Scott R. : The Quillayute Cowboy

Thanks For The Liberty Mr. Roberts..., Thanks For Everything

2012-01-28T13:42:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah..., there are lines from movies and passages from books that stick with you. The Agonist is one of those that have passed the test of time..., and will endure..., thanks to the foundation you have laid Sean-Paul. Many thanks partner..., many, many thanks.

“It’s been a wild ride.” Oh yeah..., to say the least. I “found” The Agonist while my wife Julie and I were living in the Dial-Up Dark Ages in a cracker box camper trailer here on what was then just The Property. With no TV and the slow loading high profile, image and advertisement loaded web sites delivering anything but timely updates on the “war” news..., The Agonist was far and away the go to site for me. And has been ever since then. Even today with high speed Internet and satellite TV here on The Ranch. It seems that the growth and development of your site and our Ranch have gone hand in hand over the years. With a bruised thumb or two along the way. The hammer didn’t always hit the nail, but those pains were short lived. But I understand your frustrations and motivations. As the building and development stagnates..., and you are left with just the day to day maintenance..., you feel that you are missing something and need a change of pace to get those old juices of inspiration flowing again.

I “lurked” here for many years before I signed on as a “user” when you posted Second Chances? over four and a half years ago. It took me over a year from that time..., and a very disturbing experience..., to work up the gumption to post a Diary entry of my own, I Had A Dream. I don’t have the words to describe the feeling I got when it was elevated to the Front Page. That move inspired me to send the piece about the Border Patrol Checkpoints to my congressional representatives and other government officials. The good news is that I haven’t experienced any more bus boardings by thugs in uniform. The bad news is that it inspired me to become a regular “ab-user” of The Agonist.

Oh yeah..., over 40 Diary entries..., and I am not going to try to count the number of comments. Thanks for your indulgence..., and for elevating a few of the pieces to the Front Page..., it is still a thrill. I read a lot of blogs but hardly ever bother to read comments..., and even rarer..., comment on them. The users here are a rare breed indeed and it is a testament to your personal magnetism that we are all here. If there is another site that attracts the likes of Don Henry Ford Jr., Neumerian, Mauberly, Tina, Raja, Lex, JustPlainDave, Scotjen61, yogi-one, Celsius 233, chalo, Hong Pong, steeleweed, Bolo, Peter C..., I hope someone points it out to me. Wow..., the list could go on..., and on. I wish I could name all the contributors who help make The Agonist what it is..., and my apologies to those I had to leave off the list here. This is quite a community that you have pulled together here Sean-Paul..., you should be very proud. I know I am proud to consider myself to be a small part of it.

So..., I guess I will close where I started and paraphrase what I told you in my first comment here. Never look back with regret at past decisions to move onward. Look forward to the new experiences with much anticipation and enthusiasm. We will all miss your continual presence of the past..., but will appreciate whatever sporadic posts you continue to contribute in the future.

Right on partner..., write on.

And..., thanks for the liberty Mr. Kelley..., thanks for everything.

Walking Away From Empire

2011-11-27T11:42:00.000-08:00

The financial news from Europe is worse every day. Now (11/23/11) the most stable country in Euro-Land..., Germany, has no buyers for its bonds. Maybe the Federal Reserve will save the world (again) and Bail Out Germany and the rest of the world’s banks and bond holders..., like they clandestinely did in 2008. The Fed doesn’t have to buy American T-bonds with QE-2 anymore..., everyone is buying them up now. Lots of money left to buy Euro-Bonds. QE-3..., if they don’t get caught.

I know one guy who hopes they don’t get away with it..., or hopes it fails..., if they do. He hopes the whole shebang comes falling down like the famous bridge in the children’s rhyme. He hopes..., or knows..., that the whole industrial economy of this fragile planet needs to come to a screeching halt in short order. The sooner the better for this Spaceship Earth that we call “ours”. It’s our only hope. He says that if we keep burning the fossil fuels that sustain our industrial economy at the present rate..., let alone at the rate at which it would take to “grow” the current economy enough too “rescue” us from fiscal and monetary collapse..., it would fuel world climate change and global warming to the extent of total extinction of most living species...., including our own.

Some nut-case doomer..., this guy..., you ask? No..., this guy..., is Guy R. McPherson. With a PH.D in Range Science, Texas Tech University..., along with all the other academic credentials the come prior to a Doctorate degree. A tenured professor at the University of Arizona..., until he “walked away” from it..., and all the trappings that go with it. Guy walked away to live in a “mud hut”..., as he describes it. In reality, it is a straw bale constructed home that relies on both active and passive solar energy for most of its heating and cooling needs. And he milks goats each morning and tends to ever expanding gardens and orchards each day on a small piece of property where he has chosen to make his stand. As Guy says in the introduction to his recently published book, “Walking Away From Empire”, “...I believe... the two most important subjects in the history of humanity [are]: the twin sides of the fossil-fuel coin. Energy decline, commonly known as “peak oil,” will derail growth of the industrial economy, ultimately bringing us closer to Earth and our neighbors. Whether there is world enough, and time, to save the remaining remnants of the living planet remains to be seen. After all, the other side of the fossil-fuel coin rises like a horrifying specter on the horizon: Global climate change poses a significant threat to every species on the planet, including Homo Sapiens.

Whether it is a an economic collapse, or an energy collapse, or a climatic collapse that brings on the end of “growth” as we know it may be subject to debate. But it IS coming..., Guy has no doubt..., and neither do I after reading his book. Early in his book Guy says, “I admit I’m a doomer but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. To be doomer is to recognize the tragedy of the human experience and the limited persistence of organisms civilizations, and species.” He ends the book with this, “To my knowledge, only completion of the ongoing collapse of the industrial economy collapse saves the living planet upon which we depend for our lives. To my knowledge, only completion of the ongoing collapse of the industrial economy saves our species from runaway greenhouse. To my knowledge, only completion of he ongoing collapse of the industrial economy allows us to retain our humanity. What’s not to like about that? And what’s so negative about it?”

”Walking Away From Empire” is subtitled “A Personal Journey”..., and it indeed is. Guy started his Blog Nature Bats Last back in August of 2007. At that time he predicted the unraveling of the industrial economy by the end of 2012. At that time, he was predicating the prediction on Peak Oil and it’s ultimate demise. He continued to Blog regularly through the fiscal and monetary crisis that has ensued. His book is a synopsis of the Blog pieces that are edited for length..., but the message stays true and shows how right he has been through it all. Peak Oil and Climate Change are the big kahunas for us to worry about..., and this Financial Crisis is a blessing in disguise..., for the planet and all who inhabit it. Guy acknowledges that it will cause great pain and suffering for the unprepared. His book is a tool to open the door to not just surviving..., but thriving on a planet that we once inhabited and lived in concert with. A planet that we are now well on our way to utterly trashing in a misguided quest for ever more worthless pieces of paper.

”Walking Away From Empire” is not a how-to manual. I say again..., it is a tool. As is his Blog. Tools that will enthrall and enlighten you..., and maybe scare you at times..., into making some of the necessary preparations. And hopefully learning to embrace a new normal with a whole lot less of the glitz and bauble that passes for fulfillment in our current empty lives. Learning to love and embrace nature and the natural world again may not be for everyone. And it won’t be easy for anyone. If you have any doubts about that..., just read Guy’s most recent Blog entry, Falling In Love Again

Blog Enhancements...,

2011-11-13T12:16:00.000-08:00

or at least that is the intention. We got two inches of rain yesterday..., so I spent a lot of time at the computer. I finally mastered..., OK..., figured out..., how to insert hyperlinks into the body of a story..., sometimes. Lots of frustration at times..., but I think it really is an enhancement. For those of you..., like my brother Larry..., who is a heck of an equipment operator..., but not so much of a computer operator..., a hyperlink takes you to another web site that relates to the statement highlighted. Like the phase "my brother Larry" is highlighted and if you hover the mouse over it and click on it..., it takes you to a picture of Larry on my Facebook site. Hit the "back" button and it takes you back to the blog. Anyway..., I have updated several of the stories I've posted with these hyperlinks..., like links to pictures of the people I profiled in The April Birthday's Party story. Let me know if you like it or not. I primarily wanted to link to the Clearwater Log Drive story by Charlie and Sandra McCollister that I mentioned in Shipping Our Jobs Overseas story..., and the idea sort of took over !!!!

Shipping Our Jobs Overseas

2011-11-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

My dear, sweet Aunt Ethel sent me some old family photographs recently. Of primary interest to me were the ones of my Granddad and his team of logging horses. The photos date from some time in the 1930’s and they are a reminder of an era long gone. There are few…, if any…, occupations in life that I could imagine as being more satisfying than working beside and behind horses all day and attending to their care and feeding in the evening after a hard and productive day’s work. But I will never know that satisfaction…, because, “those jobs have been shipped overseas”. Whoops…, excuse me…, it seems that I have read and heard that phrase so many times that it just pops out on its own. And the image of Granddad sending his horses over to China so some low wage coolies could cut the timber and drive the team and save him a little money compared to a high paid American worker and lower his tax base as well, that is precisely the image a lot of folks want you to believe in.

Back in Granddad’s day it took a dozen men with cross-cut saws and axes to fell and buck trees into log lengths that could be yarded out by one team of horses in a day. Yeah…, I am glad that Granddad “shipped those jobs overseas”. Whoops, again…, I just meant to say that I am far too old to be engaging in that magnitude of manual labor these days. In my Dad’s day, the horses had been replaced by Caterpillar tractors (Cats we called them) and the cross-cut ‘misery whip” saws and axes had been replaced by motorized power saws. Production probably increased 10 fold..., if not more..., and employed just two or three men with that transition. There was one old logging tradition that I wish was still in practice that ended during Dad’s era…, the Clearwater River log drive. Every spring from 1928 to 1971 when the snows were melting in the high country and the river was rising, millions of board feet of logs were floated nearly 100 miles down the river from the nearly inaccessible stretches of the North Fork of the Clearwater River to the mill in Lewiston, ID on the main fork of the river. An intrepid crew of loggers floated the river behind the logs in wooden dories in the early days, then in later years, outboard motor boats, then jet boats, making sure that the logs didn’t get hung up…, and if they did the loggers gave them the necessary manual help to get them on down to the mill. That job might come close to being as satisfying as horse logging…, especially the five star, all you can eat, hot meals that were served up three times a day on the floating wanigan that served as cook shack and bunkhouse every day. But I will never know that satisfaction…, because “those jobs have been shipped overseas”.

Photos used by permission of http://www.foresthistory.org/Research/photos.html

Throughout the 60’s, Dad was a contract logger with a couple of old 1950’s era Cat’s, a couple of old trucks and an old line loader. We always had plenty to eat and as far as I could tell, my brother Larry and I had more and better toys than most of our peers. But my Mom took a job as a school bus driver in the mid-60’s and couple years later took a job at the new plywood plant at Pierce when they first started hiring women. Dad always dreamed of buying new, more technologically advanced equipment like a Cat with power shift transmission, free-spooling winch, hydraulic blade..., or one of the rubber-tired skidders that were just coming onto the market..., but it never happened. Larry and I learned the logging trade during the summer “vacations” from school on that old equipment. At first being more in the way than useful..., but later filling a real position.

The early 1970’s were most likely the height of glory days of logging. In the Weippe-Pierce-Orofino area there must have been close to a dozen different sawmills. In 1970, the year I graduated from high school, there were guys working at the plywood mill before they got out of school. if you could fog a mirror you could get a job. The Vietnam War was employing a lot of the workforce. I never saw the The War..., but I was employed by the Army via the draft in the early 70‘s. When I returned to Idaho in the mid-70’s, things had changed. My Dad had given up contracting with his old equipment. I had to find work elsewhere, which still wasn’t much of a problem because I had learned multiple skills from Dad. I still remember eating lunch with my new boss Charlie “Red” McCollister, as he sat with his stopwatch, timing the first helicopter logging operation going on across the canyon from us. My job that spring was clearing roads of slides and snow drifts with an old Cat so we could get to the timber. The helicopters didn’t need roads..., those road building jobs would soon be “shipped overseas”..., along with all those sawmill jobs. Today Idaho has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country..., and there are just two sawmills left around the Weippe-Pierce-Orofino area.

During the 80’s my brother Larry and I decided to get rich contract logging and bought an old Skagit yarder. We had good years and bad, depending on if we had work for the machine. During the times that we didn’t, we both managed to find other jobs to tide us over until we found more work for our machine. It was getting tougher though, and I didn’t like the uncertainty of that lifestyle. In 1987 I went to Forks, WA to cut timber during our normal spring lay-off in Idaho. I liked it in Forks and we had the Skagit and other equipment we acquired paid off, so I decided to sell out to Larry and ended up staying in Forks. There were three saw shops in Forks, three parts houses, six bars and restaurants..., and plenty of work. For a while.

By the 90’s things were significantly slowing down. To hear most of the folks in Forks tell it, the problem was the spotted owl controversy..., but in reality, there were many factors that I was oblivious to at the time. Off to southeast Alaska I went. Julie followed along behind me and we spent four seasons in a cracker box size camper in a remote logging camp on Prince of Wales Island. The slow down in the timber industry made it to Alaska..., not far behind us..., and we returned home to Forks. I found work cutting timber again..., but the writing was on the wall..., that even I could read by then. The first four years I had been in Forks I had seldom worked more than a half hour ride to work and I was mostly cutting big export grade timber. In 1994 I was riding two hours to work..., and back..., and cutting second growth timber. There was one saw shop in Forks, one parts house, half the number of bars and restaurants. It was time to make a serious, structural change in my lifestyle. All those timber jobs were being “shipped overseas”.

Yeah..., I am being quite factious here. OK..., call it hyperbole if you like..., but my point is, that the timber industry is indicative of the loss of the manufacturing jobs that have been plaguing this country for three decades. My brother Larry tells me that his son Bert, with a tree processing machine, can fell and buck ten times the number of logs I ever cut on my best day with a power saw. The buzz phrase that we keep hearing from nearly all the pundits is that we are “shipping our jobs overseas”. I am about sick of hearing that (and hope you are to) by now. That may be the case in some instances, but if we don’t face up to the fact that technology and resource extraction are the structural causes of these job losses, we aren’t going to solve the problem. If the powers that be continue to dump money on this problem they don’t even understand..., if they think all that money is somehow going to “stimulate the economy” and bring all those “jobs back from overseas”..., we are in a world of hurt.

I applaud the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests. There are many problems in this country..., and the world..., that need addressing. But I am afraid that since it seems to be primarily the Millennial Generation orchestrating the protests..., that they aren’t aware that the jobs problem isn’t just about “shipping jobs overseas”. But..., it seems that no one else is aware of it either.

I don’t have any answers or ideas regarding how we are going to solve this problem. I have a feeling that it will solve itself soon..., and I may have one of my dream jobs after all. But I am going to stash some saw gas..., I want nothing to do with those old cross-cut saws. They can “keep those jobs overseas”.

You Just Don't Get It..., Unless...,

2011-09-24T10:04:00.000-07:00

..., you read David Michael Green. Here's a link to the full story..., well worth the read. I quoted a few snippets from the piece to lure you into clicking on the link.

http://www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/All_The_Bad_News_Fit_To_Print.html

All the Bad News Fit to Print

Sometimes, when certain species (you know who you are) are too utterly daft to recognize the obvious, the Universe sees fit to scream it out in the form of big, bold block letters.
...
Let me make it simple, in case anyone wants to share this essay with their idiotic, Republican (pardon the redundancy) cousin Buford: The story of American politics over the last generation is the story of the transfer of wealth from the people to the plutocrats. If you think there is anything else essential going on here, you don’t get it.

...

Here’s what’s not being said, and not being understood:

That, thirty years ago, the ‘heroic’, venerated, practically deified, Ronald Reagan ushered in the age of plutocratic piracy, artfully hiding it behind any kind of fear that would sufficiently stimulate the amygdala of your garden variety troglodyte enough to hide the real agenda. You know, commies, fags, fur’ners, whatever.

That the folks who had traditionally been advocates for the rest of us who don’t own yachts were now every bit as bought off as those in the more overly corrupted Republican Party.
...
That regressive policies have, with almost no exception, prevailed in every contest over the last thirty years, especially on questions of political economy.
...
That we are now where we are, precisely because of regressive economic policies.
...
That the American public has simply and utterly been downsized over the last thirty years.
...
That people are sick to death (often quite literally) of a government that is unresponsive to their most basic needs
...
Rick Perry will be the next president of the United States, you can count on that. ... And Perry will seek to Texafy the rest of the country as fast as he can. His state is one of the worst in the union on practically every measure of quality of life that there is (except for creating new, low-wage, non-union, no-benefit jobs, that is, and the wholesale murder of poor blacks and Hispanics on death row), and he will run successfully on the basis of his record as governor of Texas.
...
But the only thing that Obama is serious about is appearing to be serious. This speech was excellent political theater, but substantively as hollow as a Hostess Twinkie. And about as nutritious for the country as well. But hollow well suits a president who capitulates so frequently he’s starting to be known around DC as the Caveman of Pennsylvania Avenue. In any case, he doesn’t care. The whole point of the exercise was to communicate to the American people (read: voters he’ll soon be needing again) that “I care”, and to trap the Republicans into either going along with his plan – which he knows they won’t, so no serious danger to the aristocracy there – or providing him with a nice campaign cudgel (“they don’t care”) to be used between now and November 2012.

Either way, this is likely to be one of the most sickening campaigns ever in modern American history.
...
In any case, 2013 is when history will get interesting, in a Chinese curse sort of way. The Republicans will own Washington, and will viciously destroy the welfare state and otherwise turn over every bit of national wealth and middle class prosperity to the country’s plutocrats that they can, as fast as they can.
...
The thing is, though, there’s pretty much nothing that I put past the right in this country. And, if they’re about to head down the toilet because people are starting to catch up to the bankruptcy of their policies, the question becomes what might they do to change the channel before it’s too late? A little racism or gay bashing, maybe? Nope. It wouldn’t be on a grand enough scale for this project. They’ll need something powerful, like a good national security scare or a full-on war, just like the Argentinean regime invaded the Falklands/Malvinas when they were in trouble domestically, and just like Margaret Thatcher responded in kind when she was in trouble domestically herself. Scary, eh?
...
Meanwhile, the country adopts stupider and stupider policies, turning to more and more idiotic characters, in hopes of salvaging our sinking ship. Iraq, tax cuts for the wealthy, unabated global warming – those sure turned out great, eh? Hey, well then, let’s do even more of that!

