Annually, the typical Singaporean pays about seven hundred dollars privately, compared to twenty-five hundred dollars for Americans. The government spends about three hundred dollars per person (mostly for the catastrophe insurance). This is about five times less than the British government and seven times less than the American government.

The debate in America seems to be stuck on a choice between government or market. As was mentioned in part one, both have their limitations. Fairness is not a function of the market, any market. The Singaporean solution recognizes the shortfalls of each. Their answer lies in a combination of the two working together to put the consumer in ultimate control of their own healthcare.

Singapore is ranked 7^th by WHO. Yes, John, it’s very likely that distribution was a huge factor in that ranking. Do I care that the Mayo Clinic may be the best in the world if I don’t have access to it? No, I don’t. I doubt that you do either.

You Mean... ME?

Anyone who has been reading my blog posts, all one of you, knows that I’m certainly not angry about anything. As hard as it is to believe, my other reader called a recent post “so angry”? Can you imagine? Where do they come up with this stuff?

I guess they think I’m angry because the soon-to-be-former Administration, fueled by fanatical right-wing zeal, has run our country into the ground with a needless war, over a Trillion dollar projected budget deficit, hateful anti-gay referendums, trashed our economy, trampled our right to privacy and taken away our freedoms in the name of freedom (huh?), placed themselves above the Geneva Convention by torturing prisoners and going to the mat to defend that “right”, maniacally supporting Israel no matter what they do, failing to get Bin Laden, radicalizing more Muslims toward terror and last but certainly not least, doing everything they can think of to lead us toward self-fulfilling their dangerous apocalyptic prophecies/fantasies. Angry? What’s to be angry about?

Case in point; I am no longer angry about the tithing I was forced to pay to the Mormon Church when I was nine. It was pointed out that nine year olds don’t really have anything that doesn’t actually belong to their parents. The same person said that they teach their children to give some of their money to charity to learn the joy of unselfishness.

So if, as was just pointed out, it isn’t really theirs anyway, what did they learn? Ignoring the arrogant assumption in that statement that if the money doesn’t go to the Mormon Church, then it isn't charity, I'll point out that I do give to charity. I also did when I was nine, but I’m not asking for any of that back, since I did it that with my own free will. It’s interesting that they jumped on the tithing comment when the point of the post was really that we need to start taxing churches.

Then I’m told that I need to meet some of the true Holy Men, the ones who believe in the one true God, then all will become right in my Universe. Interestingly, not ALL are Mormons, though the teller has never met one who wasn’t Mormon, but he’s told they exist. I quote, “If you'd take the time to know these people too, you'd quit debating the morality of this that and the other and join their cause.”

Holy cow, why do I even bother with people who think like this? First, I’m not debating the morality of anything. My moral compass is very clear, no need to debate that. Of course, this comes from the assumption that we cannot have a moral compass without God or some “holy man” to give it to us. No, I have not debated morality, but rather, I have spoken out when my government does outrageously immoral things.

Insert deep sigh here. I’m not sure why I bother writing these posts. There are so many stinkin’ bloggers around and they/we all think that they/we have something to say. I’m not sure why any of us subject ourselves to this, All that ever comes of any of it is that those who agree tell us how smart we are and those who disagree tell us how messed up we are. Do hearts and minds ever get changed? I doubt it.

When my wife reads these posts or hears of some of my email exchanges, it is always followed with a heavy sigh and a groan, even though she generally agrees with my point of view. She knows what I’m still having trouble reconciling; that it’s all really rather pointless. I know that too, but there’s that other little voice in my head, the one of my great grandchild asking, “Why didn’t you do something before it came to this?”

“I tried honey, I really did, but everyone thought Global Climate Change was just an Al Gore PowerPoint thingie to get Government money under the guise of research. I spoke out but they kept making wars, kept spending beyond our means and overpopulating a planet that was already stretched to its limits. I guess the planet showed them in the long run, I was just hoping there would be something left for you. I tried and failed, but at least I’m not angry about it.”

Twenty One Day Salute

Wow, it's been quite a year. It's been quite an eight years too. Strange as it may seem, especially if you've read some of my other writing recently, I'm actually optimistic about 2009, both in my personal life and in the world at large. No, I don't have my head in the sand, not at all. You'll have to trust me on that one.

Since life is nothing if not a contradiction, let me now say the future looks pretty bleak. Even an economic dummy like me can see that the coming depression has only begun. The signs of global climate change are, quite literally, all around us. The Bush administration's assault on our constitutional rights and their apparently successful attempts to insulate themselves from being held accountable, have left our Government in shambles. We're fighting war on two fronts with Chinese money. We're short on soldiers and long on debt because of it. No, I'm no Pollyanna.

Good news though, is on the horizon. We only need survive twenty one more days without another major setback and hope is on its way. I'd like to believe that our new President will wave his magic wand and restore all of our rights, fix the climate and our economy, and while he's at it, bring back the 2300 + US soldiers and 98,000 + civilian casualties in Iraq. Maybe Santa Obama can bring me a new motorcycle too. Obviously, that's not going to happen.

No, it's not going to be easy to undo the damage that Bush has done and so much of it will never be undone. We can't bring back the dead, for example. It's unimaginable that this guy sleeps at night knowing that over 100,000 human beings are dead because of his arrogant insistence on a needless war. He says he sleeps very well.

Now I hear Bush is working on his legacy, expecting to walk away unscathed, believing that history will judge his holy war as the right thing to do. This is why religion is so dangerous. Silly me, I thought we hung people for treason?

See how hard it is not to digress, even when I'm trying to write an optimistic piece? I wasn't happy when Bush overthrew our legitimate Government in 2000 but in my worst nightmares I could never have guessed just how badly he could mess the world up. I know rash statement like that take away from my credibility but how is it not a coup when he loses the election and becomes President anyway? And how can manufacturing evidence to gain support for the War in Iraq, resulting in all those aforementioned deaths, be anything less treasonous? What traitor has ever damaged the US more than Bush? Do I sound pissed. HELL yes!

Alright, alright, back to the optimism. We finally have a President-elect with an IQ higher than mine. That's not a brag folks, we need someone a whole lot smarter than me to deal with this mess. Unlike Bush, I can form complete sentences all on my very own, but that doesn't make either of us geniuses.

While President Obama won't have that magic wand, he does seem to have a firm grasp on our challenges and a determination to take them on. I'd love to see a more liberal lean to his Presidency but let's be real, we won't get anything done that far from the center, at least not right now. I fully expect things to get worse before they get better. No, my optimism is not of the Pollyanna variety so much as my belief, or maybe just hope, that there is a 'better" to follow. Through the lens of the last eight years, that would be a very radical change and it's about as optimistic as it gets these days.

On the personal front, I'm very concerned about what will happen as the economy continues to plunge. My self-employment situation is certainly vulnerable. I'm working full time for one client while I prepare to find others before the full time project is finished. Meanwhile, my client's business is down 40% from a year ago and that seems to be the norm in the industry. Finding new clients is always hard and will be even harder now. When I do find clients, getting paid may well be a bigger problem than in the past. Obviously, you can see my optimism, right?

My personal finances aren't all they could be but they could be a lot worse. Since my wife's income is assured, at worst, we won't lose our house, whatever happens in the economy... I think. That puts us well ahead of an awful lot of the country so I'll count my blessing and hope to minimize the damage when things get worse, as they inevitably will. Thankfully, my motorcycle is paid for so it's safe too. How can I not feel good about that? So I hope to survive the worse part on our way to the better part. Hey, it's a depression folks, I'll take that.

Most of my extended family will be okay too, I hope. My mother has a secure income, my daughter is doing well and works in a profession unlikely to get the worst of the hard times to come. My wife's children will survive, even if they need some help from us. They're young and resilient. We have our first grandchild on the way. I've finished my book and it's on the internet and getting good reviews from readers. I hope to see it published soon. So yes, I do see good things ahead.

I don't remember any time in my life when what was happening politically seemed so directly relevant to my own personal situation. I guess that's what happens in depressions. I remember some pretty hard times for everyone in the 70's and I've had some personal hard times of my own that I hope never to repeat, but this is on a whole new scale for those of us who weren't around for the last depression.

I generally have little faith in the intelligence of American voters so I am amazed that at this time, when it was so important, somehow, the right candidate was not only present but elected. It's nothing short of a miracle, given our voting history and the choices we typically have to vote for.