Sorry, but nowadays the only thing that makes me feel better about the present is thinking about the future.

Yeah..., maybe the best thing that could happen is to hand over the reins to the Regressives and watch the whole thing come swiftly tumbling down..., as opposed to this slow swoon to the same destination.

You're Not Alone

2011-08-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

Another selection from my friend..., Jackson.

Windmills On My Mind

2011-08-24T16:16:00.001-07:00

Windmills windmills windmills, a photo by Sam Beebe / Ecotrust on Flickr.

I didn't take my camera..., and I would need many hundreds of photos to show the number of windmills we saw on the trip.

My brother Larry and I were in his car on our way to Newport, OR for the wedding of his son Bert. Larry and I only see each other once a year at best, now that our parents are gone..., so the trip was a good excuse to spend some time together. I flew from Forks, WA to Lewiston, ID and Larry met me there. I saw some windmills from the plane..., and we were a few miles west of Pomeroy, WA when the giant sentinels began appearing. Larry..., as always..., knew a bit about them and filled me in on what he knew. We talked about them and marveled at what a huge undertaking the project must have been. We had worked together on a big Bonneville Power line job back in the 80’s when we were partners in Spence Brothers Logging, so we weren’t just idling speculating. Those big windmills were impressive and intimidating..., but they did nothing to prepare us for the immensity of the scene in the Columbia River Gorge. Hundreds upon hundreds of windmills..., mile after mile after mile of them.

Larry has always been of the mechanical persuasion..., while I have been more aesthetic in nature. He prefers cars, trucks and machinery..., I prefer horses, dogs and poetry. But we both agree that we have reached peak oil, peak debt, and are well past peak economic growth prospects to pull us out of the hole the whole world has dug in the form of debt in an attempt to stimulate growth. We discussed it all as we powered down Interstate 84..., fueled by a few measly gallons of that liquid magic called gasoline..., in his Toyota Corolla. While we were being passed by luxury model 4-wheel drive SUV’s..., we speculated about the viability and sustainability of windmills. And about who..., and how..., they were financed.

I couldn’t get the windmills off my mind..., so I did a little research. Here’s a link from an article from October of last year. The figures are a bit outdated by now..., and I am not sure they account for the windmills on the Oregon side of the Columbia River.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013131234_apwacolumbiagorgewindfarms1stldwritethru.html

“Eastern Klickitat County's wind energy boom has utterly transformed the landscape. In the past four years, 624 wind turbines have risen along the crest of the Columbia Hills and on ridges south and east of this town of 90, each the height of a 41-story building as measured from the ground to the tip of the highest turbine blade. That number is likely to reach 1,000 when and if all the projects that are under construction or working their way through the permitting process come on line.”

Larry doesn’t read as much as I do..., but I sent him a copy of Kuntsler’s “The Long Emergency” a few months back. I think he read it, based on some of our discussions. Kuntsler says, “Fossil fuels allowed the human race to operate highly complex systems at gigantic scales. Renewable energy sources are not compatible with those systems and scales...The wish to keep running the same giant systems at gigantic scale using renewables is the heart of our illusions about solar, wind, and water power.”

John Michael Greer at http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/06/profligacies-of-scale.html says the same thing..., that wind power on a small limited scale is great..., but isn’t a large scale answer.

“Still, it will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that very little of this wealth of practical information receives much in the way of attention nowadays. Instead, the concept of wind power has been monopolized by a recently minted industry devoted to building, servicing, and promoting giant wind turbines that provide electricity to the grid. The giant turbines have their virtues, no question; compared to most other energy production technologies, certainly, they’re safe and clean, and their net energy yield is a respectable 8 or 9 to 1, which beats the stuffing out of most other alternative energy sources. Still, the idea that serried ranks of giant wind turbines will enable us all to keep on using energy at today’s extravagant rates runs headlong into at least two difficulties.”

I didn’t tell my brother what I was really thinking when we discussed all this. What I am still thinking now.

That we are living on Easter Island.

George Lawrence Saddle Collection

2011-05-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

UPDATE - 5/18l11 I added a link to a youtube video about the George Lawrence Company at the bottom of the post.

Nice day yesterday..., don't anyone tell Julie that I was working on saddles..., and The Blog..., instead of doing my chores !!! You can click on these thumbnail photos and view them in a larger format.

Just don't understand WHY those horses would turn thier backs on these fine George Lawrence saddles?

From left to right..., newest to the oldest by age.

This tan saddle is the only one that has the most recent George Lawrence logo stamped on the back of the cantle.

This is what I call the Third Generation Logo..., or "script logo". This is the only saddle I have or have seen with this logo.

That's Smokey..., with his saddle blanket on..., sitting in front of Julie's saddle. He likes the rawhide accents added to the horn and gullet..., nice..., but not original.

"Jackson" is easily the oldest..., the first give-a-way is it is an "8-string" saddle. Newer saddles are "6-string". Also the square skirts and extremely "high back" cantle. I also believe that it was an old "bear trap" design. The rolls have been repaired and it looks to me like they may have been cut down.

I call this the First Generation Logo..., I have only seen it on the really old saddles.

Second from right is a newer design..., with a Cheyenne roll on the low back cantle, small, low rolls and what the GLC described in their catalog as a "pelican horn". We used to call those big horns a "Mexican roping horn" when I was a kid.

This is what I call the Second Generation Logo..., it is on all the saddles..., with the exception of "Jackson" and the tan saddle. My research has not found any means of dating the use of the three different logos.

Second and third from left are Julie and I's saddles. Notice the swept back rolls..., not as exagerated as the old "bear trap" design..., they were referred to as a "form fitter" design. Not sure if George Lawrence or Hamley was the first to use that design. My saddle is easily dated by the "wool lining" instead of the standard "sheep skin" lining that is commonly used. During WW II sheep skin was in short supply because it was being used by the military for "boomer jackets".

Here's a link to a youtube video about saddles and the George Lawrence Company.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-G8sH2JxnM

"Sing the Truth..., Scream it Loud"

2011-04-03T11:27:00.000-07:00

I wrote about Tom Russell and attending a performance here on this Blog and on The Agonist a while back. At that performance I picked up one of Tom's CD's called "Hotwalker" I am not capable of explaining what it really is..., certainly not a purely musical CD. But when I heard this song "Woodrow" (an ode to Woody Guthrie) out in The Saddle Bar(n) for the first time...,I knew it was something special..., very special. If I had heard it before the performance at The Tree House I guarantee you that I would have put on a performance of my own..., in insisting that he do "Woodrow". But it was far too late for that..., and as I played it over and over out in The Saddle Bar(n) I wanted so bad to share it with others. I began to contemplate putting together a video of the song..., but I could never have made anything of the caliber that is demonstrated on this You-Tube video by "paganmaestro". The opening may be a bit disconcerting due to the nature of "Hotwalker"..., read the description of the album on You-Tube for a little insight and/or read Thom Jurek's review of the album here http://allmusic.com/album/hotwalker-r729083/review.

But whatever you do..., hang in there and give this song a listen.

I would not recommend "Hotwalker" as an introduction to Tom Russell's music..., but it certainly shows another side to Tom and his talents. So..., that said..., here's another video clip from "paganmaestro" of a song of Tom's that was written back in 1988 that still resonates strongly today.

The April Birthday's Party

2011-03-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

We’re calling this one the 30^th Anniversary…, but we really aren’t sure. There was much discussion, debate, and even a fair bit of delusion bantered about before the 25^th Anniversary was declared five years ago. And to this day Dave and I don’t have enough fingers to count back on and figure out just what year we might have thrown in together and started buying a keg of beer and asking a few friends to join us in a celebration of our birthdays, which are just three days…, and one year apart. He’s the old fart…, just needed to make that clear. He’s turning 60 on the 16^th of April this year and he feels it’s about time to “retire” from this particular party scene. And since this Pugilist will be 59 three days behind Dave …, I am backing him up and throwing in the towel too. Yeah..., that old rock and roll has declared victory in the fight for my soul, it’s time to put down the gloves, live on love, and retire in my prime..., before I am counted out and can’t get up off the mat anymore. With a very special hat tip to Tom Russell.

In the interest of full disclosure, the seeds of this function were sown in about 1975. I got my name in the paper for things that didn’t exactly make my parents proud..., OK..., not at all proud. Thanks to my Dad and brother Larry and the Bail Out Funds they provided..., I wasn’t in jail. I had a new girlfriend from Lewiston and she hadn’t meet a lot of my Weippe friends yet, so I thought that throwing a birthday party for myself at a friends house would be a good idea. I miscalculated a little..., and failed to send an engraved invitation to the Clearwater County cops. They were a bit insulted by that I guess. It’s not like I sent out invitations, it was all word of mouth..., and they got the word alright. So I am not sure just what their problem was..., but they definitely had one. They stopped several car loads of prospective attendees and informed them that the party had been cancelled. Luckily for those folks, there were laws back in those days against unreasonable search and seizure..., that were respected and observed by even the most zealous of cops and courts. But it did scare the celebratory intentions right out of a lot of people. Including yours truly.

So..., there was a little break in the party action as I tight roped my way through a couple years of probation and the “withheld judgment” of a felony conviction and three year prison sentence hanging over my head like an ax ready to fall. The documented record indicates that I was on my best behavior and rewarded with a “clean” record after that. And that accomplishment can cause one to be in a bit of a celebratory mood once again. It must have been ’78 or ’79 when I decided to give the birthday party thing another try. I picked Fraser Park, about five miles west of Weippe, as the setting this time and bought a keg of beer. The park featured a baseball diamond that our “Fraser Hippie” fast pitch softball team used during the season. The driveway into the park was highly visible for a respectable distance and there were eighty acres of stately Ponderosa Pine trees that one could quickly disappear into if such need should ever present itself. The need didn’t materialize and The Party was a resounding success with beautiful weather.

I continued the practice as sole proprietor until my old chum Dave Daniels threw in with me as co-sponsor of The Party in ’81 or ’82..., we think. Dave and I could have been classmates and graduated high school together..., if he would have had the foresight to flunk a grade. But he graduated with his own class a year ahead of me, got married, and moved to Lewiston. He got drafted and did a tour in “Nam”..., I got drafted and did a tour of Virginia. After he got out of the service he got divorced and bought a hippie van, worked the oil-shale fields of Wyoming for a while, then settled in Missoula for a few years, before he came back home to Weippe. We spent many wild years chasing Wild Women together, from Montana to Idaho and back before he returned to Idaho for good. We got in a couple more years of free wheeling bachelorhood before he met Kathy and decided to settle down. He didn’t even give me a chance..., but he let me take pictures at the wedding. Dave’s mom and stepdad fronted them a few acres of property on the Heywood Ranch about five miles east of Weippe. They carved out a homestead, built a log home, and a huge shop-garage. In their spare time they raised Jesse, Kaylin, and Dusty.

After I moved to Forks, WA in 1987, Dave & Kathy continued The Party tradition out on their place on Heywood Meadows..., and started calling it The April Birthday’s Party in honor of the other friends that had the good fortune to be born in that month. I missed quite a few years of parties through the late ’80’s and all of the ’90’s. Then I made a career change and found a job with paid vacation time that afforded Julie and I the luxury to take a week or so off every year..., and we started attending again. After that first year in ’00 or ’01 when we brought over about 30 dozen oysters and introduced those inland folks to a coastal tradition of barbecued oysters in the shell..., we received much encouragement to not miss any more of the parties. Along with the admonishment, “Don’t forget the oysters!”

The weather can be a little dicey in April. We have had short sleeve T-shirt, sunburn short wearing weather…, and we had have had rain and snow and sleet and hail and thunder and lightning. Spring time in Idaho can deliver most of those conditions in an eight hour shift. Dave’s 50 X 60 foot shop with an industrial strength wood stove has provided warmth and shelter on many occasions. For the most part we have been pretty lucky with the weather through the years, occasionally the bonfire gets lit up a little early…, just like some of the guests.

But we have hired security to handle anything that gets out of hand…, be it the bonfire or fired up guests. Not paid security mind you…, just highered security. Rob Jinotti from Missoula, MT handles those duties. A former member of the once notorious, but now disbanded S.L. Motorcycle Club - Missoula Chapter (of which Dave was once a proud, card carrying member when he lived there), assumed the position, so to speak. Partly because Rob has a shirt that reads “SECURITY” on the back. OK…, mostly because of that. Dave and I never felt the need for security before Rob showed up with that shirt…, but his services are indispensable now. I have had to have a chat or two with him about his tendency to profile guests and even resort to tactics that border on harassment…, of the younger female guests. But after he shared the particulars from his notebook in regard the strawberry blond in the tight sweater…, and pointed out that he spent just about as much time interrogating my wife Julie as he did any of the other young girls…, I realized that Rob is strictly business and thoroughly professional when it comes to party security. And Julie is a true trooper and doesn’t object to the scrutiny.

The Party isn’t all about Beer and Wild Women these days. That was certainly the case in the early days when Dave and I were free wheeling bachelors and were attempting to recruit as many of those Wild Women as possible to sign on to the Clearwater Chapter of the S.L.M.C. Somewhere along the line, after Dave and Kathy got married, someone thought that food could be entered into the mix without ruining The Party. That must have been after Dave’s father, Chuck passed away. Chuck always said, “I just can’t see the logic in ruining a $20 drunk with a $2 hamburger.” Sage words of wisdom that still carry a great deal of valididty. But without Chuck around to keep the perspective in focus, a pig roast got started along with a potluck to go with it. I have to admit that it hasn’t had the detrimental effect that I had envisioned when I first got wind of the practice.

A long time friend of ours, Tom Donahue has a pig roasting set-up and he makes a little money on the side catering to gatherings somewhat like ours (there really is nothing else comparable) on weekends. During the week Tom is a cable TV guy in Lewiston. He claims that they hired him at his interview. One of the questions was, “Why should we hire you?” Tom says he replied, “Well…, I already know how to do the job. You guys told me that if I hooked myself up to your cable system just one more time…, you were going to have me thrown in jail.” I think the real story is that they procured his services to roast a pig for one of their company parties…, and wanted to ensure that he would be available for that service from then on. It’s a lot of work for Tom to kill and butcher the pig, oversee the roasting process, and carve the finished product. So one year Dave and I thought we should show our appreciation by giving him a year off. Tom was devastated. Oh…, he wouldn’t admit it. He tried to put up a brave front and act like he was just having the greatest time of his life. But it was obvious that the beaming smile on his face was forced and that he was just trying to drown his sorrows…, and he spent a good share of his time pouring out those sorrows to my wife Julie…, when Rob Jinotti wasn’t interrogating her. So we have refrained from subjecting Tom to that trauma again. And Rob and I trade off, making sure that Tom’s wife Casey is safe and secure while Tom is busy. Tom really appreciates that..., though he tries to hide it..., just like he tried to hide his disappointment at not having to kill, butcher, cook, and carve the pig one year.

Another steady and stalwart fixture at The Party is The Big Guy. Terry Nygaard is a rather imposing figure of Norwegian decent. If he had red hair and beard instead of of those blond curly locks, you would swear he was a reincarnation of Eric the Red..., or at least a damn close relative of that Viking marauder. If I ever had to follow a man into battle, you can bet your bottom dollar that I would line squarely up behind The Big Guy. Luckily for all of us he is about as friendly, fun loving, and gentle as a giant can be. Unless the need is otherwise. Terry is an iron worker by trade, but during a couple of slow years he was forced take a job for Spence Brothers Logging. We were lucky and glad to have him..., on the job and off. There is still a friendly rivalry between us regarding who makes the best camp gravy for a crew of hungary loggers. He and his wife Diane make their home in the Tri-Cities now, where Terry is working on the Hanford site clean up. We tease him that he positively glows in the dark..., and he does..., just not from any job related consequences. Diane was a childhood friend of my wife Julie’s and she was positively ecstatic when Julie and I hooked up. One year Julie couldn’t make to over to The Party and she instructed me to be sure to give Diane a hug for her. Being the ever obedient spouse that I am..., oh man did I. More than once. Did I mention that Terry is a very understanding fellow? And there’s not a doubt in my mind that he would not hesitate in the least to perform as nobly as me if the situation were reversed.

Oh yeah..., I could go on..., and on..., about all the folks, friends and family that I hope to see there in a few long weeks. But the truth is..., a year or so back Rob Jinotti and I were warming ourselves by the wood stove..., carefully observing the dancers on the floor..., and especially that strawberry blond in the tight sweater..., when Rob says, “How many of these suckers do you know?” It was a good turn out that year and it would have taken a while to count all the folks in the shop..., let alone out by the bonfire..., but it didn’t take long to count up the people I knew. I said, “Well..., it wouldn’t be much of a party if it was just people I know here.” Yeah..., it seems that through some quirk of the space-time continuum..., Jesse, Kaylin and Dusty had grown up. It was as much their and their friends party as it was ours.

So I won’t waste time and space here trying to list all the old friends and family that I hope to see there this year. There is also the danger of leaving someone off the list and injuring some feelings..., if I haven’t already. I would also like to list all the ones that I can be sure that I won’t see again..., at least at this Party in this life. But I can’t not name one. And I am sure you know who that is. Jack S. Smith..., my old partner Jackson will be there in spirit and through his music. With the help of Ellen Thompson, that tape I wrote about has been transferred to CD and Jackson’s music will there along with his spirit. Jackson had played at some of the Parties that I missed when he didn’t have other gigs booked. But the year Julie and I made our return..., Jackson wasn’t going to play. His house had been ripped off and all his guitars stolen. He had taken it as a sign that he shouldn’t play music again. I was pretty shocked to hear Linda explain the situation, the depression Jackson was suffering from, and how long it had been going on. I would like to think that it was my presence that induced Jackson to get up on stage and play again that night. And I would like to think that it was at that Party that he gave me the tape that I wrote about a while back.

The reality is that I am no surer of that than I am of the fact or fiction that this is the 30th consecutive year that Dave has kept the spirit and tradition alive and well. What matters are the memories of all the friends and family that have, over the years, helped make us feel like we created something special. Something that has brought as much enjoyment and pleasure to everyone who honored us with their presence, as they brought to us by them being there. Thank you one and all.

Now.., Let’s Party..., April 16, 2011. One more time. Oh..., one more thing..., I promise not to forget the oysters.

Tom Russell

2011-01-14T23:46:00.000-08:00

The Show was over and Julie and I stepped outside the Treehouse Café for a smoke in the cool, crisp air of the Olympic Peninsula while we waited for the crowd to thin out. Tom Russell had put on a performance that was everything we had anticipated…, and more. Back inside, there I was with five of Tom’s CD’s in hand, standing in what was then a short line, to get them autographed by him…, and wondering what I should say…, besides, “Thank you,”?