That, my friends, in the face of these terrible times, is the source of my optimism. Maybe I should call it guarded optimism and that may be as good as it gets these days.

Emergency Preparations at QuiXand Ranch

In an effort to amuse myself in the middle of this freakish winter, as well as to distract myself from the very real possibility that we might lose power for an extended period of time, I sent the following email to several friends and acquaintances:

With more snow in the forecast and the looming possibility of power outages, I have begun some emergency preparations. Here’s what I’ve done so far.

• Since we are on well water, power outages mean no water either so:

o I’ve taken my weekly bath several days early. Just my luck the power will go out on Saturday afternoon right before bath time and I’m such a stickler about hygiene.
o I’ve purchased several plastic five-gallon buckets for toilet water. Last time I lost my axe in the pond and fell in while breaking the ice to get pond water. This time we’ll be smarter. We’re filling the plastic buckets with snow so that we can set them on the wood stove to melt.

• We have stocked both freezers to the gills with meat for people and dogs. (Bought good candles to put in the electric oven to roast the meat – surprising no one has mentioned that before.)

• Dug all my Chuck Norris comics out of the closet for entertainment. I don’t see so well in poor candle light so I have my portable propane torch on the nightstand for extra illumination. If that doesn’t work, I can hold it in my lap while I read. Don’t worry, I’ll open the windows, duh!

• Piled all the old Carpenter Ant infested wood that I stripped out of the deck last summer on the wood floor in the living room for firewood. Okay, it’s actually been there since I stripped it out.

• Filled the car with gas and backed it up to the window so that the exhaust can throw a little extra heat into the place. *Bonus: also got a siphon hose to get gas from the car for lighting the stove*

I can’t help but feel I’m forgetting something. Please let me know if any of you think of something I’ve missed.
....................

I'm so fortunate to have wonderful, caring friends willing to wrack their brains to help me complete my list. Oh, and some other jerks added some suggestions, promting this update:

Thanks to all of you who added your thoughtful suggestions. While the weather is greatly improved, I’ll be prepared now for the next round. I’ve added the following suggestions to my list:

• No candles in the oven. Bring the BBQ inside for that. If it doesn’t light right away, I can use the gas from the car. I’m rather embarrassed that I didn’t think of that myself. It will make a great indoor source of heat too!

• Seal all doors and windows with that extra heavy Homeland Security plastic sheeting to keep the heat from the car exhaust from escaping. Good thing I have friends to do my thinking for me!

• Stock up on Valium and tequila to cope with being cooped up with the kid (AKA Emy Bunny Army – whatever in the hell that means). The tequila can also serve as marinade for the meat if we run out of spices.

• Allow the dogs to poop in the living room and use the resultant methane gas for heat and cooking. Marinade meat in dog pee to counteract the poop taste.

Thanks again, though I must say, some of ya’ll are sicker than me!

Don't try to hide - you know who you are!

The Ultimate Chuck Norris Joke

President Elect Obama has promised a new way of doing business in Washington by working together in a spirit of bi-partisanship. I think that's a wonderful and productive policy and all indications are that he is very serious about fulfilling that promise. While I applaud and support the President-elect in this view, I am very pleased that I, as a private citizen, can be as blatantly liberal as I please.

I find it a bit amusing that the left has been critical that he is too close to the middle, while right-wing idiots like Chuck Norris are near apoplectic over his ‘refusal to govern from the center’. He is afraid that Obama will be too much like Clinton, who brought us eight years of relative peace, the greatest economic expansion in history and the first balanced budget in many years. God, that would be awful.

Of course, this is the same simpleton that challenges the President-elect to "protect American life" while supporting the useless war in Iraq and the thousands of dead Americans it has produced. Not to mention the countless other Bush Administration policies that have made the world more dangerous for Americans.

With typical right-wing arrogance that assumes only they understand the Constitution and the intentions of the founding fathers, he quotes Thomas Jefferson. “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government".

Of course, Jefferson was obviously talking about abortion, not things like the death penalty and treasonous Presidential acts like manufacturing evidence to start a religious oil war. How convenient that religion and the needs of the oil companies converged when they each owned equal shares of the Administration. 9/11 provided a perfect opportunity, proving that God must indeed have a plan.

Here we come to the heart of my problem with the right-wing. They simply leave no room for intelligent discourse and for thinking Americans to forward a rational agenda. Their religious agenda is dangerous, ignorant and self-fulfilling and as far as I can tell, very un-Christ-like. They are willing to kill anyone in the name of God, oil, justice, freedom, and damned near anything else and yet they are so very concerned about the unborn. The hypocrisy is astounding but if you try to disagree, they'll shout you down. If you try to exercise your freedom of speech discount you by accusing you of being unpatriotic and unappreciative of your freedoms. Explain that one to me.

As a Humanist and recovering Mormon, I had actually reached a point where I was losing my anger over how Mormonism steamrolled through my upbringing and the difficult personal struggle to find my own path. Then came Prop 8 and the Mormon Church’s shameful actions in ‘support of the family’. They violated their tax exempt status by becoming a political, as opposed to a religious organization, while forwarding a hateful and un-Christ-like agenda.

There is an old punch line that goes “Welcome to Utah. Please set your watch back 20 years.” The Mormon Church’s actions regarding Prop 8 easily set the fight against ignorance and intolerance back by 20 years.

Lest I appear to be picking on Mormons, I believe that all religions are dangerous. I mean ALL religions, of every type, from anywhere on the globe. From Muslims who are willing to kill and die in the name of Allah to Christians whose crusades promote hate, war and intolerance, and who believe that freedom of religion only pertains to them. Every religion, from every corner of the world, has dovetailing apocalyptic prophesies that they are determined to self-fulfill and it's reached a point where they are dangerously close to accomplishing that.

I can no longer remain silent in my views about religion and I can no longer remain tolerant of their intolerance. There is simply too much at stake. Between their fatalistic view that it’s all going to end soon so why bother concerning ourselves with Global Climate Change, overpopulation, and myriad other deadly problems, and their determination to fulfill world-ending prophesies, they are now threatening our very survival. God, I hate sounding like some alarmist Bircher extremist! See what they’ve done to me?

A good first step would be to tax the churches. Between the Mormons and Catholics alone we could practically wipe out the national debt, not to mention the TV preachers who are living high off the hog on their tax exempt scams. There is simply no good reason why these organizations should be allowed to take the money of their gullible followers without even contributing to the national coffers.

In these hard economic times, churches are just about the only enterprises still turning a profit. They need to contribute somehow to offset their promotion of an agenda bent our destruction. At the very least, make the Mormons give me back the tithing I was forced to pay when I was nine - with interest, of course.

This was a difficult conclusion for me reach because I know these organizations are made up of many, many good people; people that I believe to be misguided but certainly not evil. My own family, which is made up of mostly very staunch Mormons, are some of the best people I know. I only wish they could see the harm that religions are doing in the name of their particular deities. Even tough guy Norris is probably a decent guy, whom I might even befriend if the opportunity arose. It’s just that he’s wrong.

Religion = Ignorance. Pass it on.

Wanker Stew

From Tonopah, NV, the small town where young Wally Wanker lived, it’s a 150 mile drive in any direction to find a place with more people than jackrabbits or rattle snakes. In such a remote place, he couldn’t take refuge in anonymity like he might have in the city. Everyone knew everyone and everyone knew Wally, the weird, overweight kid with the thick black-rimmed glasses, the flat nose and the C+ IQ.

He was a voracious reader and when he was 11, he discovered the western writer Edward Abbey, who had a tremendous influence on young Wally. Most of his days that summer were spent hiking through the sagebrush of the high desert around Tonopah. He discovered its stark beauty and began to see himself as a creature of the desert like the snakes and reptiles that managed to make a living in this dry, seemingly empty place. He and they were survivors in a harsh environment.

When he was 13, his father took him on a raft trip down the Colorado River in Southern Utah. For ten days they floated down Glen Canyon, shooting the white-water, sleeping along the red-rocked banks of the mighty river and eating trout that they caught themselves, while retracing the steps of John Wesley Powell.

The diversity of the area amazed him; from red-rock cliffs and natural arches cut in sandstone to gentle river beaches and narrow canyons with walls rising hundreds of feet on either side. And the colors, the infinite shades of ruby and creamy coffee and sandstone contrasting against the light blue sky like pastels in a watercolor painting. In the castle rocks rising from the desert floor, he could count the layers of sediment, one on top of another in varying shades, as if God himself had written the area’s history there for all to see.

The fertile images and the experience of living in the delicate ecosystem made a profound impression on young Wally. They were ten of the best days of his life; ten days in a place where, for the first time, he knew he belonged. Ten days when his universe was just as it should be.

On the last day of the trip, they sat by the fire at Kane Creek Landing and Wally’s father said “Take a good look around son; you may never see this again.”

“Oh, I’ll see at again, alright, I’m coming back here every chance I get. When I grow up, I’m going to live here.” Wally replied.

“You won’t see this if you do. They’re building a dam a couple of miles downstream from here and they’ll flood this all out.”

“What!? All of it?”

“A good portion of what we’ve traveled on this trip will be under water, part of a huge lake they’re going to call Lake Powell, after the explorer that discovered Glen Canyon, Major John Wesley Powell. The dam’s been under construction since ‘56 but the area won’t be flooded for another 3 or 4 years.”

Wally was crushed. He’d finally found where he belonged and it was about to be destroyed. How could he have seen all the construction going on during the trip and not even wondered what it was about? He felt foolish for not questioning and vowed to be more observant and more curious from now on. He had never heard of John Wesley Powell or of Glen Canyon Dam, but you could damn sure bet that he would find out about them real quick. They were naming after Major Powell, the very project that would destroy his discovery? It made no sense to him.

The call of the nearby river moving steadily downstream had lulled Wally to sleep every night since this trip began but this night Wally slept fitfully, tossing and turning in his sleeping bag. He dreamed that he was standing on the Kaiparowits Plateau, two thousand feet above Glen Canyon, in the bright sunshine, looking down at the steadily flowing river below. The peace was shattered by a tremendous noise as a huge wall of water came crashing toward him, ready to sweep him away and drown him in his personal apocalypse.

He woke with a start, gasping for breath, heart pounding. He lay still in his sleeping bag for a long time, waiting for his heart to return to a normal pace when, in a moment of clarity, it hit him. He knew what he was supposed to do with his life. In 1962, at thirteen years old, before the world even knew what one was, he had become an environmentalist, and if necessary, an environmental terrorist.



By the summer of 1964, construction on the Glen Canyon Dam was rapidly approaching completion. Early one June morning, just days after school ended for the summer, Wally packed his backpack and quietly slipped out the back door while his parents slept. He walked down to the highway, stuck his thumb out and two days later he was on top of a hill north of Page, Arizona, looking through binoculars at the activity below as Glen Canyon Dam neared it’s final form.

That night he slipped through the darkness, down the hill, armed for assault. With his knife, he cut hydraulic lines. He brought sugar for the fuel tanks, knowing that it would cause the massive engines to overheat and seize. With his hammer, he flattened connections, damaged bolt heads and smashed gauges. He opened hoods and poured sand into crank cases. When the sun came up he was five miles away, asleep in a cave that had been carved in the sandstone by the Colorado River in its glory days.

Over the next two weeks, his continued this nocturnal pattern of wreaking mayhem in the moonlight, striking in different places and adding new twists to his repertoire of destructive tricks. One morning, after a particularly productive night, he woke with a start. He was being yanked by the foot of his sleeping bag into the daylight. The harsh sun stabbed his pupils. His back bruised and bled as he bounced off jagged rocks and he felt a warm stream on the back of his head where it had struck a piece of sandstone.

“Alright, you little piece of snot, the party’s over.” A burly man in a Sheriff’s uniform yelled. He rolled Wally over and handcuffed him. “You’re coming with me, you little delinquent.”

Wally was taken to the Kane County jail in Kanab, UT because the little cave he’d been sleeping in was on the Utah side of the border. For 18 hours he sat, speaking to no one, until he was called in to the visitor cell where his father waited, white faced and sullen. He expected to be yelled at, screamed at, knowing that his father couldn’t possible understand.

“You look awful.” His father said. “Are you OK?”

“Nothing that won’t heal.” Wally said quietly with his head down.

“Son, I brought you up right. I taught you to stand up for what you believe and I know you think that you were doing just that, but there is another way. We have a system of laws in the country. They aren’t perfect and they don’t always work, but without them, we are cavemen.” A sardonic smile crossed his lips; the irony of where his son had been hiding wasn’t lost on him. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

“I’m not sure.”

“If you really believe in your cause, learn the law. Beat these people in court, it’s the only chance you have. Otherwise, you’ll spend your life in jails like this one and the dams will still go up. Son, I’m proud of you for standing up for what you believe, you just should have found a more appropriate way to do it.”

The fifteen year old in Wally bubbled to the surface and his eyes began to water. In a shaky voice, he asked, “What’s going to happen to me, Dad?”

“I got you an attorney. He tells me that, because you are still a juvenile and have no history of being in trouble, they’ll probably let you off pretty light this time. If it happens again, that’s another story.”

In a matter of days, Wally was driving home with his dad, having learned his lessons well. Wally had decided to become the first Wanker with a college degree.


His college years were pretty uneventful. He worked hard and spent his summers hiking and camping in Southern Utah. Many nights he slept on the shores of Lake Powell, trying to picture the canyons below in massive, calm surface.

It could never be the same, now that the dam was in full operation. If he blew the dam to smithereens, as he often fantasized that he one-day would, it wouldn’t matter. A piece of history was gone, lost forever under a layer of silt. Knowing that the water and electricity that the dam generated went to Southern California was like salt in his wounds. Glen Canyon was gone so that lights stayed lit in Hollyweird.

Just after Wally graduated from law school, he got married. His new bride was a working class girl who was mostly attracted to him because he was about to become an attorney and everyone knew that attorneys made a lot of money. She expected a carefree life on easy street but, even after he passed the bar on his third try, Wally wasn’t that kind of attorney. She packed her bags once it was clear that the easy life she’d dreamed of was not in the cards.

It wasn’t that Wally didn’t have clients; he had more of them than he knew what to do with. It was that most of his clients couldn’t pay. He had a strong sense of compassion for anyone in need and their ability to pay just didn’t factor in.

What money he did make, he spent on his favorite environmental causes. He was a man driven by his passion for just causes and there was no cause more just than preserving the earth for future generations. The big money that he was always fighting in court could afford batteries of lawyers and it was tough for a lone attorney to take them on. That didn’t stop Wally from trying and he won more that his fair share of cases, all things considered.

As the seventies wore on, his frustrations grew. Despite winning a few battles, the war was slipping away. Emotionally, Wally had always lived perilously close to the edge, but in 1975, when Ed Abbey published “The Monkey Wrench Gang”, he slipped over.

Wally read the book over and over until he could recite entire chapters. The book was about a group of people who try to stop the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam by sabotaging, or “monkey wrenching” the construction equipment. Wally was convinced that Mr. Abbey must have been inspired to write the book by reading news accounts of his escapades years before. It was obvious to Wally that the Hayduke character was himself.

Hayduke was an ex-Marine just back from the war. He was an earthy, even crude character with no social skills and no sense of purpose until he fell into The Monkey Wrench Gang. The gang and their work gave meaning to an otherwise meaningless life and Hayduke became the most fearless, single minded warrior they had. The parallels Wally saw between Hayduke and himself were uncanny.

Wally thought about the book constantly and began to emulate Hayduke. By 1980, he was wearing camouflage clothing and a bandana and driving an old, beat up Jeep, just as Hayduke did. He practiced law less and less and drank beer and slept in the desert more and more. When he lost his house, the only asset he had, the transformation was complete. He didn’t think of himself as homeless; his home was the entirety of Southern Utah.

Wally slept under the stars and pondered what to do next. Maybe his Dad had been wrong all those years ago. Maybe his little exploits had been more than the pranks of a misguided fifteen year old. They had inspired the greatest writer of all time to write about him, hadn’t they? One thing was clear, terrorism got attention, and court action had gotten him nowhere.

As the days and weeks went by, he pondered such things, until, in a moment of clarity just like so many years before, he knew what he had to do.

The damn dam had to go.



It made a great visual.