It had been about a year since I had “discovered” Tom’s extraordinary songwriting and musical abilities. I had read a piece of his writing, posted on The Agonist Blog, which was linked from Tom’s own “Notes From the Borderland” blog. Intrigued by that piece, I began to read his other posts on his blog. They went back in time a bit, and many of them were about the songs from his newly released CD, “Blood and Candle Smoke”. I don’t buy…, or even listen to…, any “new” music these days. The old chain saw, rock concert, barroom boogie days have left these old ears of mine ravaged to a degree that if I don’t already know the words to a song, I can barely discern them. But based on Tom’s writing I decided to take a chance and bought “Blood and Candle Smoke” and “Veteran’s Day – The Tom Russell Anthology”. It had been almost 20 years since a new artist’s work had graced my collection. I wish I could say that it was worth the wait…, but what I really wish…, is that I had discovered Tom 40 years and 25 albums ago.

To say that I was blown away by his talent and ability would be the understatement of this geological epoch. I had never made the change over to CD’s from old vinyl albums. Luckily, the Toyota and the computer came equipped with CD players. Julie thought maybe I was due for a mental health evaluation when I began to spend all my free time in my “office” as opposed to spending it out in The Saddle Bar(n). I couldn’t listen to Tom out in The Bar…, all I had was an FM tuner out there. Yeah…, I was a bit obsessed. With good reason.

Music has always been about the lyrics for me. Beethoven or Bach need not apply. Give me Browne or Buffett. Even back in the high school days, my friends and I were always trying to figure out the deep meaning of songs and decipher their cryptic little messages that seemed out of place and contrived. Then in later years I gave it the old college try again and took a creative writing course under the widely acclaimed poet, Robert Wrigley…, a bit before his acclaim. Even in the new poetry form that is not constricted by rhyme or meter, Bob would often say of a poem that the author “took the easy way out”. He meant that the author had something really good going, but failed to deliver the punch line, by using an old cliché or a standard statement. Or that the author used a meaningless phrase…, in the hope that it would be interpreted as a highly ambiguous, secret little message. In songwriting it is especially tempting to slip in a little something that isn’t really necessary or doesn’t add anything meaningful to the song just to make it end on the right beat. Even Dylan did it. Dave Van Ronk once said that, “Dylan has a lot to answer for there, because after a while he discovered that he could get away with anything—he was Bob Dylan and people would take whatever he wrote on faith.” If Tom Russell ever did that…, I haven’t found it. I admit that I have a lot of his music left to discover. But I have a distinct feeling that I will never find him “taking the easy way out”. Every one of his songs that I am familiar with is so carefully crafted that it is tempting to call them masterpieces. What the hell…, I have never been one to shy away from temptation…, I will call them masterpieces.

The “Veterans Day” anthology is a two disc set of 37 songs that follow the chronology of Tom’s career from 1976 to 2008. It comes with a little booklet written by music journalist and broadcaster Mike Regenstreif. Mike gives a brief description of each song and tells which one of Tom’s albums it is off of. Mike calls Tom Russell, “The best singer-songwriter of my generation.” On the basic level Tom is a storyteller, and he has an excellent ear for a good story. But his genius lays in the way he crafts the words and images into telling that story. I will try here to provide you with a taste of the sheer genius of Tom Russell’s song writing by quoting some lyrics from some of the songs. I wish I could quote them all here.

“Manzanar”

Said my name is Nakashima, and I’m a proud American

I came here in ’27, from my homeland of Japan

And I picked your grapes and oranges, I saved some money, I bought a store

Until nineteen forty two, Pearl Harbor and the War

Came those relocation orders, they took our house, the store, the car

And they drove us through the desert, to a place called Manzanar

The Spanish word for apple orchard, though we saw no apple tree

Just a row of prison barracks, with barbed wire, a foundry

And we’d dream of apple blossoms, waving free beneath the stars

Till we’d wake up in the desert, the prisoners of Manzanar... Manzanar

Fifty years have all but vanished and now I am an old man

But I don’t regret the day that I came here from Japan

But on moonlit winter nights, I often wish upon a star

That I’d forget the shame and sorrow that I felt at Manzanar

And we’d dream of apple blossoms, waving free beneath the stars

Till we’d wake up in the desert, the prisoners of Manzanar

And we’d dream of apple blossoms, waving free beneath the stars

Till we’d wake up in the desert, brave prisoners of Manzanar

“California Snow” (cowritten with Dave Alvin)

I’m just trying to earn a livin’, I’m an old man at thirty-nine

My two kids and my ex-wife, moved up to Riverside

I’m an agent on the border, I drive the back roads late at night

The mountains east of El Cajon, north of the Tecate line

Where the California summer sun will burn right through your soul

But in the winter you can freeze to death in the California snow

I catch the ones I’m able to, I watch the others slip away

And some I know their faces, I might even know their names

I guess they think that we’re all movie stars and millionaires

I guess they think their dreams and hopes will all come true up here

But I bet the weather’s warmer, way down in Mexico

And no one ever warned them, about the California snow

Last winter I found a man and wife and it was just about daybreak

Layin’ in a frozen ditch north of the interstate

I wrapped ‘em in a blanket, Lord but she’d already died

We shipped the man on back alone, south of the borderline

I don’t know where they came from or where they’d hoped to go

But he carried her body all night long, through the California snow

Man, the things I’ve seen up here, make me think about my life

I might go back to Riverside, try to fix things with my wife

Or maybe I’ll just get in the truck, and drive as far as I can go

Away from all these ghosts that haunt, the California snow

And the California summer sun will burn right through your soul

But in the winter you can freeze to death in the California snow

In the winter you can freeze to death in the California snow.

“The Pugilist at 59”

Rolled out of bed, threw some water on my face

Twenty-five sit-ups and I run in place

I put the coffee on but the pot ain’t clean

Yeah, all you little devils of alcohol and caffeine

A handful of vitamins, drop them on the floor

My ex-girlfriends’ are laughin’ from the icebox door

I put their photos up there, yeah, we talk all the time

But they ain’t talkin’ back now, the pugilist is 59

Cold chicken salad, a glass of iced tea

Phone bills, gas bills, electricity

And the mortgage and the junk mail, one old Father’s Day card

Yeah, go sweat it out, kid, it’s 108 in the yard

Water the lawn, trim them old trees

Pray that your gut don’t fall down to your knees

And Archie Moore whispers in your ear: “Get up, kid, you’re in your prime”

Nah, nah, the champ’s on the ropes Arch, the pugilist is 59

And the rock and the roll

And the fight for your soul goes on and on

You put on the gloves

You’re always ready for love

Pray your passion ain’t used up and gone, yeah

The harder we love, the harder we fall

It’s cauliflower hearts and old medicine balls

And back street affairs in all the water tank towns

Well, there’s a mighty thin line between a heavyweight champ and a used up old clown

But this is Hollywood, kid, fear strikes out

Miracles turn around one-sided bouts

Get off the floor, kid, the sweet science of them old romantic lines

Hey, the champs comin’ back, boys, the pugilist is 59

And the rock and the roll

And the fight for your soul goes on and on

You put on the gloves

You’re always ready for love

Pray your passion ain’t used up and gone, yeah

Roll out of bed, water on your face

Twenty-five sit-ups - run in place

You put the coffee on but the pot ain’t clean

I said, all you little devils of alcohol and caffeine

Yeah, all you little devils of alcohol and caffeine

I said, all you little devils of alcohol and caffeine

The songs on “Blood and Candle Smoke”, released in 2009, show that Tom is continuing to expand his horizons and not resting on any tried and true formula for his success. After listening to this one, I was able to jettison those musings I had, that maybe the “Veteran’s Day” cuts were the only good songs on his old albums. Here are some lyrics from a few songs off “Blood and Candle Smoke”.

“East of Woodstock, West of Viet Nam”

I slept through the 1960’s

I heard Dory Previn say

Me I caught the great white bird

To the shores of Africay

Where I lost my adolescent heart

To the sound of a talking drum

East of Woodstock, West of Viet Nam

On the roads outside Oshogbo

I fell down on my knees

There were female spirits in old mud huts

Iron bells ringing up in the trees

And an 80 year-old white priestess

She made juju all night long

East of Woodstock, West of Viet Nam

Raise high the roof beams carpenter boy

We’re comin’ through the rye

In the cinema I watched the man walk the moon

And I laughed so had I cried

And it was somewhere in those rainy seasons

That I learned to carve my song

East of Woodstock, West of Viet Nam

Africa, Mother Africa

You lay heavy on my breath

You old cradle of civilization

Hear of Darkness, blood and death

But we had to flee you runnin’ scared

When the crocodile ate the sun

East of Woodstock,West of Viet Nam

I think it’s gonna rain tonight

I can smell it comin’ off the sage

As I sit here readin’ ole Graham Green

I taste Africa on every page

And I see those red clay roads

At sundown, and boys I’m gone

East of Woodstock, West of Viet Nam

Rise high the roof beams, carpenter boy

Yeah we’re comin’ through the rye

It was a movable feast of war and memory

A dark old lullaby

It was the smoke of a thousand cook fires

It was the wrong end of a gun

East of Woodstock, West of Viet Nam

“American Rivers”

I saw Red Iron Sunsets from a Rust-Iron Bridge
In the Indian Countries of the Mockingbird Kid
I saw the moon in a boxcar, carried as freight
Through sixty-two winters and forty-eight states

In an old Chinese Graveyard, I slept in the weeds
When a song and a story were all a kid needs
Yeah, the rhymes and the rattle of those runaway trains
And the songs of the cowboys, and sound of the rain

And it's mama I miss you, I woke up and screamed
American rivers roll deep through my dreams

Colorado, Allegheny
Shenandoah, Sus-qua-hay-nee
And the Wabash, the Hudson, the brave Rio Grande
I was the kid there, asleep in the sand, near your Waters

We named 'em for Indians, our guilt to forsake
The Delaware, the Blackfoot, the Flathead, the Snake
Now they roll past casinos and old hamburger stands
They are waving farewell to the kid on the land

With their jigsawed old arteries so clogged and defiled
No open-heart miracle will turn 'em back wild
Past towns gone to bankers; past fields gone to seed
All cut up and carved out; so divided by greed

And old grandfather Cat Fish with whiskers so long
And his life in a struggle, 'cause the oxygen's gone
Oh, mama I miss you, I woke up and I screamed
The American rivers, they've poisoned my dreams...

“The Most Dangerous Woman in America”

Three weeks out of prison, he drives the cold Missouri night

Strip malls and abandoned mines out on the left and the right

He drives into Mr. Olive and the Becker Funeral Home

Where his daddy’s lying’ with a cold hard stare

Black lung and broken bones

The Most Dangerous Woman in America

Is buried on the edge of town

Look out, ma, another miner’s goin’ down

It’s darker than a dungeon down in those abandoned mines

He’s drunk in the House of Knowledge

Plays “Sixteen Tons” a thousand times

It’s colder than a witch’s tit

When the wind blows through these streets

Old minin’ men in the Legion Bar, they’re starin at their feet

The Most Dangerous Woman in America

Is buried on the edge of town

Look out, ma, another miner’s goin’ down

The wind blows through the empty rooms of a corporation farm

There’s a little blue man on the kitchen floor

Shootin’ sparks into his arm

Three-car funeral rollin’ by out on the county line

“Bye-bye, daddy, you’re heaven-bound, but right now so am I”

The Most Dangerous Woman in America

Is buried on the edge of town

Next to the grave where they laid his daddy down

That night in The House of Knowledge, he buys him a .38

And drives out to the Discount Liquor store on the Interstate

The Most Dangerous Woman in America

Has a tear froze in her eye

For the sons and daughters of minin’ men

Who’ve lost their way tonight

Bullets fly and one man dies and one drives off along

To the cemetery midnight and the grave of Mother Jones

He whispers low his daddy’s name and then

“Mother I’ve come to pray... and pay

“For all you done for the minim’ men back in the violent days”

The Most Dangerous Woman inAmerica

Smiles deep in the frozen ground

And there’s sirens comin’ through a dead-end minin’ town

The Most Dangerous Woman inAmerica

Is buried on the edge of town

Look out, ma, another man is goin’ down.

For almost a year solid I listened to Tom Russell exclusively. Well…, OK…, I didn’t swear off The Saddle Bar(n) completely. And I didn’t have a CD player out there…, so I listened to some classic rock on the weekends. But it was Tom Russell CD’s shuffling through the Toyota every weekday morning and evening on the road to the job. That is…, until I found the missing tape of an old musician friend that had passed away in 2008. That find blew me away in another direction entirely. And I was still working that out when, on Christmas Eve, I discovered that Tom Russell was going to be playing at the Treehouse Café on Bainbridge Island on February 9, 2011. I immediately secured a reserved table for two…, and started counting down the days. I had been watching the website, and knew that Tom was doing a show in Seattle on 2/10/11. But me and big cities don’t get along well. And I have an absolutely perfect record of getting lost in Seattle every single time I have ventured off the freeway there. I didn’t want to risk breaking that streak. The next closest venues were in Vancouver, BC or Portland, OR. A show on The Peninsula was a Christmas gift extraordinaire.

I was a bit curious about why Santa was treating me so good when I received confirmation that the reservations were secured…, but I was downright suspicious of his motives when we were shown to our table at the Treehouse Cafe. Julie and I had intentionally arrived almost two hours before the start of the show. We wanted plenty of time to have a couple of beers, go out to smoke (WA law), eat dinner before the show started, go out to smoke…, and make sure we got a good table. We needn’t have worried about the table. They had been reserved from front to back in order of reservation. Ours couldn’t have been any more perfect.., front row, not 10 feet from a one foot high stage, but off center, against a walk-around partition on one side and a waitress alley on the other side of us. No other patrons to bump elbows with. And it was standing room only in a room that couldn’t have held 100 people. It just couldn’t have been any better…, unless Tom was playing The Saddle Bar(n)…, Santa?

Tom has been doing this for a long time and it shows. He knows how to draw out the best in an audience and he gives his best in return. He sounded great…, and I would be remiss if I failed to mention the greatness of his only accompanist…, Thad Beckman on the acoustic guitar. But the show was over now and I was standing in line with five CD’s in my hand. I had purchased three from Tom’s beautiful wife Nadine before the show. I asked if he would autograph them for me and she said, “Yes, after the show.” I asked if he would autograph the ones I had in the Toyota too. She said, “Of course.” So there I was, trying to think of something witty or funny to say. Words may seem to come easy to me here on the page…, but Julie will tell you…, I’m not much of a talker. I’m not sure how it came out, but as he was autographing the CD’s I tried to tell him how much his music meant to me, and how I had lost a very close musician friend a couple years back, and how he had helped fill a hell of hole in my life. I tried to tell him that I had taken a creative writing course at one point in my life and the instructor had pointed out how many writers “take the easy way out” in their writing instead of doing the hard work to get it right. I said that even Dylan was guilty of it at times. I told him that I had never seen him do that. He looked at me, handed me back the CD’s, shook my hand, and said, “Thank you…, that really means a lot to me.”

As I was walking out of the Treehouse Café I thought, “I suppose he says that to everyone who tries to pay him a compliment.” But here, about a month later in The Saddle Bar(n) with a new CD player, and more of his music in my mind and on my shelf…, I think, “He really meant it.” Tom Russell isn’t the kind of guy who would ever take the easy way out.

Here Are Some Links to Tom Russell

2011-01-14T22:34:00.000-08:00

Here's a professional review of "Blood and Candle Smoke"

http://allmusic.com/album/blood-and-candle-smoke-r1634106/review

Tom's website with concert schedule

http://www.tomrussell.com/index.php

Tom's Blog

http://www.russelltom.blogspot.com/

Tom's Myspace page

http://www.myspace.com/russelltom

Tom's Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/russelltom

Jack S. Smith (Part 2 of 2)

2011-01-14T22:22:00.000-08:00

Born on July 13, 1952 and passed away on July 26, 2008

I moved to Forks, WA in 1987, not long after Shotgun broke up. It wasn’t meant to be a permanent move on my part, but it turned out that way. Jackson had a couple of different bands after that and I got to catch their act a time or two when I was visiting family back in Idaho. He had taken one of the bands on the road…, and even played the opening act for Molly Hatchet somewhere. For a few years he and Linda ran the Greer Café and Tavern. It was a historic old roadhouse on a little railroad siding along the middle fork of the Clearwater River. Upstream about seven miles from Orofino, just at the base of the mountain highway that leads to Weippe and Pierce. I heard tell of some of the kick ass parties that took place there…, but only made one of them myself. On one of those trips to Idaho Jackson gave me a tape he had recorded on a four track machine like Springsteen used to record his Nebraska album. It was mostly just song fragments that hadn’t been fully developed yet and a few cover songs with the band at the time. Back in Forks I wrote him a letter filled with as much praise and encouragement as I thought I could get away with and not come off like I was being phony about it. As the years rolled along, the trips to Idaho became fewer and farther between. Logging in Alaska for a few years, then a serious career change that didn’t allow me to build up the necessary vacation leave time for several more years didn’t help. Plus, Julie and I were busy clearing the brush, drilling a well, putting in a septic system, running power and water lines, building sheds and fences on the property that would come to be The Ranch. Somewhere in the middle of that hectic time we made it over to Idaho again and Jackson gave me another tape, along with the refrain that it was the only one of its kind and please don’t lose or abuse it. The tape deck in the little blue Toyota had long ago given up on us, so we couldn’t listen to the tape right away. And with all we had going on back in Forks, the tape got put up somewhere…, unlistened to.

Then I got the call in 2008 from a friend in Idaho saying that Jackson’s condition was indeed, terminal. As we made ready to go to Idaho for the April Birthday Party and the Benefit Auction, I made a frantic search for that tape. Julie’s daughter, Jamie still lived in our trailer house in town and she had boxed up all of our stuff there and “stored” it in closets, bedrooms, and the garage for us. We hadn’t needed a lot of stuff in the camp trailer we were living in while we were waiting for a house to materialize on The Ranch. I made as concerted an effort as I could to track down the tape, but couldn’t possibly go through every box that Jamie had packed for us. I was pretty damn disappointed in myself. So much so that I couldn’t tell Jackson that I knew it was packed away somewhere. I didn’t mention it…, and neither did he.