Just like the dream he’d had so long ago, about being swept away by the waters of the mighty Colorado, he pictured all those Southern California assholes learning to tread water as the liquid wall swept down on them like the wrath of God. All eight or ten or twenty million or whatever there were of them; Wanker Stew. His favorite thing about Hollyweird was that it was downstream.

His time as an attorney had taught him a little. He knew that he’d have to steal whatever he needed to accomplish the job. Otherwise, it would be too easy to trace the goods back to him. The key to successfully accomplishing his little plan was the same as winning in court: Preparedness, research, doing your homework.

He drove his old Jeep into little towns all over Southern Utah and broke into Farmer’s Co-op stores, stealing a few cases of fertilizer and whatever other provisions he happened to need at the time. He stashed his little cache in the desert, making sure he wasn’t followed. Having learned from his first crack at terrorism, he made sure that he slept somewhere far away from his cache of stolen goods.

Before every job, he spent many hours casing the joint and the town. There were few cops in most of these small towns and most had a routine. He made sure that he knew that routine before every job, he never struck in the same town twice and he never got greedy. Quick in and quick out, take only what you need; that was the key to remaining a free man.

When he finally had enough fertilizer and diesel fuel, he stole a houseboat and loaded it all on board, hauling it in on a stolen two-ton flatbed GMC truck. He worked through the night loading the fertilizer and barrels of diesel fuel onto the houseboat, then returned the truck with a full tank of gas to the farm that he’d stolen it from. Farmers worked too hard to steal from them without returning whatever he’d taken.

It was risky, leaving the loaded, stolen boat unattended in the daylight, but he had no other choice. There was simply too much work to do to accomplish it all in one night. Nor could he risk sleeping on the boat during the day and being caught red handed, so he returned to the coolness of his cave in the sandstone for one last days sleep.

Tonight would be the culminating event of his life. When he was in college, a friend had asked him what he wanted out of life. His answer had surprised even himself. He said, “I want to do something important, that people will always remember me for. Just one thing to make sure that people will remember that Wally Wanker once lived on this planet.”

Wally’s fantasy was about to come to fruition. If he died in the process, it didn’t matter, he would die fulfilled. The flat nosed misfit from Tonopah was about to give meaning to his life.



At midnight, Wally crawled to the edge of the butte that overlooked the little cove where the explosive laden houseboat waited. Lake Powell was full of tiny, hidden canyons, some still uncharted all these years later. Some only existed when the water level was right. He pulled his binoculars from his backpack and surveyed every inch of ground and water as far as he could see from his vantage point. This was one of those occasions when he wished he had better eyesight.

Once he was convinced that the coast was clear, he climbed down the hill and slipped quietly onto the boat. He wired the timer onto the starter caps. The initial explosion would set off the fertilizer and diesel fuel and, in theory, Wally would have his own Big Bang.

When everything was set, he pulled on his life jacket, opened the fuel cocks and pushed the start button. The sound of the starters cranking over the two huge diesel motors seemed enormous to Wally and he felt a chill creeping over his body. His scalp tingled and his hair felt like electric current was running through it. He took the steering wheel in his sweaty, fat little fingers and eased the huge boat out of the cove and onto the open water for the ten mile trip to the dam.

As he neared Glen Canyon Dam, he cut the engines, set the timer for fifteen minutes and dove off the back of the boat into the warm waters of the soon-to-be-former Lake Powell. The boat would drift the last two hundred yards under its own inertia, he figured, allowing him to make his exit before it got too close to the suction from the huge turbines for him to swim away. If he tried to swim too close to them, he risked being sucked into the current caused by the AC generators, smashed against the debris screens when he would surely drown.

“Oh well,” he sang to himself as he swam away from the boat, “it’s been a good day in hell.”

The water was moving faster than he’d expected, even this far away from the turbines and he’d put a good deal of weight on by 1982, all of which mean that he was in danger of not making it to shore before the houseboat blew. Despite nearly two years of work and careful planning, he hadn’t realized how tough ten minutes of hard, nonstop swimming was going to be. He was barely conscious when he finally reached the shore and he’d swallowed a great deal of the soon-to-be-former lake.

He laid on the shore for a few minutes and then forced himself up and he staggered toward the dirt road a few hundred feet away. His heart was pounding and his chest felt like it was going to explode. He could see the road only a few more feet ahead but he didn’t make it. He fell about ten feet from the road and laid the for a few minutes drifting in and out of consciousness, when he saw headlights approach. He rolled over onto his large belly and crawled toward the roadway.

The Toyota pickup stopped, engine running and headlights piercing the darkness, and two men climbed out.

“Whaddya think, Pete,” the passenger said, somewhat sarcastically, “is he alive?”

“Yeah,” Wally groaned, “get me outta here.”

The two men helped Wally to his feet and got him into the cab of the pickup, which was no easy feat at his size and in his condition.

“So what happened to you?” the one called Pete asked. “Your boat crash or something?”

“No, but it’s about to.” Wally said, slurring his words like a drunk. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Huh?”

“DRIVE.” Wally shouted with every bit of energy he could muster.

Reacting to the urgency in his voice, Pete put the truck into gear and took off in a shot. A few seconds later, they saw a small flash, followed by a huge one. A second after that there was a boom, then a deeper BOOM that shook the ground and rattled the windows of the little pickup.

“Holy Cow!” Rudy shouted, “What in the ever-loving hell was that?”

“Wanker Soup” Wally muttered, grinning to himself in the dark cab. “Start swimming mother fuckers” he mumbled too quietly for anyone else to hear.

“Where you guys headed?” Wally asked.

“Salt Lake.” Pete replied.

“Perfect. Wake me up when we get there.”

Pete and Rudy looked at each other and shrugged. Neither of them had any idea what to make of their passenger or the explosions. The sun was coming as they neared Salt Lake when they heard the first news reports on the radio.

“A house boat exploded on Lake Powell, near the Glen Canyon Dam during the night. The boat, which was reported stolen on Thursday, was loaded with a makeshift bomb of fertilizer and diesel fuel and was completely destroyed. Authorities say that it appears to have been an attempt to disrupt the operation of the dam by a radical environmental group, though no one has yet claimed responsibility for the blast. The dam was not damaged and there were no injuries. Police have no solid leads at this time, though they speculate that this may be connected to a recent rash of burglaries throughout Southern Utah.”

Wally could feel the eyes of the two men on either side of him. He opened his eyes. “Don’t look at me; don’t know a thing about it.”

“What do you think, Rudy, do we believe him?” Pete asked.

“Do pigs have wings?” Rudy replied. “Think we should turn him in?”

“I’m thinking no harm, no foul.” Pete answered.

Wally took a deep breath, not sure if he was more relieved or disappointed. One thing he had learned over the years was patience and he knew that Hayduke would ride again.

Aussie Bacon and Eggs

I suppose the fact that a notorious morning crab can observe anything at 6:15 AM is something of a wonder in itself but I was struck by an interesting observation during my shower the other morning. I was drying what’s left of my hair when I noticed the bumper crop of shampoo bottles perched on every conceivable nook in and around the bathtub. The mere quantity of bottles was absolutely astounding and absolute proof that women live in my house.

Being a man, I have a decidedly pragmatic view of the world so it’s still hard to understand the need for ten or twelve different kinds of shampoo. I can personally attest to the fact that every family member, even the female ones, have but one head of hair. I know, I did a walkabout to check it out. Personally, I buy one bottle of the cheap Suave stuff and I’m good for oh, half a year at least.

Feeling a little claustrophobic at the realization that I was surrounded by plastic bottles with silly names, I began to read: Juicy Green Apple, Fresh Citrus Plus, Kiwi and Strawberry, Protein Milk and Honey, Cleansing Oatmeal. They were coming at me so fast it was like I’d landed in some old Twilight Zone where women take over the world and replace all the men with shampoo bottles. Everything is in black and white except for the endless purple and green and orange bottles surrounding our perplexed hero.

Though I rarely have time for breakfast I suddenly had a strong urge to burst out of the bathroom and into the colorized world to stuff myself with a steaming bowl of oatmeal, topped with protein rich milk and honey and maybe a little fruit cocktail on the side. Mostly, I just wanted to escape the bottles, bottles, those endless bottles! I resisted the urge for breakfast and instead spent the drive to work thinking about what Madison Avenue chumps we all are.