The Benefit Auction was held at the old Weippe Community Hall. Though Jackson was from Pierce, he had played as much…, probably more…, music in Weippe. He probably played his first real, paying gig there at the old Community Hall. I know it was the first place me and most of my friends ever heard him play. After I had figuratively wrestled that old George Lawrence saddle away from Jim Jensen…, we got to see Jackson get up on that old stage once again and hear him play a few songs that day. I don’t know how he did it…, barely able to breathe…, with an oxygen tank strapped at his side. I take that back…, I do know how he did it. Sheer fucking determination and will power. After all…, I was the one who had to walk up behind him on the gridiron, put my hands under his butt, looked at some beast in front of me that was virtually slobbering to get his hands anywhere on me, a beast that out-weighed Jackson by 30 or 40 pounds at least…, and I didn’t worry about it. But there were a whole lot of people worried about Jackson that day in Weippe. A whole lot of people that wanted to give back to him just a little of what he had given to them over the years through his music and his friendship. From a couple of tiny timber and farming communities, both suffering along with the rest of the nation, an economic collapse that was being compared to the Great Depression…, the generosity was nothing short of amazing, phenomenal…, unbelievable. I have been to a lot of those things and I have never seen anything like it. Right at $20,000 raised…, for a few songs. Even Browne and Springsteen don’t rate that kind of pay scale. Three months later Jackson was gone. I couldn’t make it back to Idaho for the “services”. At his request, his ashes were scattered on the North Fork of the Clearwater River. A touch that he didn’t request…, but seems as fitting a tribute as could be imagined…, an acoustic guitar was set adrift in that River. The ceremony was well attended and I deeply regret having to miss it. Oh man…, yeah.

A few months back, Julie and I sold the trailer house in Forks…, so we finally had to haul a lot of stuff out to The Ranch. A lot of it got stacked in The Saddle Bar(n). A couple of weeks ago I was out there sippin’ an ice cold Hamm’s, when the tuner went out in the old Heathkit stereo receiver. I can’t go without music…, so I scrounged around and found an old tape deck that had belonged to Jamie…, and hoping that it would work, I hooked it up to the old amp. I started scrounging around looking for some old tapes and found an old Marshall Tucker that I had recorded. You’ll hear “Can’t You See” every once in a while on classic rock FM stations…, but it had been a long time since I heard, “A New Life”, or “Take the Highway”, or “Fire on the Mountain”. I was thinking about all the memories music can dredge up…, sorting through boxes of junk that I was wondering why I kept. Then, there it was amid a clutter of old photographs…, SmithSongs - A Life’s Work / Volume 2 / Copy 1. Oh man…, oh man. I put that tape on and let “Jackson” feel my butt for a change. I cranked the volume up, sat in that old George Lawrence saddle and listened.

90 minutes worth. Mostly new material. Jackson had fleshed out several of the song fragments he had done on the first tape he gave me. I kept waiting to hear the cover songs that I was expecting…, but they never materialized. The tape wasn’t any half-hearted, fooling around, let’s have some fun, effort. Every cut was an original that he had written himself and I would guess that most of the music was performed by only him…, laying down each track and mixing them together later. Though he could have had other musicians set in and he did have a female back up on a couple of cuts, I believe it’s about as close to pure Jackson as you could get. There were only a couple of the old songs that I knew from the Shotgun era. Back in those days most of the originals were geared toward a barroom boogie, get ‘um up and dancing genre. There are a few blistering rockers on this tape…, but mostly it is just Jackson and his acoustic guitar…, and he does know how to make it talk. Jackson had continued to get better and better as all those years rolled by. Most of the songs are the singer-songwriter stuff that I am partial too…, Buffett, Browne, Cougar, Crouse, Sam Neely, Tom Russell. Evidently Jackson wasn’t nearly as competent as a technician as he was as a musician. The recording level is a bit too low and you can hardly make out one cut at all. But the material…, some of it…, is awesome. I hadn’t really heard Jackson on an acoustic guitar much…, but there is plenty of that on this tape. I couldn’t help but shake my head in wonder as a chill ran up my spine when I heard, “Wannabe Cowboy”. Sittin’ in that old saddle I was thinking…, oh man…, why…, hadn’t I taken the time to listen to that tape before…, when I could have told Jackson how great it was? I have often said that I may not be proud of some of the things I have done in my life…, but I don't regret doing them. What I regret…, are the things I didn't do. And until my dying day I will regret not listening to that tape and telling Jackson how great it is. But I will tell him some day. Whatever road he has taken, or trail he has blazed on ahead…, I’ll track him down. If I have to be good to get there…, I’ll be a damn saint. If I have to raise a little hell to get there…, I’ll raise holy hell. Whatever it takes…, oh man…, yeah. And I was thinking that when I get there we’ll have the time to take another long ride of one kind or another…, whether it is in that old Camero, or the old Land Cruiser, or in a couple of old George Lawrence saddles…, and we'll have time to talk again. And I'll apologize…, and he'll laugh it off…, I hope. Then I heard this cut from the tape…, my jaw just dropped…, and some other things started to fall. Oh man…, oh man. As another Jackson once said, “Here come those tears again…”

Jack S. Smith (Part 1 of 2)

2010-12-18T18:25:00.000-08:00

Born on July 13, 1952 and passed away on July 26, 2008.

This isn’t a saddle story…, but I call this old George Lawrence saddle, “Jackson”. I don’t name all my saddles. Usually it’s just, “Julie’s saddle”, or “Jamie’s saddle”, or “My saddle”, or the “new George Lawrence”, if you’re speaking about them. But this is a very special saddle…, and so was the fella that I named it after. Oh man…, yeah. Was he ever. Songwriter, singer, guitar picker…, leader of the band. And a hell of a musician. Fighter, scrapper, logger, timber cutter. And a hell of a man. Classmate, teammate, employee, barroom buddy. And a hell of a character. Husband, hunter, father, grandfather. And gone before his time. Still in his prime…, at least musically speaking.

So, when it was widely known that Jack S. Smith had a deadly form of cancer and was only a few months away from performing the ultimate gig on stage in another realm, a Benefit Auction was planned for him in this one. Another good friend of mine, Jim Jensen, offered up the old George Lawrence saddle as a donation for the auction. And the damn fool even tried to bid against me on it! There was no way that old saddle that I had already named “Jackson” was going to be anyone’s but mine. Jim can be forgiven for being such a fool; he wasn’t born in Idaho like Jack, and he wasn’t raised in Idaho like Jack and I. Jim came out from Wisconsin years after Jack and I had become friends back in high school, and he didn’t know just how close our relationship had been. Oh man…, yeah. For four glorious months in our senior year at Timberline High…, I had my hands under Jack’s butt almost every day. Stuff like that can warp your mind…, and leave a lasting impression I guess.

You see…, Jack was the starting center on our football team, and I played quarterback. Jack was also our starting free safety on defense, where he hit like another Jack…, Jack Tatum. He wasn’t all that big…, even for a safety…, let alone a center. Maybe 5’ 7” and all of 145 lbs. He got a hold of the roster before the manager printed out the lineup card and changed his weight to 165 to make it look good. At center Jack was always outweighed by a good 30 or 40 pounds, or more when he looked across at the nose guard lined up in front of him. He was never intimidated, I believe he relished it. Our coach gave out “hash marks” on our helmets when we made a hit that caused an opposing player’s head to “snap back”. When you got ten hash marks on your helmet, the helmet was painted black. Jack wore a black helmet early in the season. Not many others did, even at the end of the season. We finished tied for the League Championship that year. Jack played a big part in making my glory days a winning memory.

I knew who Jack Smith was a few years before we went to school together at Timberline High School. He lived in the logging town of Pierce, ID (pop 1029) which was just 11 miles up the road from my hometown of Weippe (pop 705), which had more farmers than loggers. The two towns were bitter cultural and sports rivals. There was always a little tension in the air, because back in those days it wasn’t hardly a Saturday night if there weren’t a couple of fights at a bar or at a local dance. It was virtually guaranteed if there were more than a couple of Piercites in Weippe, or Weippers in Pierce. Weippe had a venue called the Community Hall. A classic old log structure with a hardwood floor, a wood stove, and a stage…, where Jack and a couple of other guys from Pierce would often play music on weekends. And he had the reputation of a willing and able scrapper to boot. A well deserved, and honestly earned one I might add. So in the summer of 1969, I was walking down the street of Lewiston, ID (pop 17,900), heading to a dentist appointment, so the dentist could make sure the wires holding my jaw together hadn’t slipped any. I spied Jack Smith leaning up against a building. No one was sure how the consolidation of the Weippe and Pierce High Schools into Timberline High was going to work out that fall, given the ancient rivalry between the two towns. But I knew that Jack and I were going to be playing football together that season. I thought it proper to introduce myself, and after all, he might know who I was too. I’d been out on the dance floor and on the basketball court a few times. I knew…, from experience…, that it isn’t easy to introduce yourself through wire-clenched together teeth, and it’s pretty hard to slip into the conversation the story of why you are gritting your teeth and talking like that. But if your listener is looking at you like you’re the kind of guy who might want to get his hands under your butt…, and your listener isn’t helping you out with small talk of his own, it can get a little uncomfortable rather quickly. It can make you almost glad you have a dentist appointment. Oh man…, yeah. It gives you a chance to excuse yourself and move on. Jack reminded me of that moment many times over the years and told me that I caught him at a particularly bad time.

He later told me that he had just seen Linda off on a bus to school somewhere and he was pretty dejected. After I met Linda, I could understand why. Oh man.., yeah. Jack and his drop-dead gorgeous wife Linda were married probably a year after I introduced myself to Jack. They were together for nearly 40 years, and she was at his side at the end. Just like she was all the years they were together. Through all the ups and downs, highs and lows, hilarious and horrifying…, and sometimes…, plumb sideways crazy, borderline insane times. And that just describes the times that I can personally attest to. They had “gone steady”, as we called it back then, all through high school. After they got married, I know they were split up for a brief time early on, because Jack told me about coming home to an empty house one night. Well…, empty except for the man and wife figurine that had adorned their wedding cake…, it was sitting on the kitchen counter under the bare cupboards. He didn’t elaborate on what mistakes he had made to cause that, but he evidently never made them again. If they were ever split up after that, he never told me about it.

Me and Linda at an April Birthday Party

“I'll Always Love You”
I know you’re young, and I’m young too
I’ll do what I can, that’s all I can do
But I swear I'll always love you
I’ve made some mistakes, maybe quite a few
But one I didn’t make, was when I found you
And I swear, I’ll always love you.
...

Continued in the comments section

What I'm Reading

2010-09-25T12:54:00.000-07:00

Been wanting to get back in the saddle here..., and ironically enough..., Sean Paul Kelley over at The Agonist asked in a post what folks were reading.

http://agonist.org/sean_paul_kelley/20100923/what_is_the_most_accurate

It gave me an opportunity to post this response.

Right now? Thomas McGuane's “The Cadence of Grass”. One of my favorite books is Tom’s book of essays, “Some Horses”. When I had Amazon send my dear old Dad a copy…, I think he was as tickled with it as anything I ever gave him. More so than with the custom made pair of chaps from the Diamond “C” Saddle Shop, or the handmade elk horn button belt buckle with the inlaid silhouette of a cowboy leading two pack mules through the mountains, or even the border stamped George Lawrence saddle. Sad to say that I have the book, the chaps and the saddle now. Haven’t found the belt buckle. Anyway…, I wish the old cowboy was still around to share a seven page passage from “The Cadence of Grass” with. It’s a shame to have to leave out so much of it…, but here are the highlights.

…

“We had just got our horses up for the year. They was out all winter and the saddles didn’t fit and them horses would buck all hell west and crooked till we could get ‘em rode. I was down in the ranch yard and Leo, the illegal worked for me then, said some old-timer had arrived on a wild horse and rolled out his bedroll under the loading chute, put his head on his saddle and gone to sleep. I had an idea it was Robert Wood, and it was. Course I didn’t find him asleep, just caught his eye and told him I would see him in the morning. I pretty much knew what he was after. He had a band of mares up on the bench behind our ranch, you know, Ev, where that tank went dry, mares that was running out with wild horses there, not real mustangs but just cayuses folks had turned out when they went to war and they’d reverted and was all outright broncs. I’d promised to gather ‘em for Robert when we had a full complement of help, because it wasn’t going to be easy in any way, shape or form. Well, Robert lost patience with me…”

…

“Robert Wood was just an old puncher who’d outlived his day. Thought the Old West could be brought back if they’d just quit dammin’ up water to make alfalfa. He hated alfalfa and would go a long way out of his way to keep from seein’ it. I suppose he was seventy-five years old ‘cause I seen in the papers when he died about ten years ago he’d made ninety or better. Wore a Stetson right out of the box, no crease, no nothing’. He wouldn’t wear a straw hat in the summer, said it was a farmer’s hat.”

Continued in the comments section..., wish you could edit them !

My Wife..., Julie

2010-09-05T22:22:00.000-07:00

The picture doesn’t do her justice. It was taken some 20 years ago and taking a picture of a picture…., even with a fancy new digital camera…, loses a little in translation. Graham Greene said, “In human relations, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.” I tell her that she is getting better looking every day…, just like me…, and I tell her that her graying hair and character lines only add to her beauty. But sometimes you just have to tell the truth…, and today was one of those days. Sometimes she just ain’t too damn smart.

I had been slaving away out in the pastures, cleaning up horse manure for a good long hour or so and needed a little beer and cigarette break. I probably hadn’t been sitting in the lawn chair in the shade of the shed for more than a couple of hours, when she appears at the one corner of the house I can see from that vantage point. She has a bucket of soapy water and something that looks like a toilet brush with a long handle…, and she starts scrubbing away at the side of the house.

I should mention that we live on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state in one of few temperate rain forests in the world. Forests aren’t the only things that grow here. If they ever prefect the art of making gasoline from algae…, we may be in the money. Green stuff creeps up the side of our house as relentlessly as government deficit spending. But that green stuff doesn’t look like money just yet. At least not to Julie. I have a better imagination.

I didn’t know that Julie was such a hard worker the first time I met her about 30 years ago in Idaho. I was an unattached bachelor, so naturally, I was at the bar where a bunch of my friends wives were having a girls night out in celebration of something or other. Julie happened to be sitting next to me. I had no idea who she was…, but after we danced a couple of times I began to realize just what a foxy lady she really was. Then she said she had to go. I was like, “Who was that girl?” to the gals I knew. I never forgot who she was…, but never saw her again until I came to Forks in 1987.

Continued in the comments section

The Garden

2010-08-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

As my hero, Dick Pronneke, says in the PBS show, "Alone in the Wilderness"..., not much of a garden by Iowa standards. And it may not even rate as a garden by Texas standards. But I am brand new at this garden stuff. I'm a Rancher..., I ain't no Sod-Buster. Don Henry Ford Jr. inspired me to plant The Garden last year. Despite some life threatening experiences that happened back then..., I am trying it again.

If you have to ask about the .357 Colt Python that I carry..., you haven't heard thee story. This is what I wrote to Don last year..., admonishing him for his complete failure to warn me of the hazards involved.

Speaking of That Garden...,

you inspired me to plant. You could have warned me about hazards other than toil, sweat, and beers (to replace the sweat).

I will die of green mouth, the way many of my ancestors in Ireland did during the Great Potato Famine, before I will set foot in The Garden again. I mean, I planned The Garden as a life sustaining endeavor…, the sod-busting and planting of it produced a death wish on a day or two when the sweat was flowing like beer at a biker bash…, but last weekend I had one of those near death experiences that should be reserved for the movies…, or the Jerry Springer Show.

I was just trying to water The Garden. I stretched a hundred feet of garden hose out from The Barn and was proceeding along at a leisurely pace, with visions of baked potatoes, boiled potatoes, fried potatoes, mashed potatoes, and French fries dancing in my head. When a 10 foot python danced out of a flake of hay practically under my feet. I know you'll say that we don't grow pythons in Washington State gardens…, but make and model aren't important or relevant here. And I refuse to look at a picture card line-up to try to identify the culprit. I don't know how many people reading this have ever tried to fight off a 15 foot python with nothing but a garden hose…, but I don't recommend it. Even with a fancy, high-powered spray nozzle attachment in place. The slimy bastard had me around one leg in no time flat. Then the other leg. Then around my waist, my chest. I fought valiantly…, though somewhat blindly. I can't stand to look at a picture of a snake…, let alone look one in the eye that's trying to eat me. Once he got me around the neck he really put the squeeze on…, and I thought I was done for. My life passed before my eyes…, and other things passed from my body. There was a terrible stench and everything went black.

I probably hadn't been lying on the ground long when my wife Julie found me there…, tied up in 100 feet of garden hose. That 20 foot python knew I wasn't dead…, and that evil bastard trussed and tied me up in that hose…, and left me there. I don't know if it was a male snake and he tied me up like that, then slithered off to get his buddies so he could brag about his capture…, and then let them in on the kill…, and the feast. Or, maybe it was a female and she needed to train her offspring to kill with some live bait? I won't bother to dwell on those possibilities…, or speculate on others. I was sure that Julie had somehow sensed that I was in mortal danger…, that famous women's intuition…, that bond between two people that is so strong that you experience the others' pain. But she denied that that was the case…, she said she heard the most horrendous bellering and screaming…, she said it sounded like a Sasquatch with its foot caught in a bear trap. I didn't know snakes could scream and beller. I certainly didn't hear anything like that. But then, often times when you are in a life or death struggle, some bodily functions shut down..., so that more life giving blood and oxygen can get to more important body parts. It seems logical to assume that my hearing and vision shut down during the struggle to survive. And I don't remember any of the details of the epic battle…, just the horror…, the horror. Not all bodily functions shut down…, some go into overdrive. I was glad the hose was still handy when Julie found me.

Continued in the comments section

Knock On Wood...,

2010-08-08T12:56:00.000-07:00

I posted these comments on one of Don Henry Ford Jr's pieces over at The Agonist. http://agonist.org/don/20100807/hard_times#comment-217810

Knock On Wood..., the hard times haven't hit us..., yet. Not as long as I am shooting the elk with a camera..., instead of a gun. Hope it doesn't come to that. But there is a big disconnect between what is happening on Wall Street and what is happening on Main Street. Whatever you believe..., there is one thing that can be counted on. There is a balance in this old world, and that balance will be achieved. Either Wall Street is coming down or Main Street is going up. Given the recent housing start numbers and the employment numbers..., I don't need to tell you that I don't think Main Street is moving up any time soon.

The elk stayed on their side of our fence..., this time. I do wish they would have come on over and cleaned up that last patch of Scotch Broom. Since they didn't..., I suppose I better get out there myself.

A Couple of Real Beauties on Ebay Now

2010-07-31T11:35:00.000-07:00

This saddle was made by Carl Elmer, who was a saddle maker for the George Lawrence Company for many years. I found out about him while searching the history of the GL company. After leaving the company, Carl hand made his own saddles..., and this is the first one I have seen pictures of. Here's a quote from an Oregon newpaper article I found: In nearby Alfalfa, Carl Elmer has made saddles since he apprenticed at Portland’s George Lawrence saddlery in 1942. He ran his own shop in John Day for many years. An Elmer saddle is completely hand-made, from the “tree,” or inner structure, to the stampwork on the exterior—the signature of the saddlemaker. A "little" out of my price range at $1450 on Ebay..., but none the less..., a real beauty. I love the patina of this saddle and it is like the patina on most George Lawrence saddles I have seen. The first George Lawrence I acquired is very similar in style and detail.

Would love to add this George Lawrence to my collection..., for a lower asking price on Ebay. The seller says it is "40's" vintage..., but is more like very early 1900's if not late 1800's. The "slick fork", "loop seat", and "high back" design indicate the age. It appears from the pictures to be a true original in excellent condition. Probably well worth the $1800 asking price..., but out of my range. The oldest in my collection is probably 10 to 20 years later (not "loop seat" and not all original). Hope to get it cleaned up and pictures posted at a later date.

40 Year Class Reunion

2010-07-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

I recently got a notice of my 40 reunion..., and request to submit something for the "memory book". Here it is.

After graduation from Timberline (Weippe-Pierce) in 1970 I spent a semester at the University of Idaho, then dropped out and went to work in the woods.

I was one of the last of the draftees in 1972, and did my Basic Training at Fort Ord, CA before being assigned to Fort Eustis, VA. After I got out of the Army I worked at the Jaype plywood mill for a while before going back to work in the woods. The winter of 1978 I gave school another try at Lewis-Clark State College on the GI Bill. With no major in mind, I just picked out subjects that I was really interested in..., like Photography, Philosophy, Psychology, Intro to the Short Story, and Creative Writing. That only lasted one semester too.

In 1979 my younger brother Larry and I bought a used Skagit SJ-4 swing yarder and began contract logging on our own. By 1987 Spence Brothers Logging had acquired a Link-Belt 78 loader, a D-7 Cat and a Case rubber tired skidder as well. We had managed to have everything paid off and I was looking for new adventures when I took a job cutting timber in Forks, WA in the spring of 1987.

I had initially intended to just work during the yearly spring lay-off period that is common in Idaho. But once I got a taste of cutting really big timber "on the coast" and discovered the beauty and climate of the Olympic Peninsula, I decided to stay a while longer. It did take a while to get used to the rain in this area..., they don't call it The Rain Forest for nothing. But when the skies clear, I will guarantee you that there are no bluer skies anywhere that I have ever been. I was cutting big timber on Anderson Ridge on one of those days and I could look to the east and see the snow-capped Olympic Mountains gleaming on the skyline..., and look to the west and see the white crests of the Pacific Ocean waves breaking on the sea stacks at LaPush. Larry and I didn't have any jobs lined up for our equipment anyway. That summer Julie and I got together. She was in the process of getting a divorce and her ex-husband was in Clearwater County, so she didn't want to go back there. That suited me then..., and has for the last 23 years. And I should mention..., that the first winter on the coast went a long way toward keeping me here. After years of winter logging in Idaho in 20 or 30 degree below zero weather and sometimes eight feet of snow..., here in Forks the boss I was working for decided that at 8 degrees above zero and three inches of snow..., it was too cold and miserable to be out in the weather working. I haven't once regretted trading the snow of Idaho for the rain of the coast.

That doesn't mean that the adventures were over. In June of 1991, Joe Henson called from Alaska. He was working up there as a timber cutter and said that the company he was working for needed more cutters. The Spotted Owl controversy was in full swing in this area, the outfit that I was working for had cut us back to five days a week from six, and we had experienced a two week lay-off recently. So, with some misgivings..., by far the largest was leaving Julie in Forks..., I was on a plane to Alaska a week or two later.

I told myself..., and Julie..., that I was going for the money. A lot of guys do that..., and don't last long in remote logging camps. So, Leslie Cutting offered a bonus to guys who stayed long enough to cut one million board feet of timber. I was determined to stay long enough to cut that much and get the $10,000 bonus. I figured it would take about four months. The Labouchure Bay logging camp was on the northern tip of Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska. Four hours of rough gravel road to the nearest town of Craig..., and a half hour boat ride to the nearest phone. Luckily..., I like to write. But on the phone Julie would say things like, "I miss you and want you to come home." I tried to explain to her the money issue and the need to stick it out. I told her that if she missed me that much she should quit her job and come up to live with me in the logging camp. I never dreamed that she would give up her job. She had worked her way up to the manager's position at the restaurant where she worked..., but the next time I called she said, "Well..., I gave them my two week notice at work."

I really hadn't seen that coming..., but there it was. I flew home and we packed up the little Toyota pickup with as much stuff we could cram into it..., and save room for us, teenage Jamie, a big black Great Dane, an Old English Sheepdog, a Pit Bull, and a very frightened Kitty. Off to Bellingham, where we caught the Alaska Ferry for a one day, two night cruise to Ketchikan. A couple of days in Ketchikan before we could catch another ferry to Craig..., then the long drive to Lab Bay..., and our cracker box camper-trailer with two minute warm showers and one TV channel. We loved it..., and lived that adventure for four years. There was about a two month lay off each year when we would return to Forks and our place there. A couple of times we took the ferry to different spots in Canada and drove home from there.

On one of our trips "home" we were returning from the ocean beach at LaPush. We would almost always take a little detour and come home via the Quillayute Prairie road. It is a nice drive and reminds you of the Weippe and Fraser prairies. You can also get a good view of the snow-capped Olympics on a clear day. We happened to see a For Sale sign on a four acre, undeveloped parcel. It was over-grown with a proliferation of a noxious weed called Scotch Broom..., and about a dozen wrecked, abandoned, stripped out car bodies..., and all the accoutrements that go along with a junk yard. A lot of that stuff .., as we would discover later..., was hidden by the Scotch Broom.., but the view of the mountains was shining bright. We bought the property before we headed back to Alaska.

The last year we were up in Alaska wasn't meant to be that. It was going to be great. We had the trailer in Forks and the property on the Quillayute Prairie paid off. I had received a promotion to a Bull Buck position and we had moved from our cracker box camper into a three bedroom trailer with a real shower. Then Leslie Cutting decided to fold up shop. The same things effecting the logging industry down south had crept north and Jim Leslie made the decision to get out while the getting was good. I worked a couple of other jobs on other islands while Julie stayed at Lab Bay..., until that camp was closed. I had celebrated my 40th birthday in Alaska and there weren't many logging jobs that offered any kind of retirement plan. So when we returned to Forks I began to explore other career options. Since there was a minimum custody prison about thirty minutes south of Forks and a close custody facility about 30 minutes north of Forks, the employment prospects made it a logical choice. The guy I talked to at Peninsula College suggested that if I ever wanted to do anything but "walk the tiers"..., meaning if I was truly interested in career advancement I should get at least an AAS in Criminal Justice. With the help of WA State Re-Training program and my previous college credits I was able to get that two year degree in a short time. Now..., instead of jockeying a chain saw..., I jockey a computer as a Classification Counselor.

The rest..., as they say..., is history. I hope to get some stories and pictures of the adventures of developing our property on my web site..., someday. Julie and I are living and loving there now..., along with three horses..., and too many dogs, cats, chickens, and ducks. So..., if I haven't bored you to death so far..., I will quit while I am ahead. And hope that you all have faired as well.., and been as happy as I have been since graduation.

Best Wishes to All...,
and sorry that I won't be able to make the reunion.
SRS

Move Over Joe Bageant...,

2010-07-03T10:57:00.000-07:00

make room for David Michael Green.

http://www.counterpunch.org/green07022010.html

DMG may not cover anything new here..., but hearing is oh so sweet. Do yourself a favor and read it. Talk about hitting one out of the park..., old Yankee stadium wouldn't hold this one. This is probably the best fireworks you will see..., on this Fourth of July.

How on Earth Did This Happen?

Living the Regressive Dream

By DAVID MICHAEL GREEN

Let’s be honest: We live in stunningly, jaw-droppingly, ridiculously absurd political times.

Here’s the story in a nutshell: A far-right predatory overclass has spent the last thirty years undoing the hard-fought gains of the mid-twentieth century, which had produced a robust middle class and vastly more economic and social justice in America than the country had ever known before. These regressives used every kind of deceit imaginable to persuade unsophisticated voters to choose candidates whose real agenda was to assist their plutocratic puppetmasters in fleecing the very same people who voted for them.

Such candidates ran on issues like the death penalty, immigration, bogus wars, gay marriage and abortion. But what they really were about as legislators was exporting jobs to where workers are dirt cheap and politically neutered, crashing organized labor, shifting the tax burden onto the mass public, deregulating industry to allow unhindered profit-taking on the upside and socialized public responsibility for risk on the downside, and locking in a Supreme Court majority that would never blanch at even the most outrageous rulings enhancing corporate power in American society.

If the product of this slow and silent coup wasn’t so bloody and so ruinous to so many lives, you’d really have to hand it to these guys for their political acumen and patience. It took a while, and it required the building of a broad and robust infrastructure, spanning from mainstream media to talk radio and TV to think-tanks to Congress, the presidency and the judiciary, to the GOP and now to the Democratic Party as well, but they have pretty much completely succeeded in grabbing all the levers of power in our society. They dominate its discourse entirely, and they have been almost completely successful to date in securing all the elements of their legislative, regulatory and jurisprudential agenda, at least to this point (how far they ultimately intend to go isn’t clear – the US as Honduras, perhaps? – but it’s unlikely to be pretty). Perhaps the only major exception to that rule was their 2005 failure to privatize the vast pool of public money sitting in the Social Security coffers, which they lust over lasciviously, like teenage boys inhaling online porn by the bucketful.

And it just gets better from here. We may not celebrate another real Independence Day if things don't CHANGE..., for the better that is.

Right on DMG..., write on.

The Saddle Bar(n)

2010-06-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

Uh Oh ..., got a digital camera. An amazing little toy..., to say the least..., and I can forget all that I remember from a semester of Photography classes long, long ago.

The Saddle Bar(n) didn't start out as such..., it was orginally The No Dogs Allowed Timberframe Whiskey Bar Saloon. So named because my most frequent customers were our "pack of dogs" as my neighbor once angerly refered to them. The theme was to be nautical in nature with a genuine chart of the Labashure Bay area..., where Julie and I spent four logging seasons dreaming of The Ranch..., of Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska hanging on the wall above the big spruce slab of a bar with a map of the Inside Passage from Seattle to Skagway wood burned into the surface. The sailboat themed lighted beer signs and the Hamm's bottle and can collection attest to an Ebay obsession that pre-dates the saddle obsession that evolved.

Pictured in the foreground are just three of the George Lawrence saddle collection..., that now numbers seven. Add a couple of Ray Holes saddles, a couple better know brands (Big Horn and Simco) and a Decker pack saddle..., and well..., there you have it. The Saddle Bar(n). And the coldest beer..., Hamm's of course..., on the coast.

That Good Lookin' Al Spence

2010-05-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

Being Memorial Day..., and I have been posting stories that involve my Dad..., I thought it fitting that I post his obituary from last year here.

Alexander R. Spence, 79, Weippe

Born: Aug. 23, 1929
Died: Aug. 07, 2009

The spoken phrase, “Hello, I'm That Good Lookin' Al Spence,” will be spoken never again by the man who coined and used it throughout most of his life. Al has passed on to be with his beloved wife Wanda in the hereafter. The one and only time he ever referred to himself as something other than “young and good lookin' “ was when he described himself as “…an old, homely, older-than-dirt husband… “ when he wrote Wanda's obituary in November 2006. It was a true measure of the depth of the loss he felt.

Al was born in Ellensburg, Wash., to Alexander Spence and Ethel Vanderkar Spence, both deceased. The family, including sisters Ethel Pollillo of Kennewick and Mary Ann Chapman of Weippe, and half-sisters Ione Jones Layman, deceased, and Elna Jones Marner, deceased, moved to Weippe shortly thereafter and Al spent most of his life there.

While still in his teenage years, Al took a job horse packing for Steve Russell at the Lochsa Lodge near the Idaho-Montana border and Lolo Pass. The experience was one of his fondest memories and he reminisced about them on a recent road trip to that location with his two sons, Scott R. of Forks, Wash., and Larry of Weippe.

Al was drafted into the Army in 1950 and served in California and Germany. Before being deployed overseas, he married Wanda Kautz, on July 7, 1951, in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Their marriage lasted a life-time and Al was at her bedside when she passed away.

When he returned to Weippe he worked for Potlatch as a cat skinner, and participated in the Clearwater Log Drive featured in the July 1951 issue of the National Geographic magazine. In the later 1950s, he bought his own dozer and became a contract logger. He continued to build his logging operation until the call of the north took him to Alaska and the pipeline project in the 1970s. When he returned to Weippe he sold the logging operation, bought a small ranch, and became the cowboy he always wanted to be. He ran his cattle-raising operation until an auto accident in the early 1990s. The injuries slowed him down physically and he could not continue the practice.

Al leaves three grandchildren, Keith Spence of Lewiston, A.J. Spence of Lewiston and Bert Spence of Weippe; two adopted grandchildren, Brianne Page of Sandpoint, Idaho, and Stacy Petty of Fort Hood, Texas; and three great-grandchildren.

Al will be cremated and no services are planned. Surviving family members ask only that he be always remembered as, “That Good Lookin' Al Spence”.

Biscuits & Gravy and the First Killing Frost

2010-05-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

Encouraged by the comments from Ellen on my last post..., and of course by Don signing on as a follower..., I am posting this one from last fall. It was originally posted to my Diary on The Agonist (10/12/09). Hope Ellen (and Don) can smell the Biscuits & Gravey this time :)

There are few things in life better than biscuits & gravy on a frosty morning. Especially when it brings to mind fond memories of your recently departed father dishing it up inside a wood stove warmed tent in a hunting camp on Cook Mountain in Idaho many years ago. Yeah…, a little breakfast before the work begins. The fun is over but the thrill isn’t gone until we have saddled the horses and mules and headed back down the draw to pack the downed elk out.

But this morning…, it’s Julie providing the biscuits & gravy here on The Ranch on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. Throw a couple of fresh eggs, provided by the chickens that roam The Ranch, fried to perfection on top, and you feel like you can take on any challenge. The game to harvest later today after this first killing frost isn’t elk though. I haven’t killed any game animal for meat since I left Idaho over twenty years ago. And I hope that I never have too. But will…, if I must. It’s been a few years since the elk have raised havoc with our fences…, but they aren’t far away. The horses and dogs attest to that. The Garden is closer though, and I feel confident that I won’t get the ambiguous feeling from pulling potatoes out of the ground that I did from putting an elk on it. We will see today how successful we have been at coaxing food from this ground we call home. A back up plan to put food on the table in never a bad strategy. In the days to come it may be a necessity to meet the challenges ahead.

I don’t see any back up plan for our nation. We are running on stimulus. We were served up a breakfast of dried biscuits in the form of a busted economic strategy to pull forward demand for housing and credit. Some say we couldn’t have chocked down those biscuits without an outlandish helping of gravy in the form of monetary stimulus. We will never know for sure now. But given the fact that the gravy wasn’t used for it’s initially stated purpose…, and has been spread over the plate to include things like enticing people to buy new cars that they don’t need…, I can’t help but doubt the wisdom of the plan. With real unemployment running around 20% and no real turn around anywhere in sight for the foreseeable future…, we are told we can count on a jobless recovery. The gravy hasn’t helped us choke down those biscuits either. What are we going to do when the gravy runs out?

I am going out to The Garden…, and think about better days and my father.

Ray Holes Saddles

2010-05-23T12:49:00.000-07:00

It was early fall in the low country…, but on top of Cook Mountain it was late fall. Water was freezing in the bucket at night and the heavy morning frosts looked more like snow in the meadows around our hunting camp. Inside the tent on those mornings you knew everyone else was awake, staying in their warm sleeping bags…, because the snoring had stopped…, waiting for some other brave fool to crawl out and get a fire going in the stove. The Western Larch trees that we call Tamarack, the only evergreen that changes color and loses it’s needles in the winter, were aglow with that rich golden color that deciduous trees aspire to…, but never attain.

We had packed in, on horses and mules, about five miles from our base camp on Weitis Creek a few days before. My butt told me it was much further than that and I was still more than a little saddle sore…, when my Uncle Leroy decided that it was safe to turn his bell mare loose. He figured that his horses and mules would hang around as long as Beer Nip was tied in camp. Beer Nip wasn’t a mare, but served as the bell mare for my Dad’s herd. Dad was already throwing his saddle on Beer Nip as I watched quizzically…, and my uncle shouted something like, “Oh shit,” as eight head of horses and mules headed across the meadow at a trot. They were headed the shortest route to the road that circled around to our spike camp. As Dad put the bridle on Beer Nip and handed the reins to me, he said something like, “Well…, if you can’t head them off before they reach the road…, they will probably stop at our base camp on the Weitis. If that happens…, you just as well spend the night there, load up some more grub and come back in the morning.”

That frost I mentioned earlier was long gone by that afternoon…, but the moisture it left on that dirt road made walking on that road a treacherous ordeal. Galloping a horse down that road was something else altogether. But my butt told me that it was worth the risk of avoiding a much longer ride. They say that some funny things can go through your mind when you have a near-death experience. Well…, my life may not have been passing before my eyes…, but mud and snot and sweat and slobber sure were. And I was thinking..., “Damn…, this is one fine saddle.”

The heavy brush along the road had more to do with turning back our quitters than any heroics on my part. But back at camp I remarked to my Dad that I kind of liked that saddle of his. He remarked, “That’s a Ray Holes saddle, boy.”