They sell us everything from iPods to Izods, Mega-Box Stores to Middle Eastern Oil Wars, from power ties to Dancercise to fast food fries. We blindly follow every pitch for pre-washed jeans to pre-worn out shoes for teens... with double upper and tongue, no less. When they tell us to stamp barcodes on our foreheads, we’ll do it for the Feds. Just tell us it’ll fight illegal immigration and we’ll gladly become a tattooed nation.

Maybe I’m reading too much into all that. For now I only want to know what on earth Juicy Green Apples have to do with clean hair. I actually consider pouring a glass of apple cider over my head just to prove a point but I know I’d hate the sticky mess, not to mention the swarm of bees I’m likely to attract.

I close my eyes and there’s the bottle of Garnier Fructus. Now that one really threw me. Garnier is French and what the hell do the French know about hygiene? And Fructus? What is that? I brushed up on my Latin and found out that fructus is, what else, fruit. Big surprise. The sneaky French apparently know enough about hygiene to work a little fruit into the name, probably realizing fructus would make most American think of fructose, which is sugar, and who likes sugar better than Americans?

Those French really are crafty little double-entendre spewing buggers aren’t they? I had actually forgotten why we’re supposed to hate them but it’s all coming back now. What a tangled web those smelly but clean-haired French bastards weave, eh?

I blink again and there, Down Under the window sill, I see purple bottles of, you guessed it, Aussie shampoos. By now I’m quite certain everyone knows that the Aussies are the final word on clean hair. They stay away from the fruit/breakfast theme preferring names like Sydney Smooth, Catch the Wave, and my personal favorite, the no-nonsense sounding Three Minute Rebuilding Formula. No fru-fru Frenchy Fructis fruity fruit here, this is serious hair cleansing going on. This is Sydney smooth, wave catching hair, Mate! No wonder we like them better than those tricky French.

On second thought, maybe those Aussies aren’t so sharp after all. I mean, they missed out on the Kiwi Shampoo and they’re right there next to New Zealand, where there are so many Kiwis that the people are actually called Kiwi’s. New Zealand is so close to Australia, it's really just Australia Lite, for crying out loud. The Aussies are so busy catching Sydney Waves and throwing shrimps on the Barbee and calling each other Matey that they missed what was right down under their fake British accented noses.

It’s all so convoluted and confusing. As far as I’m concerned all shampoo is pretty much the same formula with different coloring and scents. I realize that women around the world will nearly unanimously tell me how wrong I am but it all seems to work about the same on my hair.

I spent the day in deep shampoo-related xenophobic thoughts and wondering how I’d managed to work hating the French and liking New Zealanders into it. Or do we hate New Zealanders and like the Aussies? I can never keep that stuff straight and as evening approaches, I vow to check Wikipedia to find out who it is that we do and don’t like and what any of this has to do with Shampoo. Wait, I remember: Madison Avenue, blatant consumerism and voting for the candidates with the most TV ads... or something like that.

Finally I drop into bed exhausted after a long day of thinking. Back breaking labor is one thing but all this thinking is grueling! I close my eyes, relieved not to see shampoo bottles and thank my lucky stars that I’m a pragmatic male, impervious to silly Madison Avenue advertising gimmicks.

I drift off to visions of my High School dream car; a 1970 GTO Judge. You know the one, bright orange with black stripes down the side and the words “The Judge” on the quarter panel. ‘Here come da Judge’, the ads said. ‘Here come da Judge.’ Now what could be badder than that?

My Money Made It to Lewiston

My Money Made It to Lewiston

(This is a post I sent to my Yahoo Biker Group)

It was a fabulous weekend even if it didn’t turn out as planned. Unlike some of you slackers, I had to work Friday and Monday so I didn’t have extra days to lollygag. I did anyway.

I left Portland for Lewiston Friday after work, a little after 6 PM. I had hoped for an earlier start but duty called. I made it as far as Madras, OR before the cold and dark got the best of me. It didn’t help to discover that my headlight was pointing toward recently defrocked Pluto, rendering the dims inadequate while my brights searched the sky for interplanetary life.

Saturday morning I got straight to the lollygagging and didn’t get rolling until eleven AM. I had planned to deke off Highways 26 for a few extra twisty jaunts but since I was so far behind already I stayed on 26 all the way to John Day. That was actually a better ride than I expected and I had a blast winding through the Oregon foothills at speeds occasionally flirting with triple digits.

I continued past John Day until just before Unity and took Highway 245 through Hereford to Baker City. Someone posted a message about that road on the PNW site and I couldn’t resist checking it out. It was well worth the slight detour. Magnificent twisties! I stopped about halfway through for a breather and washed the bugs from my face shield in the creek a few yards from the highway before toiling through some pretty tight curls in pristine blacktop. For 30 miles I passed only a handful of other vehicles.

By the time I rolled into Baker City I’d been on the road for close to six hours and still had a long haul into Lewiston. The plan was to head toward Hells Canyon then go over the summit to Joseph, hook up with Highway three and cruise into Lewiston. Note to self: check highway reports before making plans.

After dodging rock slides and fallen trees for twenty miles, I neared the summit only to find the road closed behind a foot of snow on the pavement. By this time it was six o’clock. Backtracking to Baker City would have put me another 200 miles from my destination and I was trashed so I got a room in beautiful downtown Halfway, OR.

Halfway is a pretty little place and I got settled in my room in time to watch the Jazz whup up on the Rockets. Halfway wasn’t half bad but I’ll probably never know exactly where it’s halfway from (or is it to?). The good news is that since I’d guaranteed my room in Lewiston with my VISA card, my money made it to Lewiston even if I did not.

I awoke on Sunday morning and realized that Halfway is a long way from home. I filled the nine-one-nine with regular (yes, regular runs just fine) and filled myself with the Truckers Special Breakfast before reluctantly super-slabbing I-84 into a fierce headwind for the next 200 miles. Not my idea of a good time on a motorcycle.

At Hood River I crossed into Washington (am I the only one who hates metal grated bridges on a bike?) and took a little detour up Wind River road to NF-90 then over to Cougar before catching I-90 at Woodland for the cruise home.

On Wind River Road I was having a pretty nice time working the gears when I rounded a curve and found 2 Sheriff’s cars, two ambulances and two fire trucks on the shoulder. A sparkling blue Sportster was parked among the emergency vehicles and two blond, leather-clad women were walking along the road. Their faces were soaked with tears and as I cruised past, the grief etched into their faces left a snapshot in my mind that I won’t soon forget.

Obviously, a bike had missed the curve and gone over the embankment into the trees, easily a 30 foot drop. I couldn’t see the wreckage nor did I need to. The activity at the scene, or more precisely the lack thereof, told me that the rider didn’t survive. It was a sobering reminder that this sport we all love can be deadly. It caused me to be extra cautious for a good twenty to thirty minutes.

I joke, but seriously, be careful out there. I tend to ride pretty fast, probably faster than most, and I never forget how easy it would be to make a deadly mistake. I don’t plan to quit because this is what I love to do. It’s part of who I am but it’s also part of who I am to try to be sensible. I hope that my sensibilities always temper my need for speed but I always breathe a little sigh of relief when I arrive home safely from a ride.

I have people who rely on me and I sometime feel very selfish indulging in a sport that could not only harm me but jeopardize my family financially as well.

I hate to end on a morbid note but maybe we should discuss the financial repercussions that an accident could have. I’m sure that I’m under insured and I’m planning to take a hard look protecting my family financially.

Rocky Pounds the Pres

Last week, Dubya made a stop in Utah. With Jr's approval rating nearly as low as it should be, a day in the Reddest state in the Union must have seemed like a brilliant idea to the President and his handlers. Slap a few backs, photo op with Orrin Hatch, rah-rah a little with the Foreign Legion and fly back to DC a couple points ahead. However, the geniuses that promised to win the war in Iraq in six months didn't count on Salt Lake City Mayor, Rocky Anderson.

I wish I could have been there but I moved away from Utah over a year ago, so I had to settle for reading about it in the Utah papers. It seems that Rocky made his intentions known to protest the current regime so a couple of wealthy Republican benefactors took matters into their hands and financed full page ads in the local paper blasting the Mayor for his intentions. Attendance at the rally was estimated at 4,000 to 5,000 people and I'm sure the Republican ads had something to do with that.