I didn’t even know what brand of saddle I had. I did know that I wished my Dad was riding it, with it’s padded “sissy seat”, and I was riding his hard seat Ray Holes when we headed off Cook Mountain that fall. I got half that wish the next day when it was decided that we would save a little gas in the stock truck by roading the herd up out of the Weitis. I got to ride Beer Nip and the Ray Holes saddle and lead my uncle’s bell mare…, while the rest of the head was turned loose. Dad and LeRoy took the vehicles about five miles up to the top of the ridge where we would load them up for the trip home. Beer Nip and Tillie didn’t much like the fact that the rest of the herd would gallop away up the road and out of sight, then turn around and gallop back to check that the alpha horses were still coming along. The fact that Tillie’s colt was one of the herd made her another type of pain in the butt for me to deal with. I had to keep a tight rein on Beer Nip to keep him from galloping away to catch the herd. I thought I was in for a miserable, bone-jarring trot that even a Ray Holes saddle couldn’t mitigate. I wasn’t so wrong about that…, but Beer Nip was a pacer. If it hadn‘t been for having to deal with a distraught mother in fear of losing her only child…, it would have been like riding a rocking chair. I now understand why Jake Spoon rode a pacer in “Lonesome Dove.” But he couldn’t have been riding a Ray Holes saddle. I bet he would have…, if they were made back then. He understood quality and comfort.

I never forgot about that Ray Holes saddle. Many years later when Julie and I had our own “ranch” here on the Quillayute Prairie and a couple of our own horses, she needed a saddle of her own. I searched Ebay…, and found a Ray Holes saddle…, with a $2500 reserve! I didn’t bid. I did call my Dad. He laughed at my astonishment at the price of a Ray Holes saddle.

So…, that’s the story of how my “saddle obsession” started. The George Lawrence saddles we have now…, that far outnumber our horses…, aren’t the quality of a Ray Holes…, but they are beautiful, well made…, and more in our price range.

In that 1945 issue of “Western Horseman” magazine I mentioned in my last post about George Lawrence saddles…, there is an ad for Ray Holes Saddle Co. It says simply:

Honest fellows

We’re swamped. No delivery less
than 8 months. Please order only
if a necessity.

Says a whole lot about the quality and character of Ray Holes and the demand for the saddles he built.

From Lee M. Rice’s book, “They Saddled the West”:

Ray Holes was living with the single ambition to become a full-fledged saddle maker with a shop of his own. At the same time, he was not blind to his lack of fundamental knowledge in the craft. He knew from experience that some saddles were good while others were bad: that many well-built and good looking rigs were uncomfortable to ride. Some were hard on a horse’s back and some would wear out a man in a day’s riding, despite their apparent quality. Occasionally he would come across some old hull, out of date and badly worn, that possessed a welcome comfort evidently bestowed by a superior craftsman who understood the secrets of overall perfection. Each day brought new questions for which Ray had no definite answers. The more he observed, the stronger grew his conviction that the most comfortable and best fitting rigs for all-around hard work on the range had been built by earlier saddle makers who had risen to prominence during the decades shortly before and immediately after the turn of the century, when the stringent demands of cowmen were at their height. Further study convinced him that the more important old-time saddlers were growing scarcer every year. If he were to benefit by their knowledge, it behooved him to undergo some first-hand studies at the feet of the old masters before rapidly advancing years took their final toll.

He therefore, set out to contact all the old-time saddle makers he could find who might initiate him into the basic principles of the craft. Some he was able to reach through correspondence; some he visited in person; others he worked with as a willing apprentice for varying periods of time. As might be expected, he met occasional rebuffs or cynical brush-offs. Not all men were willing to share their secrets with a stranger. Yet here were enough, who recognized in the eager young man a reflection of their own quest for knowledge, that he found himself led, step by step, into the inner circle of master craftsmen.

…

Armed with the best available knowledge, advice and practices gleaned from a wide variety of preeminent saddlers about the country, Ray’s main ambition was to produce something outstanding in saddles for the working cowboys, First in importance, he reasoned, was to set up the three basic qualities as his standard: mainly, comfort, durability and beauty. On this foundation it would be necessary to build a saddle that could meet all the requirements of the arduous range work that Idaho’s steep and rugged mountain country demanded. It was a big order. Yet his years of cow work and roaming the uninhabited wilderness, which had enabled Chief Joseph’s people to elude the United States Army in 1877, gave way an understanding of the special needs in riding equipment for such rough territory.

…

Along with these accomplishments, he developed a type of free-swinging stirrup leathers that avoided the bundlesome and awkward features of some patented stirrup leather hangers. In a mountainous country, where so much up- and downhill riding is necessary, these free-swinging stirrup leathers win praise from all who use them. They are only equaled by the Ray Holes carefully constructed saddle seats. As a matter of fact, the two items are actually combined to give the maximum in comfort. It requires extremely artful care to shape and place the parts that eventually combine themselves into a single unit of all-around durability, comfort and beauty, such as captured Ray Holes’ vision 40 years ago.

Rice’s book was published in 1975. Ray Holes started building saddles in the 1930’s, and though he has passed away, the tradition of fine saddle making is being carried on to this day at the Ray Holes Saddle Shop in Grangeville, ID.

Pictures added 5/30/10

The saddle that I rode in the story has disappeared. It was an older, pretty much plain with a "high-back" cantle if memory serves me correctly. Dad never would have sold the saddle..., my brother and I figure that he "loaned" it out before he passed away. Almost a year after he passed away now..., and no one has showed up to return the saddle. This one pictured above was numbered "1076" and it features some of the carving that Ray became renowned for. Ray began to number his saddles and records were kept of each order sometime in the 1940's. A Ray Holes saddle that I picked up on Ebay is numbered "1785" and was ordered by Coy Solander of Weston, Colorado on 10/28/55. It is a "rough-out" model and is pictured below.

Picture below is another Ray Holes that my Dad had. It was stamped "Caroline" on the back of the cantle. If I remember right..., it was an un-numbered saddle.

In David R. Stoecklein's beautiful book of photo's of "Saddles of the West" there is a picture of three saddles. The caption reads, SADDLES MADE BY THREE OF THE BEST SADDLE MAKERS OF THE 20th CENTURY - Lawrence, Hyser, and Ray Holes, Stoecklein Collection. (it should be Heiser I am sure). In the back of the book he says, "Ray Holes was born in 1911 in central Washington. He opened his first saddle shop in Cottonwood, Idaho in 1936. Soon after he moved near Grangeville, where his shop is still located today. Ray's son Jerry grew up in the shop and is now a master craftsman of the trade. They startd making their own saddle trees in 1955. Ray also invented tools for carving leather that are still used today. Ray, himself a master carver, considers Jerry's work to be even better than his own."

I don't have pictures of the one Ray Holes I have from Dad's collection yet. It is an older "high-back" (without carving)..., it is stamped "Cottonwood" as opposed to "Grangeville"..., obviously one of his earliest saddles. I have no idea how many "Cottonwoods" there are out there. Not many I think.

George Lawrence Saddles

2010-04-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

I am not a serious collector of anything..., but I have managed to "accumulate" a few old saddles made by the George Lawrence Company of Portland, OR. This is my latest addition.

From "They Saddled the West" by Lee M. Rice:

The George Lawrence Company of Portland, Oregon, has the distinction of being the oldest established firm in the Northwest engaged in the manufacture of Westen riding equipment. Some firms--including Main and Winchester and the L.D. Stone Company of San Francisco--were established prior to the founding of the George Lawrence Company, but the others are no longer in business.

The Lawrence Company was founded in Portland in 1857, at the end of the romantic Oregon Trail days. It was startd by Mr. Samuel Shylock, who came west to the Oregon country to establish himself in his trade of saddler and harnessmaker. In the new city of Portland, he found the opportunity he had been seeking. There was a great need for a shop to furnish harness and riding equipment to outfit settlers and army posts in the remote sections of the Northwest.

...

Mr. Shylock was joined by his brother-in-law, George Lawrence, in 1874. Two years later, upon the death of Mr. Shylock, George Lawrence took over the management of the company. The firm was reorganized in 1893, being incorporated as the George Lawrence Company, and under that masthead it has remained ever since.

...

The George Lawrence Company has never gone into extensive manufacture of high-priced custom-made goods. Their policy and reputation was built by concentrating on quality, catering to the cowpuncher, the packer, and the man who must spend many hours a day in the saddle. To win the cooperation of such men as these, they must provide a saddle that will stand up under the most severe tests with the greatest comfort to both horse and rider. A hundred years of satisfied customers is substantial evidence of the Lawrence Company's record of dependability.

A shorter version of this book excerpt was published in The Western Horseman magazine in Jan-Feb 1945. The George Lawrence Company quit making saddles sometime in the 1950's. I believe that the saddle pictured is one of the last they made in the 50's era.

The Coming Storm

2010-04-04T17:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a rainy and windy weekend here. It reminded me of this submission to The Agonist on 11/16/10. I was fearful that a disasterous Christmas shopping season would spell the end of the government efforts to "save the economy". As it turns out..., I was as wrong about that as the weather predicters were about their storm warning.

The Coming Storm

Here on the Quillayute Prairie the rain is coming down…, sideways. We have a steady 12 mph SE wind with gusts up to 27 according to the National Weather Service report…, with worse to come.

A STRONG FRONTAL SYSTEM WILL SLOWLY PUSH THROUGH THE COASTAL WATERS LATE SUNDAY NIGHT AND MONDAY THEN PUSH ONSHORE LATE MONDAY EVENING. WINDS ALOFT AHEAD OF THIS FRONT ARE EXPECTED TO BE STRONG AND THIS WILL INCREASE THE SURFACE WINDS...ESPECIALLY OVER THE COASTAL WATERS AND ALONG THE BEACHES. THERE IS ALSO A CHANCE THAT A DEEP LOW PRESSURE CENTER WILL FORM AND BOOST THE COASTAL WINDS LATER MONDAY. SOUTH WINDS OF 50 MPH WITH LOCAL GUSTS TO 80 MPH ARE POSSIBLE LATE SUNDAY NIGHT THROUGH MONDAY EVENING.

PERIODS OF HEAVY RAIN OVER THE OLYMPIC MOUNTAINS AND NORTH CASCADES COULD DRIVE RIVERS IN THOSE AREAS ABOVE FLOOD STAGE BY MONDAY OR MONDAY NIGHT.

RAINFALL WILL GRADUALLY INCREASE OVER THE OLYMPICS AND NORTH CASCADES TODAY THROUGH MONDAY EVENING...WITH PERIODS OF EXCEPTIONALLY HEAVY RAIN POSSIBLE OVER THE OLYMPICS MONDAY.

I take solace in the fact that weather men are far from reliable prophets…, especially government prophets. Well…, all I can say is…, if the forecast is correct the ducks will be swimming up to the front porch for dinner. The little pond is already backing up toward the barnyard…, but we are in no danger of any real damage causing flood. The ducks love it…, the dogs and horses…, not so much. I may not love it as much as the ducks…, but there is nothing like a good storm to clean out the cobwebs and get some juices flowing…, if you are ready for it. Julie made coffee last night in case the power was out this morning and we stored up extra water in the bath tub to flush the toilet with. Our water supply is underground in the well and with no power we have no way to get to it with a bucket. Yeah…, if you prepare for the worst it is never as bad as predicted. But when you are unprepared…, it can be damned inconvenient…, or worse The temperature is in the mid-forties so in spite of the fact we have electric heat…, we won’t freeze. If it gets too cold in the house…, we can always go to The Bar. The timber frame shed out back that we call The Bar, is equipped with a propane stove with a reasonably authentic looking fireplace view…, without the other hassles involved with the real thing. Once you have flipped a switch to start a fire you may just swear off ever splitting another arm load of kindling. And if the stove doesn’t provide enough light we can always pump up the old Coleman gas lantern and listen to it’s soft, comforting hiss…, along with the battery powered radio. The thought of it almost makes you wish the power would go out. We really should invest in a gas generator for such “emergencies”. But I fear that Julie would just want to hook it to the TV in the house instead of using it to power the 35 year old Heathkit 1515 stereo receiver in The Bar. I am still the romantic and she is ever so practical.

But…, it isn’t this Storm that I am worried about. It’s The Storm to Come. I have written here previously about a “Crash”. One year seven weeks ago on 9/25/08 I wrote, “The Crash is Coming…, with or without this Bail Out. The Bail Out is just that…, a Bail Out of the fat cat investors that run this country. It will accomplish one thing and one thing only. It will “buy” them time to reposition their portfolios and make money from this coming crash.” Well…, the Bail Out came, the S&P crashed to the 600 level. Do I need to tell you what happened after that? Record bonus for the fat cat investors this year and extended unemployment benefits for us. Not long after the Bail Outs…, the Stimulus started. Seven weeks ago I wrote in “Living on Stimulus” that, “… prior experience tells me that more of the same crap that got us here isn’t going to keep the party going. We have way to far to go for a quick rush to solve the problem. We aren’t going somewhere slowly…, we are going nowhere fast.” Well…, the extension…, and expanding…, of the $8000 mortgage credit is an attempt to keep that first rush alive. Our government is buying up houses so fast for people who have little…, if any…, hope of ever paying them off, that the FHA is already broke. Fannie and Freddy have been broke for a long time. As Denninger is fond of saying, “This is sixth grade math.” And it not just won’t work…, it can’t work. Somewhere along the line I made a comment and referred to a “Cold November Rain” coming in terms of our financial outlook. I meant that late in November we will get a pretty good picture of what the retail outlook is for the Christmas shopping season. I think it is going to drown a lot of “green shoots”. I don’t see consumers coming out of their cocoons. Many of the State budgets cuts of last summer are just now working their way through the system in terms of actual layoffs. Over 250 layoffs were announced in my agency just last week…, and the anxiety I see on the faces around me is frightening. We had been warned that this Storm was coming…, and are being warned that the Storm will likely continue for the foreseeable future. You just can’t prepare yourself for that kind of Storm.

I don’t think I am any better prophet than a government weather man.., but I have some common sense. Yeah…, I am ready for today and tomorrow’s natural Coming Storm. The other financial Coming Storm I see ahead…, not so much.

Scott R. November 15, 2009 - 3:23pm

Khoel

2010-03-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was talking to a young fellow, and he remarked that he had grown up in the neighborhood where we had lived prior to acquiring The Ranch. He didn't remember me..., but he sure remembered my Great Dane dog, Khoel.

I remember him too..., and miss him. Almost a year ago, Don Henry Ford Jr. ("The Urepentant Cowboy") whose Blog I follow (link at my profile) wrote this piece for The Agonist

http://agonist.org/don/20090410/work_and_more_work

In it he described having to put down an injured foal.

"The week was rough. Wednesday morning Manuel called from Seguin and tells me that one of my mares had a foal but the foal isn't getting up. I arrive to discover that she has stepped on his front leg and broken the coffin bone. Not just cracked it--it's completely broken in two. The foal tries to get up and falls, again and again--the leg dangles like a limp rag. He looks at me and nickers.

I have no gun.

But I have a pair of fencing pliers...

I spent the rest of the day thinking I deserve to be dead.

Today marks the day we killed Jesus. Again.

Lord have mercy. I don't know about the rest of you but I'm going to need it."

I worte this piece about Khoel for him. It's almost as hard to read as it was to write.

I Thought I Was Tough...,

I wasn’t going to pay a vet $75 to take care of something that I could do for pennies. I felt it was my responsibility. We had raise Khoel from a pup.

A big, coal black Great Dane who struck fear in the hearts of the car deck hands on the Alaska Ferry System when they walked by the canopied Toyota pickup. They couldn’t believe we were going to let him out on a leash during the car deck call. He was fine with people when he wasn’t guarding his truck. And I have never seen a smirk dissolve on the face of a man as fast as the Rottweiler owner when the Rot “got away from him” and charged straight for Khoel. I gave just enough slack in my leash to let Khoel swat the Rot off balance with his front paw and pin the Rot to the deck with his jaws clamped to back of the Rot’s neck. Khoel had more than just heart…, he had the physical prowess to back it up.

But those days were long gone and his hips had given out. His back end was lifeless and he couldn’t get up at all or even stand with help. So I managed to wrestle him into the back of his pickup once more and we drove from town out to what is now The Ranch…, but was then just The Property. I dug the hole. Then we drove out to the ocean beach at La Push and looked out with him where he used to be able to stretch out more like a Greyhound than a Great Dane and run like the wind. We bought him a chicken dinner and drove him back to The Property.

I regretted most that he would never be there to guard The Ranch like he guarded his pickup…, at least not above ground. Then I put a 9mm slug in the back of his head. He stiffened out and didn’t move. I threw the gun on the seat of his pickup and took a couple of deep breaths. I took off his thin, decorative silver choke chain and put it around my neck. I gave him a pat on the chest to say good-by…, and his heart hadn’t stopped beating yet.

I’m not so tough.

Mercy granted Don…, mercy granted.

Scott R. April 11, 2009 - 12:24pm

Joe Bageant

2010-03-13T09:38:00.000-08:00

I have added Joe Bageant to the Blogs I am following. I must admit that the first few essays of Joe Bageant’s that I read, I was a bit taken aback. As in, “Lighten up a bit on the working poor Joe.” But I am reading his book, “Deer Hunting With Jesus - Dispatches From America‘s Class War” now…, and I have a much clearer understanding of where he is coming from. I encourage everyone to read it.... and his website.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/

You may be a bit disconcerted by the title of the book…, I was too. Joe explains it this way in the chapter, “Valley of the Gun”.

“To nonhunters, the image conjured by the title of this book might seem absurd, rather like a NUKE THE WHALES bumper sticker. But the tile also captures something that moves me about the people I grew up with--the intersection between hunting and religion in their lives. The link between protestant fundamentalism and deer hunting goes back to colonial times, when the restless Presbyterian Scots, along with English and German Protestant reformers, pushed across America, developing the unique hunting and farming-based frontier cultures that sustained them over most of America’s history. Two hundred years later, they have settled down, but they have not quit hunting and they have not quit praying.”

The morning after the 2004 presidential elections I called in sick. I felt the least little bit guilty about that…, but I just could not understand how George Evil Bush managed to win re-election after what he had done to America in the four previous years. How could it happen? Joe’s book provides the answers I was looking for…, and it still makes me sick.

From the chapter, "Republicans By Default".

“That is the American hologram. That is the peculiar illusion we live within, the illusion that holds us together, makes us alike, yet tells each of us we are unique. And it will remain in force until the whole shiteree comes down around our heads. Working people do not deny reality. They created it from the depths of their perverse ignorance, even as the so-called left speaks in non sequiturs and wonders why it cannot gain any political traction. Meanwhile, for the people, it is football and NASCAR and a republic free from married queers and trigger locks on guns. That’s what they voted for--an armed and moral republic. And that’s what we get when we stand by and watch the humanity get hammered out of our fellow citizens, letting them be worked cheap and farmed like a human crop for profit.”

From the chapter titled, “American Serfs”.

“Admittedly, a real blue-collar middle class still exists in some places, just as unions still exist. But both are on the ropes like some old pug boxer taking the facial cuts and popping eye capillaries with no referee to come in and stop the carnage. The American bootstrap myth is merely another strap that makes the working poor privately conclude that they must in some way be inferior, given that they cannot seem to apply that myth to their own lives. Hell, Pootie, if immigrants can put together successful businesses of their own, why can’t you keep up with your truck payments? Right now, even by the government’s spruced-up numbers, one-third of working Americans make less than $9 an hour. A decade from now, five of the ten fastest-growing jobs will be menial, dead-end jokes on the next generation--mainly retail-clerks, cashiers and janitors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

The Archdruid Report

2010-03-07T12:02:00.000-08:00

"Hillsfar" commented on one of my comments over at Ian Welch's Blog last weekend. He (she?) suggested that I check out the

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/

I did..., and now I am a follower of that blog.

Here is a sample from a piece called "Endgame".

It’s crucial to realize, though, that this move comes at the end of a long historical trajectory. From the early days of the industrial revolution into the early 1970s, the United States possessed the immense economic advantage of sizable reserves of whatever the cutting-edge energy source happened to be. During what Lewis Mumford called the eotechnic era, when waterwheels were the prime mover for industry and canals were the core transportation technology, the United States prospered because it had an abundance of mill sites and internal waterways. During Mumford’s paleotechnic era, when coal and railways replaced water and canal boats, the United States once again found itself blessed with huge coal reserves, and the arrival of the neotechnic era, when petroleum and highways became the new foundation of power, the United States found that nature had supplied it with so much oil that in 1950, it produced more petroleum than all other countries combined.

That trajectory came to an abrupt end in the 1970s, when nuclear power – expected by nearly everyone to be the next step in the sequence – turned out to be hopelessly uneconomical, and renewables proved unable to take up the slack. The neotechnic age, in effect, turned out to have no successor. Since then, for most of the last thirty years, the United States has been trying to stave off the inevitable – the sharp downward readjustment of our national standard of living and international importance following the peak and decline of our petroleum production and the depletion of most of the other natural resources that once undergirded American economic and political power. We’ve tried accelerating drawdown of natural resources; we’ve tried abandoning our national infrastructure, our industries, and our agricultural hinterlands; we’ve tried building ever more baroque systems of financial gimmickry to prop up our decaying economy with wealth from overseas; over the last decade and a half, we’ve resorted to systematically inflating speculative bubbles – and now, with our backs to the wall, we’re printing money as though there’s no tomorrow.

My take is that our politicians are trying to fix a problem that can't be fixed..., by throwing money at it. The vast majority of that money is being siphoned off by the Banksters and other financial elites (and politicians). We need to do some deficit spending to keep the social safety nets like unemployment functioning. That money gets to the people who need it. Trying to "create" temporary jobs for them stimulates the economy in the short run..., but it won't do much to fix the underlying problem that we have been trying to solve by those very means for the last 30 years. We have used deficit spending to put off dealing with this crisis, hoping that "growth" would pull us through for far too long. I agree with John Michael Greer at The Archdruid Report..., I think we have reached an "Endgame".

Growing Old With Jackson Browne

2010-03-06T10:52:00.000-08:00

I posted this on on The Agonist back in July '09.

Stayed up late last Saturday night to catch Jackson Browne on PBS’s Soundstage program. Yeah…, I am getting to the age where anything past ten o’clock qualifies as a late nighter. It wasn’t just that, that was making me feel old. When I calculated it, I realized that it must be 25 years since I last saw Jackson Browne in concert. That was in Boise, Idaho…, a six or seven hour drive from where I called home at the time. I had an old partner who had just done a little time in Boise at one of Idaho’s finest facilites…, and a Jackson Browne concert was a damn good excuse to get down there to see how my old friend was doing. It was the last time I saw Jackson Browne…, or that old friend. I moved on…, the old partner went back. I tracked Jackson’s career moves much closer than I did that old buddy’s after that.

The first time I saw Jackson Browne in concert , about ten years prior to that Boise reunion concert…, was in Norfolk, Virginia. 1973. Courtesy, so to speak, of my “friends and neighbors” who selected me to serve my country. I can also thank the U.S. Army for choosing my assignment at Ft. Eustis instead of Vietnam. Jackson wasn’t the headliner in those days, he was the opening act for Neil Young and Crazy Horse. I didn’t even know who Jackson Browne was before that concert…, but I never forgot. That’s not to say that I appreciated just what a special talent as a singer-songwriter he was at that time. I packed a lot more years of living…, and almost dying…, into those ten years between Jackson Browne concerts than the time line would suggest. During one of the convalescent periods of a particularly close call…, I spent time reading “From Here To Eternity” and listening to “The Pretender”. If you are well acquainted with one or the other…, imagine experiencing them simultaneously.

“The Pretender" was an old album by that time. “Running on Empty” was out…, and I had about worn it out. So I pulled out the “The Pretender”.

“Though the years give way to uncertainty
And the fear of living for nothing strangles the will
There’s a part of me
it speaks to the heart of me
Though sometimes it’s hard to see
it’s never far from me
Alive in eternity
That nothing can kill.”
“The Fuse”

“No sooner had I hit the streets
When I met the fools that a young fool meets
All in search of truth and bound for glory
And listening to our own heart beats
We stood around the drum
Though it’s fainter now
The older I become
Living your life day after day
Soon all your plans and changes
Either fail or fade away
Leaving so much still left to say.”
“Daddy’s Tune”

“I’m going to find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means
And we’ll fill in the missing colors
In each others paint by number dreams”
“The Pretender”

It took a few more years…, but I found that girl…, and she is still filling in those colors. Brighter every single day. When we were living in a cracker box camper trailer in a remote logging camp in Southeast Alaska, we bought “Lives in the Balance” on cassette tape. And I discovered that Jackson Browne had even more range that I ever imagined.

“I’ve been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you’ve seen it before
When a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war
And there’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars fought in the places
Where their business interests run”
“Lives in the Balance”

That was a good 10..., closer to 15 years…, back down the road now. So I was anxious and excited to hear what Jackson had to say last Saturday. Jackson doesn’t get much air play on FM radio…, unfortunately…, and I never made the conversion to CD’s when the vinyl records turned to warpped crap in the 80‘s. It took me three tries to get a playable copy of “Running on Empty”. I got lucky with “Hold Out”…, but threw up my hands in frustration with “Lawyers in Love”. So I have missed a lot of Jackson Brown since then. Yeah…, I’m getting old. And so is Jackson Browne. I was happy to see that he hasn’t dyed his hair. No pretender he. He still looks good. I wish I could say that he still sounds good. But nearly 30 years of chain saw screams and heavy equipment bellers have taken their toll. That’s why I don’t listen to new music today. I can’t hear it. It’s a jumble of words that I can’t filter. I need a magnifying glass to read the lyrics on a CD. The old music is still there though…, inside the ear. I can still hear it load and clear. So, I don’t know what new perspectives Jackson had to impart last Saturday night…, but when he closed the show with a song released in 1986..., “Lives in the Balance”…, I realized that his music and his message are ageless and timeless.

“There’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can’t even say the names
They sell us the President the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us everything from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they’re never the ones to fight and to die”
“Lives in the Balance”

Scott R. July 18, 2009 - 3:30pm

Comments on "Health Care Reform"

2010-03-06T09:05:00.000-08:00

Last week I posted this comment on The Agonist:

I am on record here (and elsewhere) predicting that a bill would get passed…, and that the only sure thing about it would be mandatory “insurance” coverage. I thought for a brief moment that I would have to admit that I was wrong…, it was barely on life-support. But it didn’t take the insurance companies long to swing into action…, raising rates. Now…, if they really didn’t want any bill passed they would have laid in the weeds waiting until it was completely dead…, but they didn’t…, they rose up and virtually shouted out load, “You need to pass some kind of bill NOW…, or look what’s going to continue to happen!” And The Big O stood right up with them (coincidence?)…, calling a summit…, promising “bipartisan” (compromise?) support for a new health “care” reform bill.

What we need is a health “insurance” reform bill…, not a health “care” reform bill.
The Big O is going to deliver for the insurance companies (mandatory insurance coverage & no competition)…, and the insurance companies are going to keep the premium increases…, and there won’t be much (if any) insurance reform in it.

I agree…, there is still “hope” that he will take a stand and deliver something meaningful…, or let it die…, but I am not holding my breath.

Scott R. February 28, 2010 - 11:02am

Last night on PBS, Bill Moyers asked as much of one of his guests.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03052010/transcript5.html

BILL MOYERS: Excuse my growing cynicism at this age and stage, but could this be the briar patch strategy? In other words, they want to get people angry enough to– for Congress to pass that health care reform with the mandate that delivers millions of new customers to them under penalty of law?

The guest, Wendell Potter didn’t answer that question directly, but he believes that the bill should be passed because there are enough good things in it (at least the Senate version) to offset the “mandated coverage” requirement. Things like requiring the insurance companies to cover “pre-existing conditions”. My question is, will they be required to cover people with “existing conditions”…, and what’s the difference? He says there are meaningful regulations…, I say those will be eliminated or watered down in the bill that gets passed. And I say again…, a bill will get passed.

The next guest, Marcia Angell takes the position that there isn’t enough good in the bill, even if it isn’t watered down, to make it worth passing. And she echoes what I said above.

MARCIA ANGELL: It’s not lack of health insurance. It’s lack of health care. There is a difference between health insurance and health care. You can have insurance offered that is too expensive to buy or too expensive to use. What good does it do? And what happens when this occurs, is that what you see is instead of improvements, look at my state of Massachusetts.

So if you look at what’s causing the problem, the causes are not being targeted in this plan. They’re not being addressed. Maybe some of the symptoms of the causes are being addressed like let’s stop excluding people from pre-existing conditions. But it doesn’t stop the insurance industry from raising its premiums.…And what do you think they’re going to do? If you were an insurance company, you would say, “Well, thank you, Santa Claus. I’ve got all of these captive customers. Young ones are healthy. They probably won’t even use the insurance. There’s nothing to stop me from raising my premiums. I have all of these subsidies coming in.” Don’t you think that the prices would go up? I think it would be remarkable if they didn’t.

When I look at the Senate bill and the President’s suggestions, almost every paragraph, there is a poison pill for someone. I think sometimes they’re unintended. Let me give you one example. They allow for insurance companies to charge three times as much for older people as for younger people.

So from the point of view of the insurance industry, this is a god-send because either way, they win. Either the 55-year-olds cough up three times the premiums, and that’s good. Or else they can’t, and that’s probably the more likely situation. They can’t, and then they’re fined. And the insurance companies don’t have to take care of people who might actually get sick. They’re left with all of the thirty-year-olds, who are less likely to get sick, but who are required to buy their products.

So this sets up a situation which probably all plans, for 55-year-olds, are high priced. So they can’t afford to buy it, or if they do buy it, they have to pay an excise tax on it. This is a real poison pill for these older people. It’s a gift for the insurance industry.

Well worth the read…, or the watch.

Nothing New This Week...,

2010-02-28T11:56:00.000-08:00

made some comments at The Agonist, Ian Welch's, and Don's blog. Now it is time to get some work done around The Ranch..., so here's an old Agonist diary submission on 9/20/09. It has a bit of relationship to one of my comments.

Living On Stimulus...,

to keep the party going. I remember those days. It was “speed” way back then. Cross-tops…, little white pills that kept your eyes open wide. It didn’t take long and we were crushing them to powder and snorting them to get the effect quicker and stronger. I balked when the needles came out. And never looked back. That isn’t to say that my eyes went shut. I could see a lot of old friends who thought they were going somewhere quickly…, I saw them going nowhere fast. After the initial rush was over and the magic was gone…, no amount of the drug could recreate it until your body had recuperated and purged the last dose. There was no way to keep the party going with more of the same. Over the years “speed” morphed to “crank” and “crank” morphed to “meth”. Which seems to be a different character altogether. I can’t speak from experience about those days…, I was busy going somewhere slowly.

It looks to me like our housing starts have received a meth injection, judging from the quarterly stats.

2009: 1st Quarter = 78,0002nd Quarter = 124,000

The “meth injection”…, or as it is called in the media “stimulus”…, came in the form of $8000 tax credits, low interest rates, and government (taxpayer) backed loans from Fannie, Freddie and FHA. My question is how long this rush will last?

We have already been through the “cross-top” faze with Greenspan keeping interest rates low for too damn long…, to keep the party going. We started crushing and snorting them with Adjustable Rate Mortgages…, to keep the party going. We turned to the needle with no money down payments and all the other liar loans…, to keep the party going. We moved to “crank” with the securitization and selling of those mortgages…, to keep the party going. We are in the “meth” and needle phase now in a effort…, to keep the party going.

At the height of the party in 2005’s second quarter (the historically high quarter for most all years) the number was 485,000. That quarter figure was above 400,000 every quarter since 2003..., until 2007 when it dropped to 333,000. In 2008 it dropped to 194,000. As you can see above, when the figured dropped to 78,000 in the first quarter of 2009, desperate measures were called for.

And we’re getting them. Like I already said…, I have no experience with “meth”…, so I don’t know if it this “meth injection” will work or not. But prior experience tells me that more of the same crap that got us here isn’t going to keep the party going. We have way to far to go for a quick rush to solve the problem. We aren’t going somewhere slowly…, we are going nowhere fast.

Scott R. September 20, 2009 - 1:22pm

A Great Read

2010-02-21T11:59:00.000-08:00

Don over at http://donhenryfordjf.blogspot.com/ linked to this one by Matt Taibbi. Thanks Don.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32255149/wall_streets_bailout_hustle/print

Taibbi writes about the Bail Out in terms of a great con-game. I urge you to read the whole thing..., here's a primer.

CON #1 THE SWOOP AND SQUAT
This may sound far-fetched, but the financial crisis of 2008 was very much caused by a perverse series of legal incentives that often made failed investments worth more than thriving ones.

CON #2 THE DOLLAR STORE
The two key elements to the Dollar Store scam are the whiz-bang theatrical redecorating job and the fact that everyone is in on it except the mark. In this case, a pair of investment banks were dressed up to look like commercial banks overnight, and it was the taxpayer who walked in and lost his shirt, confused by the appearance of what looked like real Federal Reserve officials minding the store.

CON #3 THE PIG IN THE POKE
The scam's name comes from the Middle Ages, when some fool would be sold a bound and gagged pig that he would see being put into a bag; he'd miss the switch, then get home and find a tied-up cat in there instead. Hence the expression "Don't let the cat out of the bag."

CON #4 THE RUMANIAN BOX
They took so much money from the government, and then did so little with it, that the state was forced to start printing new cash to throw at them. Even the great Lustig in his wildest, horniest dreams could never have dreamed up this one.

CON #5 THE BIG MITT
In more ways than one can count, the economy in the bailout era turned into a "Big Mitt," the con man's name for a rigged poker game. Everybody was indeed looking at everyone else's cards, in many cases with state sanction. Only taxpayers and clients were left out of the loop.

CON #6 THE WIRE
One of the most common practices is a thing called front-running, which is really no different from the old "Wire" con, another scam popularized in The Sting. But instead of intercepting a telegraph wire in order to bet on racetrack results ahead of the crowd, what Wall Street does is make bets ahead of valuable information they obtain in the course of everyday business.

CON #7 THE RELOAD
Not many con men are good enough or brazen enough to con the same victim twice in a row, but the few who try have a name for this excellent sport: reloading. The usual way to reload on a repeat victim (called an "addict" in grifter parlance) is to rope him into trying to get back the money he just lost. This is exactly what started to happen late last year.

More to the point, the fact that we haven't done much of anything to change the rules and behavior of Wall Street shows that we still don't get it. Instituting a bailout policy that stressed recapitalizing bad banks was like the addict coming back to the con man to get his lost money back. Ask yourself how well that ever works out. And then get ready for the reload.

Well...,

2010-02-15T11:11:00.000-08:00

that's about it for now. There is work to be done on "The Ranch"..., there always is. I am just glad that I have a job to go to during the week..., so I don't have to work all the time. :)

There are still some old Agonist submissions I want to "publish" here..., and I hope to get some new stuff rolling soon.

Days of Future Past...,

2010-02-15T10:44:00.000-08:00

…, no…, this isn't a link to a Moody Blues video. I am still in the Dial-Up Dark Ages here on The Ranch. This isn't even a remembrance of any days I have ever known…, but if I was a pious man I would pray that I never will. We don't seem to learn much from our past…, or maybe we do. We have unemployment and welfare now to keep people from starving the way they did during The Great Depression. And we are dumping billions of dollars and tens of billions of dollars and hundreds of billions of dollars…, dumping them somewhere…, in an attempt to make sure we don't have another Great Depression. Or so they tell me.

I had never read Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" before. I have seen the movie…, and sure enough…, Henry Fonda is now starring in the book. It always happens if you see the movie first. But the movie left out a big part of the book. John Steinbeck didn't just tell a story of the Joad family's plight in "The Grapes of Wrath". Every other chapter dealt with something a bit removed from the Joad's personal story…, it dealt with the story of America at the time. Listen to this and tell me if Steinbeck is talking about Days of Future Past?

“And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history: The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the cause of revolt went on.”

Substitute "banksters" for "great owners". Too much money concentrated in too few hands. Same problem…, past and future. I guess my question is…, are we building up this massive debt burden for our children and grandchildren in order to keep people like the Joad's from starving…, or are we ensuring the survival and prosperity of the great owners' and their ilk?

Scott R. May 23, 2009 - 12:43pm

Days of Future Past -- Part II

2010-02-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

Well…, the seed potatoes are planted in the garden at The Ranch now…, and I am glad the lead up to that story is now in the ”days past” category. I should…, and no doubt…, could have done it much earlier. Hard physical labor was a way of life in my past…, along with hard partying. Like Don, I did inhale…, but unlike Don…, I am ever so happy that in my early 40’s I traded in my day job as a chain saw jockey for one jockeying a computer for the State. The days of the future warrant some anxiety for that job…, given the state of the State budget. But that anxiety is tempered by the fact that I made that transition over ten years ago…, so I have a bit of seniority. That…, and the fact that I now have some potatoes in the ground for the future. I’ll probably be thanking Don for the inspiration that led to all the perspiration…, after I fully recovered from the physical discomfort. But…, reading Steinbeck gives me no comfort. And his image of potatoes being dumped in rivers during The Great Depression…, while people were starving…, being dumped because they couldn’t be sold for a profit is haunting my present days and nights.