Rocky didn't waste the opportunity. He blasted the President and his cronies for lying about WMD, for continuing the lies even after the evidence was out and for good measure, he chided the media for taking nearly four months to report those lies after they became known. I won't parrot Rocky's speech but suffice it to say he pulled no punches in telling the truth as he saw it. A politician who is willing to tell the truth without dancing around it is something we need a whole lot more of in this county. You can read a transcript of the speech here: http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_4263654.

After the rally at Washington Square in downtown Salt Lake City, the crowd marched to the Federal Building a few blocks away. Utah takes a lot of heat for being pretty conservative and LDS dominated but 4 to 5,000 people assembling in the middle of a work day to protest this foolish war is proof positive that there is another side to the State where I was born. I've known that all along and maybe now a few more people know it too. I've never been prouder to be from the Reddest State in the Country than I was last week.

Thank you, Rocky, for telling the truth. Maybe you'll start a trend.

Twisting One

Labor Day is only a couple of weeks away and already I’m dreading the end of the riding season. I don’t remember the exact date that I officially called the season D.O.A. last year but I distinctly remember the day. I took off for a short ride on a Sunday, hoping for a little luck with the intermittent showers we’d been experiencing and I found just enough luck to get several miles from home before the skies dumped a steady stream of icy rain on me. I limped home half frozen and sent an email to a friend announcing the end of my first Northwest motorcycle season.

Even though it was hot and dry yesterday, that wet day last winter was in the back of my mind when I headed for the east side of Mt. St. Helens. I’ve done NF-25 several times this year, which is a good riding road south of the Windy Ridge turnoff but is in terrible shape between there and Randall with sporadic spine jarring drops where the road is trying to break away and slide down the hillside. So it was that I decided to do some breaking off myself onto some of the spur roads in the area.

I’d been told that one road leads to a great ride if you can endure a couple of miles of dirt roads. I’m not real sure what the name of this road is and I’d probably have had better luck finding it if I were but I knew I was on the wrong one when it took seven miles to again find pavement. A couple more miles down the road the pavement ended at a campground, confirming that this was not the road I was seeking.

I back tracked to the “Y” where the blacktop had first reappeared and took the other spur and soon found myself committed to 30 more miles of dirt riding. Now I cut my teeth on dirt biking but the CX650C is no dirt bike and my new Dunlop’s are great road tires but they are completely worthless on the dirt.

Nevertheless, I did survive the 30 white knuckled miles and managed to find some top-notch twisties for some low-level flying before the day was done. Fact is, if you can’t find a few top-notch twisties in Lewis County, Washington, you’re just not trying.

I don’t know if it was the specter of winter looming in the distance or the freedom at the end of a torturous work week but I was really on my game. So much so that I accomplished two firsts; I scraped the foot pegs for the very first time in three years of aggressive twisty runs on this bike.

I was forever dragging foot pegs on my old Virago 1100, until I looked like Hansel and Gretel leaving a trail of Independence Day sparklers instead of bread crumbs in winding steams through the San Bernardino mountains. In a way, I guess I was. But I’ve ridden the CX much more aggressively with never a trace of metal parts coming in contact with blacktop. Until yesterday, I had pretty much concluded it couldn’t be done.

The second first was hitting a curve so hot that both tires screamed at me. I like to think of myself as a 90 percenter, in that I try to ride at about 90 percent of the combined ability of myself and my bike. That other 10 percent is the part that keeps you alive.

At 90 percent, your tires definitely talk during in a hot turn. They sing, they whistle and they even whine a bit and those are the irresistible sounds that I live for while blazing through a snaky mountain road. When they stop singing and start screaming, I know I’m eating into my 10 percent and it’s time to crank up the concentration.

Despite 30 white-knuckled miles of floating traction-less atop dirt roads, all in all, it was a banner riding day. I ended the day by having dinner with some biker friends and then stopping in at the County Fair to see Herman’s Hermits, which I suppose was actually the third first of the day.

One of the first records I ever owned and really got into was “The Best of Herman’s Hermits.” Who ever would have guessed that 30+ years later I’d be in Chehalis, Washington listening to Herman’s Hermits and singing along to all 1 million verses of “Henry the Eighth” with my Gen-X wife?

So it was a great day to twist one, so to speak, at the end of which one thing was abundantly clear; Rumors of this season’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Did I hear someone say “Icicle Run”?

Lemonade

It was that old Catch-22. He knew it was unwise to leave the Interstate on a blistering 110 degree day like this especially with the cord showing on the back tire of the smoke-trailing motorcycle. On the other hand, he was feeling the first effects of heat stroke; the shortness of breath, the light headedness and a racing heartbeat.

The water bottle that he kept wedged between the windscreen and the speedometer had long been empty from dousing himself for a few seconds of relief before the blistering desert wind dried him again. He knew if he didn't get out of the sun and find some cold liquid soon, he'd be buzzard bait.

When the little Diner came into view among the desert boulders, he’d been near panic. Feeling shaky, he stepped through the door and square into the air-conditioner blast. In a minute he was stretched out in the booth and wiping the sweaty grime from his forehead with his bandana.

A pleasant young waitress appeared and he ordered lemonade. Food was out of the question in this heat. It was fluid and air conditioning he needed and, in a primal way, nothing else mattered just now.

His pregnant 18 year old girlfriend didn’t matter, having no job and little money didn’t matter nor did his waiting cousin or the bald tire on his motorcycle. Extreme conditions have a way of putting things into perspective, he thought.

The cold liquid slid down his throat in a cool trail to his belly. His internal temperature felt like it dropped twenty degrees when the lemonade hit bottom. After downing it all in one motion he asked the waitress if refills were free.

“Of course” she said, picking up his glass, “always.”

They both knew better but she had read his desperation, though she couldn’t have known just how much this simple act of kindness meant to him right now. She returned with a glass dripping icy sweat and set it on the table. When it was gone a few seconds later she appeared with another.

They were alone in the joint which wasn’t surprising considering how the little oasis was hidden from the highway. His first impression was that it was a typical greasy spoon but now as he surveyed his surroundings the cool brick and terra cotta interior felt more like a sidewalk café.
He closed his eyes and imagined that they were in Paris. Not that he’d ever been there but he’d seen this place on a watercolor postcard.

The waitress sat down at his booth and asked how he’d wound up here, in the middle of the Arizona desert, in the middle of an August heat wave on a ratty old, oil-burning motorcycle. He told her about the pregnant girlfriend and the cousin in Phoenix who was going to get him on at the potash plant. He talked until he’d told his whole life story which, at the tender age of 19, didn’t amount to much.

It wasn’t like him to talk so much but she was a good listener with a kindly manner and the air conditioner felt so very nice. In fact, he was actually feeling a little chilly. Still, he was in no hurry to leave this place nor to face the heat outside.

The bell above the door jingled as a highway patrolman entered and she got up to take his order. She moved with uncommon grace and he found himself immensely attracted to her and immensely pleased when she returned with another frosty lemonade and sat with him again.

Her dark brown hair was parted in the middle, as was fashionable then, and the smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose punctuated her honeyed complexion. Was it the kindness in her azure eyes that made her seem like an angel to him or was it was the awareness that she and this oasis had probably saved his young life?

The patrolman waved her over and while she was gone he passed the time in dreamy speculation. She probably grew up nearby and lived vicariously through her customers, he mused, waiting for a handsome stranger to walk through the door and whisk her away to a life of romance and adventure.

When she returned, he asked her if she ever thought about leaving everything behind and jumping on a motorcycle with a handsome stranger. He’d never been anyone’s handsome stranger but right now, he desperately wanted to be hers.

“Of course” she said, “always.”

That seemed like a peculiar answer but it seemed perfectly appropriate in the vague surrealness of this place. He felt like they were all inside that watercolor postcard.

The highway patrolman surveyed the scene, casting a long shadow on the dark-haired girl cradling the young biker’s face in her hands. She looked up at the patrolman with tears in her eyes.

“I saw that motorcycle with the flat tire a couple of miles back but there was no one around. I drove on and came upon him lying here in the sand. He’s been mumbling about lemonade and postcards.”

"Poor bastard," the patrolman said, “The heat must’a got him.”

“Am I your Handsome Stranger?” the young biker asked weakly.

“Of course,” the girl replied, looking kindly down at him, “always.”

His weather-cracked lips parted into a tiny smile as he drew his last breath.

Elder Sea Nettle

From QuiXand Ranch

OK folks, by popular demand, here it is. The good news is that the first draft of my first bestseller is done. The bad news is that there is still a lot of work to do on it. At any rate, here is a sneak peek. May I present:

Chapter Seven

Elder Sea Nettle

His fourth night in Hawaii, Rudy had a bizarre dream that was disturbing in the way that it felt real, though it couldn’t possibly be.

He was swimming in the ocean but not like a person swims, more like a fish, in blue water deep below the surface, fast and graceful and effortless. He was surrounded by rock formations, colorful living coral and hundreds of smaller fish of every description and color, their beautiful scales catching the sunlight that filtered down from the surface.

He was powerful and agile and swift and he squirted through the water with ease and did gleeful underwater acrobatics and huge leaps into the air like a dolphin at Sea World. He was thoroughly enjoying his new found abilities.

“Alright, that’s enough. Knock it off.” He heard a voice in his head. Instinctively he knew that it belonged to a Jelly Fish and he looked around for the source.

There were no Jelly Fish in sight but he did spot the source and it was... well... it looked like a Mormon Missionary. He was dressed in black dress slacks, a white shirt with dark tie and sensible black dress shoes. He wore a nametag that said “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” and below that “Elder ....” He couldn’t make out the name after Elder for some reason.

“Was that you?” Rudy asked.

“Who else would it be, moron?’ came the telekinetic reply.

“But you’re a Missionary, or a jelly fish or something.”

“I’m a Sea Nettle, actually, and I shouldn’t even be here. I live in the Atlantic so listen up so I can go home.”

“Why do you look like a Missionary?”

“Why do you ask so many dumb questions?”

“OK, screw you.” Rudy said and darted away but when he looked up he was face to face with the Elder/Jelly Fish.

“OK, I look like a Missionary because I get to choose a persona in which to appear to each of my clients. I thought it would be a fun little ironic twist to do a Missionary for you, Mr. Agnostic.”

“So you’re here to tell me that I’m wrong and the Mormon Church is true?” Rudy asked.

“No, no. How would I know about things like that? I’m a Sea Nettle, for God’s sake. Gospels are a whole other department and every one of those pricks thinks he’s God’s gift to the world, pun fully intended.”

“So what department do you work for? The department of assholes?” Rudy asked, suddenly aware of how utterly ridiculous it was to be trading insults with a Sea Nettle Jellyfish Missionary.

“You wouldn’t understand. I’m just here to give you a little encouragement since I know you’re a bit down about how things have gone the past few days. You’re feeling like this was all a big mistake and you’re ready to head back to Utah. Am I about right so far?”
“Yeah, that’s about right.” Rudy replied warily.

“Well, hang in there. The people in charge of such things want you to stick around. Someone higher up has taken an interest in you, don’t ask me why, and they want you to know that it will work out.”

“Uh, Okay.” Rudy was very confused.

“Remember that half-season you spent playing in the Italian League and you drove that BMW 2002 all over Europe?” Elder Sea Nettle asked.

“Yeah, that was a sweet car.”

“Well maybe you should give the apartment hunting a rest and concentrate on finding yourself some wheels. I hear there’s a sweet 2002 Tii for sale in tomorrow’s newspaper.”

“A Tii? The fuel injected version?”

“That’s the one, baby. Check it out.” With that Elder Sea Nettle turned and disappeared into the blue water.

Suddenly Rudy felt a desperate need for air and he swam frantically toward the surface but he no longer moved with the ease of a giant Tuna. He broke the surface of the water and gasped desperately for air and woke up, still panting for air.

He lay in bed, catching his breath and thinking about the bizarre dream. He was soaking wet, the sheets were drenched and the mattress was soaked. He’d have had to have lost 10 pounds to sweat that much.

Elder Sea Nettle was right, too. He had been nearly ready to admit his mistake and head back to Utah and he still probably would, but he knew he would be checking tomorrow’s newspaper first and he felt silly when he realized that.

Right now, he’d trade palm trees for spring skiing with Pete in a heartbeat. He thought about his best friend and all they’d been through together and he resolved to give him a call soon, if only to tell him that he was on his way back.

QuiXand Ranch Special Investigation

From QuiXand Ranch
QuiXand Investigators Uncover Savage Bloodsport

Right here in River City!

Folks, I’ve seen a lot of savagery in my day. As a seasoned journalist, I’ve witnessed man’s violence toward other men but at least we, as a society, have the decency to be appalled when our violent tendencies are directed at our own. After witnessing what I’ve seen, I want to know; who’s looking after the little bunnies?

I’ve edited this story to take out the most graphic sections but be advised, this is not for the faint of heart. Proceed at your own risk.

I recently met a gentleman; we’ll call him “David”. “David” is in his late forties now but he struggles to live with these memories from his youth in rural Utah.

“Well, I lived in Cinder City* in Southern Utah but our extended family lived in Tule*, about 230 miles away. The best route between the two cities is a lonely highway through high desert brush, inhabited by thousands of rabbits.”

Did you catch that folks? Thousands of rabbits. Appalling!

“David” continues. “There were so many rabbits, in fact, that the mascot for the local high school in a small town about halfway between Cinder City* and Tule* was actually ‘The Rabbits’. “

Again folks, do you hear what he’s saying? Innocent rabbits forced to endure mascot-ship!!

“Well, we used to get out on those empty back roads and fly at, like 80 and 90 miles per hour. There were so many jacks (editors note: jacks is a codeword for rabbits amongst those who practice this brutal sport.) it was pretty much impossible to make that drive without running over several jacks on each trip. You’d hear a big thud and that was it for the Easter Bunny. It was really kinda gross.”

There you have it folks, in “David’s” own words: kinda gross!!

The name of this brutal bloodsport? Driving!! Believe it or not, it’s happening right here in our own state. You may find this hard to believe but this vicious sport is legal in every state of the union and in virtually every country on earth.

All is not lost however. There is a movement in many urban areas to create automobile free zones called promenades, where only pedestrian traffic is allowed. Promenades currently comprise only a very small section of the landscape but it’s an idea whose time has come.

What can you do? Write you congressman and tell him that you want all the world to be a rabbit-safe promenade.

For more information log on to: www.kneejerkmorons.com. Let’s send a message to the “David’s” of the world that this slaughter must end.

*Not the actual name, for obvious reasons.

Lowest Form of Sensationalism

Here at the QuiXand Ranch, we breed race dogs. Whippets actually, and I probably shouldn’t say “we” because it’s really my better half that does all that. I mostly just keep the fields mowed and complain about the mess while she continues doing what we do here. My wife hates it when I brag her up but suffice it to say that some of he fastest Whippets in North America carry the QuiXand kennel name.

Dog breeding and dog racing are her passions and she has become very good at both. The racing consists of chasing a lure over a 200 yard sprint course or running around an oval track of about 300 yards, give or take. The dogs don’t much care, they just love to run. I’ll never forget the first time I saw her Whippets run; I was blown away by their Cheetah-like speed and grace. To be honest, I had no idea that dogs could do that.

There is a third sport that our dogs compete in called open field coursing and that sport involves chasing and yes, sometimes killing, jackrabbits. Recently KGO-TV in the San Francisco Bay area ran a story under the heading:

I-Team Uncovers Blood Sport In Bay Area Exclusive Investigation
By Dan Noyes

The story can be seen in its entirety at:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=i_team&id=3874872

Now I wasn’t born yesterday and this certainly isn’t my first experience with the sensationalistic garbage that passes for journalism these days but this piece is really over the top. They make some of the most caring animal people I’ve ever met look like a bunch of blood-thirsty lunatics. Check out the inane banter leading into the story.

I don’t want to get off on a rant here about how Enquirer-like the mainstream press has become or what a bunch of hypocritical idiots comprise the PETA leadership but suffice it to say that this is not an accurate representation of the people I know who participate in the sport. To be fair, I don’t think PETA had much to do with this story buy why pass up a chance to take a stab at those paint-throwing morons?

When I was a teenager, farmers in Idaho used to get a bunch of people together and drive all the jackrabbits they could find into a field and then form a line and walk the field clubbing them to death. Why? Because there was an overpopulation of rabbits that were destroying their livelihoods.