“The little farmers watched debt creep up on them like the tide. They sprayed the trees and sold no crop, they pruned and grafted and could not pick the crop. And the men of knowledge have worked, have considered, and the fruit is rotting on the ground, and the decaying mash in the wine vats is poisoning the air. And taste the wine--no grape flavor at all, just sulphur and tannic acid and alcohol.
This little orchard will be a part of the great holding next year, for the debt will have choked the owner.
This vineyard will belong to the bank. Only the great owners can survive, for they own the canneries too. And four pears peeled and cut in half, cooked and canned, still cost fifteen cents. And the canned pears do not spoil. They will last for years.
The decay spreads over the State, and sweet smell is a great sorrow on the land. Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can find no way to let the hungry people eat their produce. Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow.
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit--and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.
And the smell of rot fills the country.
Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people form fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates--died of malnutrition--because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.
The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

A couple weeks ago I asked here, “…are we building up this massive debt burden for our children and grandchildren in order to keep people like the Joad's from starving…, or are we ensuring the survival and prosperity of the ‘great owners' and their ilk?”

A rhetorical question if ever there was one…, in my mind at least.

Sure…, a lot of money is going to unemployment so people don’t starve. But one hell of a lot more is going to keep big business in business…, so they can produce the goods to sell to make a profit. By selling them to people on unemployment…,? How long can this Ponzi Scheme survive?

Today I ask…, are the measures being taken now to prevent another Great Depression doing more to fuel a future Great Depression than they are doing to fight another one?

Scott R. June 6, 2009 - 2:35pm

Days of Future Past -- Part III

2010-02-15T10:23:00.000-08:00

In Parts I & II we looked back on days past, via Steinbeck and the Great Depression, and wondered if that is a vision of our economic future? Economic issues aren’t the only thing we should be concerned about in the future…, and those issues seem particularly relevant on Independence Day. Thomas Pynchon took a look back at the 60’s and 70’s and gave us his vision of what the Ronald Reagan Road of the 1980’s looked like, behind the media veil, in his book, “Vineland“. I wonder what Pynchon is saying today…, with a new cabinet level government law enforcement agency called Homeland Security…, and Border Patrol agents manning checkpoints, stopping all law abiding citizens and boarding buses? Are they really looking for “terrorists” and illegal aliens? Or are they just testing us…, again…, to see what magnitude of fascist oppression we will stand still for?

Mucho blinked sympathetically, a little sadly. “I guess it’s over. We’re on into a new world now, it’s the Nixon Years, then it’ll be the Reagan Years--”
“Ol, Raygun? No way he’ll ever make president.”
“Just please go careful, Zoyd. ‘Cause soon ther’re gonna be coming after everything, not just drugs, but beer, cigarettes, sugar, salt, fat, you name it, anything that could remotely please any of your senses, because they need to control all that. And they will.”
“Fat Police?”
“Perfume Police. Tube Police. Music Police. Good Healthy Shit Police. Best to renounce everything now, get a head start.”
“Well I still wish it was back then, when you were the Count. Remember how the acid was? Remember that windowpane, down in Laguna that time? God, I knew then, I knew….”
They had a look. “Uh-huh, me too. That you were never going to die. Ha! No wonder the State panicked. How are they supposed to control a population that knows it’ll never die? When that was always their last big chip, when they thought they had the power of life and death. But acid gave us the X-ray vision to see through that one, so of course they had to take it away from us.”
“Yeah, but they can’t take what happened, what we found out.”
“Easy. They just let us forget. Give us too much to process, fill up every minute, keep us distracted, it’s what the Tube is for, and though it kills me to say it, it’s what rock and roll is becoming--just another way to claim our attention, so that beautiful certainty we had starts to fade, and after a while they have us convinced all over again that we really are going to die. And they’ve got us all over again that we really are going to die. And they’ve got us again.” It was the way people used to talk.

We had a chance to turn that Nixonian fascist world in the making around when Jimmy Carter was elected. If he would have received the support from the people and the Congress that he deserved I believe he would have. But he faced an unprecedented economic crisis and no one was willing to make the sacrifices it required to confront and cure it. The man had a set of cajones…, and they weren’t in anyone else’s pocket. He said things like, “We can be sure that all the special interest groups in the country will attack the part of this plan that affects them directly. They will say that sacrifice is fine, as long as other people do it, but that their sacrifice is unreasonable, or unfair, or harmful to the country. If they succeed, then the burden on the ordinary citizen, who is not organized into an interest group, would be crushing.” But the “ordinary citizens” Jimmy Carter was trying to protect weren’t willing to make those sacrifices…, and the “special interest groups” who own the Congress wouldn’t stand for it. America chose the Reagan Road instead. Reagan tripled the national debt and saturated the courts with law and order control freak judges who legislated from the bench to the point where we are now subject to search and seizure for a routine traffic stop. Then George E. Bush convinced us that we were all going to die if the Patriot Act wasn’t passed and we didn’t invade Iraq…, and now Bill Clinton’s emails are getting legally screened. Bush sold us his War on Terror just like Reagan sold us his War on Drugs…, and used it for the same purposes.

When Barack Obama was elected to clean up the mess we were in I asked in, “The Election That Changed the World…,” if he would be a Carter or a Reagan type president? I think that answer is clear enough now. He won’t even reveal who he is meeting with at the White House. He hasn’t done a thing about the Patriot Act. If he continues on the economic path he has chosen, he will make Ronnie look like a penny pinching money miser. If Obama even has a set of cajones…, they are in the pockets of Wall Street and the Banksters.

It’s beginning to look to me like this passage from “Vineland” describes our current President…, as well as the Pynchon character, Brock Vond.

Well, what a life, you’d ordinarily say. But Brock coveted more. He’d caught a fatal glimpse of that level where everybody knew everybody else, where however political fortunes below might bloom and die, the same people, the Real Ones, remained year in and year out, keeping what was desirable flowing their way. Prosecutor Vond wanted a life there, only slowly coming to understand that for someone of his background there would be no route to this but self-abasement, fawning, gofering, scrambling for tips and offering other such hints of his eagerness to be brevetted on life’s battlefield to a rank higher than he would ever, by means of his enlistment, have deserved. Though his defects of character were many, none was quite as annoying as this naked itch to be a gentleman, kept inflamed by a stubborn denial of what everyone else knew--that no matter how much money he made, how many political offices or course credits from charm school might come his way, no one of those among whom he wished to belong would ever regard him as other than a thug whose services had been hired.

Yeah…, Obama is a wannabe…, a wannabe Real One. He isn’t the least bit interested in restoring the individual freedoms that this country was founded on…, freedoms that have been slowly taken away by Nixon-Reagan-Bush. He will continue to funnel money directly to the Real Ones…, and keep us ordinary citizens in check and in debt. But…, not to worry. If it all blows up and goes to hell…, Ronnie left Obama with REX 84 to fall back on. Even Ronnie wasn’t so sure that all that taxpayer money that he gave away to the Real Ones wouldn’t blow up in his face and end in disaster.

Scott R. July 4, 2009 - 12:43pm

The Election That Changed the World...,

2010-02-15T09:56:00.000-08:00

after Obama won the election I submitted this piece to The Agonist.

The Election That Changed the World…,

no, no, no…, not the election of Barack Obama. Though I sincerely hope that I will someday write that about it.

Once upon a time we had a President who was truly elected by the people…, and he worked tirelessly for the people of America then…, and continues to work for the betterment of all mankind long after his term in office. He was elected mainly because he promised never to lie to the American people. And he never did. While in office he said things like,

“Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly.”

He told the truth…, always.

“Two days from now, I will present my energy proposals to the Congress. Its members will be my partners and they have already given me a great deal of valuable advice. Many of these proposals will be unpopular. Some will cause you to put up with inconveniences and to make sacrifices.”

He proceeded to lay out ten principals of the plan and seven measurable goals…, including solar energy in two and one half million homes.

“I can’t tell you that these measures will be easy, nor will they be popular. But I think most of you realize that a policy which does not ask for changes or sacrifices would not be an effective policy.”

He believed in the American people and their willingness to share common sacrifice to the betterment of all.

“I believe this can be a positive challenge. There is something especially American in the kinds of changes we have to make. We have been proud, through our history of being efficient people.”

He went on to say,

“I am sure each of you will find something you don't like about the specifics of our proposal. It will demand that we make sacrifices and changes in our lives. To some degree, the sacrifices will be painful -- but so is any meaningful sacrifice. It will lead to some higher costs, and to some greater inconveniences for everyone.”

He understood…, and stood up to…, the special interests in Washington.

“We can be sure that all the special interest groups in the country will attack the part of this plan that affects them directly. They will say that sacrifice is fine, as long as other people do it, but that their sacrifice is unreasonable, or unfair, or harmful to the country. If they succeed, then the burden on the ordinary citizen, who is not organized into an interest group, would be crushing.”
In closing this speech he reiterated his faith in the American people,

“Other generations of Americans have faced and mastered great challenges. I have faith that meeting this challenge will make our own lives even richer. If you will join me so that we can work together with patriotism and courage, we will again prove that our great nation can lead the world into an age of peace, independence and freedom.”

He continued to tell the truth though the next few years of his Presidency. But the American people soon found that they had no stomach for any form of sacrifice…, and they had much less faith in him than he had in them. The Baby Boom generation who had never wanted for anything…, only wanted more. And they got it…, when they elected Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter.

That was the election that truly changed the world.

If Jimmy Carter had been re-elected in 1980 this country and this world today would be a significantly better place…, in terms of energy independence, economic prosperity, and world peace. That election started us on the road to where we are in this current financial crisis. The Bail Out Bullshit that is occurring today pales in comparison to the Bail Out that Reagan instituted during his reign. He tripled the national debt to keep Americans from having to make any sacrifices (and enriched a lot of his friends along the way). He proved that real Americans were not the ones that Carter believed in. Real Americans didn’t care about deficits or any other long term problems. They only cared about “feel good now” policies. And every politician since then has learned that lesson well. It’s not that they want to lie…, they just learned that you can’t tell the truth or ask for sacrifices if you want to get elected.

Yes…, you can argue that Carter was ineffective as a President..., and you would be right. He couldn’t get support for his policies because no one was willing to give back anything. No one was willing to make the sacrifices he asked for. Not the special interests, the other politicians…, or the American people. Jimmy Carter brought us to the brink of peace in the Middle East. Reagan brought us the Star Wars initiative. Carter’s vision was real…, Reagan’s was illusion. Carter had us on the road to fiscal responsibility. Reagan squandered our fiscal future. And we have never recovered…, fiscally or morally.

No…, Jimmy Carter wasn’t the best President we ever had. But he was the best man we ever had as President. And if Barack Obama is half the man that Jimmy Carter is…, maybe I will someday be writing about another election that changed the world.

Scott R. November 8, 2008 - 6:12pm

While the Bail Out...,

2010-02-15T09:50:00.000-08:00

was still being debated and the campaign was still in full swing, I submitted this piece to The Agonist.

Karl Rove is Alive and Well…,

Nobody else could have conceived a bait and switch of this magnitude. Georgie and his cadre propose a $700 billion Bail Out. It is a non-starter from the word go because of the Section 8 “no review or oversight”.clause The Democrats jump up and down…, change a few words…, spout some rhetoric about “protecting the taxpayer and homeowners”. The Republicans announce that a deal has been struck. John McCain flies into Washington with some reservations about the plan and the deal is off. Now the Democrats are jumping up and down saying we have to pass this bill to save American. The very bill they were so opposed to in the first place. They haven’t changed anything significant about the bill what so ever.

The bill that will do nothing to help the average working man or woman on the street will get passed by the Democrats…, and they own it. Sterling pointed out in much better form than I did exactly why it won’t work. Once the money flows into the system and the market stages a record breaking bounce…, the fat cats will cover their margins…, and quickly convert to cash. They will be ready to take advantage of the crash that will quickly follow.

I believe it will happen before the election and John McCain will be able to say, “I always had my reservations about this Bail Out…, but the Democrats forced it through.” The Republicans will get what they want and Democrats will get the blame.

My hat’s off to you Karl…, truly masterful.

Scott R. September 26, 2008 - 2:22pm

Inspired By the "Success"...,

2010-02-13T15:12:00.000-08:00

of having my first blog submission recognized as worthy of "elevation" to The Front Page of The Agonist, I submitted this piece about the state of the economy prior to the upcoming election in 2008. It didn't make The Front Page.

The Crash is Coming…,

with or without this Bail Out. The Bail Out is just that…, a Bail Out of the fat cat investors that run this country. It will accomplish one thing and one thing only. It will “buy” them time to reposition their portfolios and make money from this coming crash.

The US economy is run on housing starts. Housing starts ripple throughout the economy like a life blood. The effort to keep that life blood flowing is what brought us to this brink of disaster…, and this Bail Out will only build a temporary dam to keep that blood from spilling out into the streets…, I repeat…,temporarily.

Housing starts keep everyone from concrete workers, loggers, saw mills, lumberyards, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, heating and cooling contractors, window and door manufacturers, carpet layers and appliance makers and sellers employed. Not to mention the huge profits from the mortgages on those houses for the banks and investment firms. This Bail Out isn’t going to help any of the working men and women of this country. And those banks it does help…, they aren’t going to be making loans for any housing starts for a good long time.

There is a glut of houses on the market “clogging up the system” right now. The proposal to buy up all that “bad paper” isn’t going to make all those empty houses disappear so new ones can be built. Who is going to snap up those houses at bargain basement prices and hold them until better times arrive? Are those Bailed Out bankers going to sell them to former foreclosed owners who are in worse financial shape now than they were when they took out the original loan? A rhetorical question if ever there was one. A majority of these foreclosures are on second homes of rich retirees that have moved from California thinking that the bungalow valued at $500,000 in the Hollywood suburbs would sell and allow them to move to northern Idaho where they could build a $250,000 mansion on five acres of former farm ground…, then live off the profit and their investment portfolio that was growing an average of 20% in the stock market. They have driven up the property values in rural America to the point where lifetime locals can barely afford to live in there generations old family home.

We have a tough choice here. Say no to the Bail Out and suffer once…, or accept this Bail Out and suffer twice? Not that tough a choice if you ask me. I will gladly suffer now to watch the fat fry while all the fat cats go down in flames. And that is what will happen if we “just say no” to this Bail Out. Us little guys are going to suffer some…, but the fat cats who are leveraged to the limits are going to be badly burned. Which is what they deserve. If we bail them out now you can be damn sure that they will be allowed to de-leverage and be in a lot better shape to withstand this coming crash.

This Ship of State we are on is in rough seas now…, and headed for rougher. For those who are screaming, “Bail Out”…, I say, “Go ahead, bail out”. I am ready to cast them adrift in the lifeboats. But I will keep the $700 billion on board and ride this storm out. There is no room in the lifeboats for it and we are going to need it. We need it so Don can plant us some wheat, we need it for the unemployed, the uninsured, and the people who need a roof over their heads. Not for guys like John McCain so they can hold on to their seven houses and investment properties.

This Bail Out makes no economic sense. I have already heard little Georgie Bush and his cadre scream, “Mushroom clouds on the horizon!!!!!” I didn’t believe it then…, and sure as hell don’t believe it now. All of us Agonists will feel the pain…, but it will be much less and much shorter than predicted by Georgie. And we will emerge much stronger and sooner without this Bail Out. With it…, I fear for all our survivals.

Scott R. September 25, 2008 - 12:59pm

OK..., Now What?

2010-02-13T14:23:00.000-08:00

The first piece I submitted to a blog was a diary entry to The Agonist. Much to my amazement..., it was "elevated" to The Front Page. It seems only fitting that it be reproduced here. It was written around the anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous speech.

I Had a Dream...,

Last week I dreamed that I was on a bus in Guatemala. I was rudely awakened from my nap when armed, military uniformed militia stopped the bus at a checkpoint along the highway. They boarded the bus, interrogated each of the passengers regarding their citizenship. One dark skinned young fellow didn’t answer to their satisfaction. As he struggled to explain in a language he seemed unfamiliar with, the interrogator stated, “You’ve already said enough.” The young man was yarded off the bus, arms cuffed behind his back with plastic strip ties, and led away out of site. Our bus was allowed on its way. I was feeling a bit relieved that I hadn’t been yarded off the bus because I was a bit disoriented and confused after being woke up and had stumbled and stammered trying to answer the interrogator. But I couldn’t help but wonder…, what happens to a young man yarded off a bus in Guatemala?

Only…, this was no dream. I didn’t wake up on a bus in Guatemala. I wasn’t in El Salvador, or China, or Iran or Iraq. I was a few miles north of Forks, Washington on a Clallam County Transit Bus. I was on my way home from work on the free and open road of U.S. Highway 101 when the event described above took place. Perpetrated by U.S. Boarder Patrol agents. After reading the Peninsula Daily News story on 8/27/08…, I have to wonder…, did I wake up in Guatemala? The story says, “Giuliano said officers will set up four to six more times…by mid-September.” And, “Giuliano said that checkpoints on the Peninsula will remain a regular occurrence,…”.

I am still seething with outrage that these Guatemala Checkpoints are being allowed to continue. I don’t want to live in Guatemala. I want to live in an America where I am free to drive down the highways and byways of this great nation without having to suffer the abridgement of my civil rights by being pulled over and interrogated at an illegal Guatemala Checkpoint by Border Patrol agents…, or any other military or law enforcement personnel…, unless there is a documented, clear and present danger. We don’t allow them to come into our homes without warrants and probable cause. Why are we allowing them to do it out in the free world? And if we allow this behavior to continue…, how long will we be safe and secure in our homes from such intrusions? How long before people like me who dare to stand up and speak out are yarded off the bus on “suspicion”? What constitutes suspicion? “Giuliano wouldn’t clarify how they determine suspicion,..” the article says.

Fellow Americans…, WAKE UP…, this isn’t a dream. It’s a nightmare come true. Write this paper…, write your congressman and senator…, write the Governor. Speak up, shout it from the rooftops. Tell everyone that you don’t live in Guatemala. Someday…, maybe…, we will be able to drive down the road without being stopped and interrogated at Guatemala Checkpoints.

I Have A Dream…,

AFTERTHOUGHT: How many illegal aliens came across the border while our agents were perpetrating this…, if not illegal…, at the very least…, immoral act? The illegal immigrants are here because the Border Patrol isn’t doing the job where they should be…, on the border.

Scott R. September 1, 2008 - 11:59pm

First Try

2010-02-13T14:08:00.000-08:00

Well..., I guess once you have contributed and commented on other blogs..., the next step is to create your own. So this is it.