Now that was a barbaric practice that needed to stop and it did, though the reasons behind it were valid. But let’s not get so overly sensitive that we can’t tell the difference between animals doing what they do and clubbing baby seals in the arctic. There are things in-between, really.

The net result has been that the Grand Course, which was to be held in a couple of weeks, has been cancelled and the sport is virtually dead, at least for now. The Grand course is the culmination of an entire season of hunting by at least 175 dogs that participate in the sport. They compete all season long for the right to contend in the Grand Course and earn the title of being the best at what they were born to do.

Meanwhile, I’m amazed at the morons who jump on the outcry bandwagon. No wonder we have such a bunch of crooks running this country when American are so easily led by the nose. It seems that “outcry” is what we Americans do best.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if “outcry” could be replaced in this country by rational debate and thoughtful discourse? Maybe we could look into things a little, ask a few questions and do a little research before we jump on the “outcry” bandwagon. Just start with a few baby steps like logging onto Wikipedia once in a while. I know, you may say I’m a dreamer...

Who knows what that could lead to? Maybe one day we could have an opinion about the actions of our Government without being singled out as disloyal and un-American. Maybe we’d find our collective conscience instead of the knee-jerk crying-out that currently passes for a conscience.

Would I like to be a Jackrabbit being pursued by a Whippet? Not on your life. But I wouldn’t much want to be a deer in a hunter’s crosshairs or a cow or a pig on your dinner plate either.

Happy or Not?

I’ve got writers block. Having recently found myself with some extra time on my hands, I’ve decided to concentrate on finishing the book that I’ve been half-heartedly working on for more years than I want consider. It feels good to be back at it and its moving along nicely, thank you. I’m getting pretty excited at the prospect of actually finishing a first draft. Those poor characters deserved better than to have their lives left hanging in limbo all this time.

No, my writers bock doesn’t have to do with the book, I’m glad to say, but with this little exercise in self expression, this blog thing. Every time I sit down to write a post I draw a total blank. Like I said in my first post, I’m very opinionated, so you’d think it wouldn’t be so hard. But it is.

I suspect that I may have reached that pinnacle of cynicism where, despite my strong beliefs in my correct opinions, I’m quite certain that no one really cares. Moreover, it is beyond impossible to change someone else’s opinion because they, like me, are married to them. And the things I’m so passionate about are the same things that people dig in the most about: politics and religion.

It seems that those are subjects where reason and rational thought get squeezed out of the picture by a real determination to hang on to your beliefs no matter what. And facts? They’re always in dispute in those arenas because no matter what you believe, there is someone spouting some pseudo-fact that will back up pretty much any ridiculous idea.

A friend once tried to convince me that it’s okay to believe anything you want, whether it’s true or not. I understand her point in that it really doesn’t matter that much what is or isn’t true because the world will just keep on spinning and people will do what they do and nothing really matters and what if it did. (Thanks to John Mellencamp for that line.)

“Do you want to be happy or do you want to be right?” she kept asking, since apparently those two concepts are well known to be mutually exclusive?

But back to my original point. Before this silly oil war started, I forwarded some information to pretty much everyone in my address book as to what I thought was an intelligent and worthwhile way to peacefully tell our government that we didn’t want to die to make Exxon (who just posted the largest quarterly profit in the entire history of the friggin’ world!) or Halliburton richer.

The shit storm that followed blew my mind! My friends and family are all nice, reasonable, rational people. They wouldn’t be my friends if they weren’t and my family is made up of some of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet. So how could they not see the truth of what I was telling them?

A friend started a message board where he posted all the message traffic and responses from the people I’d originally messaged plus a bunch of people that they forwarded to. I heatedly defended my absolutely correct position for a while until the futility of it all really began to sink in.

The war went forward and nobody’s mind was changed. If anything, people just entrenched themselves deeper in their positions and a lot of hard feelings pointing a lot of different directions resulted.

So, you tell me, dear reader, would you rather be happy or would you rather be right?

In The Closet

Since I don’t really know where to go with the blog thing I’ll do the obvious and post some stuff I’ve already written.  That way I get some content without really trying too hard.  Pretty clever, huh?

Of course, I could always come up with some earth-shattering, life changing observations but I’m fresh out.  There is a theory that says that if I just keep writing, I may inadvertently stumble into something earth-shattering, or at least not embarrassingly awful, so bear that in mind, dear reader, when the drivel gets too inane.  In fact, you can take heart in the knowledge that you are playing a part in the creative process.  See?  You’re already wading through drivel.

Those of you who have already seen my one half-decent essay, bear with me, Its all I got!  I like to call this little piece:

In The Closet

I read what Stephen Hawking had to say on the subject.  Something about a Ping-Pong ball in a moving train and the earth’s speed relative to the sun and how, if my twin spent his life in space, he’d come back younger than me.  Of course, I don’t have a twin and even if I did, it’s still a bit much to wrap my mind around.  For me, it begins first thing every morning, this obsession with time.

It starts with my wife telling me to get up before I’m late for work and the kids to get up before they’re late for school.  I guess it’s not really an obsession with time but rather an obsession with beating time, as if it were something to be conquered.  My 16 year old son is eager to be 21 so he’ll be a grown up.  My 15-year-old daughter can’t wait to be 16 so she can drive.  Even I fall for it sometimes; I can’t wait until I have 30 years on the job so I can retire.  We’re wishing our lives away, as my mother would say, and why?  Out of some foolish notion that time is something we can beat?  

I love to cook.  My wife, on the other hand, well… cooking isn’t her thing.  She hates it for the same reason I love it: because it can’t be rushed.  It’s pure artistry to mix this ingredient and that, in just the right ways and in just the right amounts and then applies heat in just the right way and in just the right amount to create something new and wonderful.  She doesn’t like to wait for that magical reaction so she turns the heat up thinking she can speed it along, but it doesn’t work that way.  Instead of cooking faster it just singes the edges and leaves the middle raw, fringe on the eggs and raw yokes.  Is there anything more American than that?

It seems to me that the things that can’t be rushed are the best things in life.  Take this hardwood floor I’m sitting on right now.  It’s been here, in this house for nearly a hundred years.  And how long did it grow before it was chopped down, milled and yes, aged just right before it was turned into this floor, maybe another hundred years?  This floor might have been an acorn during the Revolutionary War.  

The truth is, nothing can really be rushed.  It takes what it takes to do everything we do, even if we hurry.  I can make love a little faster and I can make love a little slower (my wife’s preference) but it still takes what it takes.  I can’t tell you what any of this has to do with that Ping-Pong ball or the age of my imaginary twin.  I can only tell you that the leaves fall from the tree in autumn, which is a long way from April and there’s just nothing we can really do about that.  When basketball season ends, we must suffer through endless baseball games, some relief finally coming with the start of football season before Stockton can yo-yo the belt high dribble one more season.  Then we find out that time has expired on the yo-yo dribble too.

So here I sit, with the door closed and the voices of my family throughout the house sounding dim and distant.  No one really knows where I am and to be honest, I don’t think anyone has even wondered.  I’m glad that there is a light in here, not because I’m afraid of the dark, but so that I can admire the beauty of the wood on the floor.  

Ice Cream is another thing that can’t be rushed.  I don’t know how long it takes Ben and Jerry to pull this stuff together but I do know a thing or two about eating it.  It comes out of the freezer hard as a rock, steaming cold.  My spoon can’t penetrate so I must wait.  I wait and watch and sometimes it seems to me that the edges get colder before they warm up, as if the coldness from the center must work it’s way up and out.  I wait and watch and the more I watch, the longer it takes, the proverbial watched pot.  Could this phenomenon have something to do with that Ping-Pong ball?  Something about melting at a rate mathematically relative to how much it’s watched?  Ouch, my brain!

Back to the subject at hand.  Cherry Garcia if you must know, and yes; I intend to eat the whole pint.  The edges finally soften and become creamy and it’s time to start working the spoon.  Just peel off the soft creamy parts and wait for the rest to be ready.  If the cherries are still frozen they don’t have as much flavor and everyone knows a flavor not tasted is lost forever.  Now that would be a true tragedy.  Maybe not as much of a tragedy as my daughter turning 16 and not getting her drivers license or my son turning 21 and not getting to gamble, but a tragedy nonetheless.

No, ice cream cannot be rushed.  It is my job to see that tragedy is averted and that is why I sit here, alone, happy that I don’t have a twin.