Between a Rock and a Long Drive

No sooner had I finished penning my last post when my cell phone rang with a job offer from Mike Kopitzke, Fire Program Manager for the Southwest Land Office of the State of Montana’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. I had interviewed for the position of Assistant Center Manager at Missoula Interagency Dispatch Center on Wednesday, and, although I felt I had a better than average shot at getting it, I wasn’t completely certain how I felt about taking the job.

Ever since I began working in dispatch, my goal has been an assistant manager position at one of the zone dispatch centers in Montana. I had basically circumvented that goal in 2008 by taking the position of dispatch coordinator in Tok, working for the Alaska Division of Forestry, and had personal considerations been different (i.e. Brandi had gone with me), I would have been perfectly content with that. However, given that Brandi’s career path had led her to Rocky Mountain Laboratory and that a series of fortunate events had determined that we would live in Hamilton, I was back to square one. A job at the U.S. Forest Service’s Bitterroot center would be ideal, but any opportunity there wouldn’t manifest itself until sometime in the future. That left Missoula.

Taking a job in Missoula meant partaking of two activities in which I would rather not participate: commuting and daycare. Door to door, it is 46.59 miles from our house in Hamilton to the dispatch center in Missoula. So not only does that mean devoting two extra hours a day to work, but, depending on which vehicle I drive, it also entails burning between 15 and 30 gallons of gas a week. That is definitely not my idea of living simply.

After interviewing several of the local day care providers recommended by our friends, we were fortunate enough to secure a spot for Keegan at the one we liked the most. Even so, the whole concept still bothered me. What did we gain, and at what cost? On balance, I wasn’t sold on the premise that taking a full-time job put us in the black.

I have always had difficulty with the fact that, at least in America, what is ideal and what is practicable usually end up being at odds. In the modern era, simple is not easy. Obviously, the beauty of this country is that you can do whatever you choose. But it doesn’t always leave you standing on high ground.

Brandi’s research position at the lab is a term appointment, which for those unfamiliar with federal employment means it has a finite duration, in this case, three years. With that in mind, there was no way I could pass up a permanent position with the State of Montana, even if it meant missing out on ten hours a week of family time or personally assuring scenarios like the Horizon oil well disaster. Most likely, Brandi will get on permanently at the lab. But should she not, we now have a safety net that will keep us living in Western Montana.

Everything comes at a sacrifice. What I have oft wondered is, does it have to? Certainly, we could stick with the status quo and take our chances. Keegan benefits from being with his parents and Brandi can see our house from her office window. No one knows what the future holds, and it might work out beautifully. That is the paradox of human existence; each decision opens some doors while closing others. But here I am not really referring to such abstractions. I am talking about more concrete matters.

There isn’t any reason why we couldn’t have the best of both worlds. Why aren’t there day care centers at every workplace, so parents can be with their children during lunchtime and at breaks? Why haven’t we invested in an infrastructure that cultivates harmony and cooperation instead of one that promotes isolation and discord? If America had sunk half as much capital into developing a rail-based transportation system as it has squandered building cars and roads, I would be able to hop aboard a high-speed commuter train and be in Missoula in half the time I will spend driving there. A reasonable amount of time, not a ridiculous one.

Taming the natural world in such a manner as we have has created a geography that leaves us in the exact same predicament as before. A massive amount of resources, in particular fossil fuels whose true value and benefit we little understand and will never again realize, have been wasted, and we are no more in command of our circumstances now than when we started. In the past our lives were dictated by forces of nature such as weather and topography. Today we are beholden to obligations necessitated by an environment we ourselves have created.

For better or worse, we have arrived at the ends of the Earth. Its entire extent has been inventoried, mapped, and catalogued. There is no hidden wealth waiting to be discovered, no New World left to exploit. What we have is all we’ve got. Yet we continue on blindly, indiscriminately allocating capital as if we did not know this. It seems we could do better.

The world has grown so small that we no longer have the luxury of boundless expansion. The huge herds, the great forests are all gone. It is time we came to grips with the finite nature of the Earth’s resources and began operating accordingly. How we do this while maintaining our identity as the Land of Opportunity is a question that doesn’t have a ready answer. But one thing is certain. To continue on the path of the locust, consuming everything in our path, without consideration for the consequences of such action, is neither ideal nor practical.

But for now, that is exactly where I am.

An Ever Changing Perspective

For those that didn’t know, I’ve been staying home with my son Keegan. Brandi’s maternity leave ended about six weeks ago, and since then it has just been us boys. It took a little getting used to, not so much for Keegan as for me, and that first week saw me begging Brandi to let me fly the coop as soon as she got home. But all and all it has been a truly enjoyable experience.

There really isn’t anything better than being able to stay home with your child. As summer approaches and the likelihood of picking up some fire-related employment increases, I actually find myself more and more reluctant about trundling him off to day care and rejoining the workforce. Miss that first word, first wobbly step? Nothing seems worth that.

Of course, if you had caught me earlier today, when my adorable little boy was screaming himself red in the face, I probably would have told a different story. There are those moments, when nothing that I do seems to placate him, where I really start to question my fitness for this duty. Maybe I just don’t have what it takes to nurture a four-month old. If his screaming was any indication, Keegan certainly didn’t think so.

For awhile things were all peaches and cream. Keegan and I had a great little system worked out. After mom fed him and left for work, he would play contentedly in his gym while I would drink coffee and write. When it was time for a diaper change, he let me know. Then back into the gym until the next bout with the Grumpies, which was the signal that he was ready for a nap. By the time the nap was over, Mom was home for lunch, and then the cycle started over, minus the coffee.

Enter the bottle. Instead of a trip to Mom’s All-You-Can-Eat Buffet, lunch is now ala carte. This not only produces discontent at lunchtime, but it also shortens the afternoon play and nap sessions. About an hour prior to mealtime, Keegan starts to think he is pretty darn hungry. That last thirty minutes before Brandi gets home can sometimes be a real bear.

Then young Keegan decided that he would begin sleeping through the night. Oh joy, we thought. Unbeknownst to him, that also meant one less feeding, something I don’t think he fully considered. Surely they’ll make it up to me, is what he probably assumed. No such luck buddy. Doc says you’re way too fat as it is. Ratchet up the discontent a little more.

In truth, I think the correlation between his displeasure and these changes to his routine are coincidental. Though he is obviously going through a period of adjustment, what I really believe is that Keegan has reached a new stage in development and the milieu I’ve been providing simply no longer offers the level of stimulation he requires. Couple that with my failure to interact with him adequately and we have one unhappy little man.

One thing about raising children: if you do it wrong, they’ll let you know.

Perpetuating Optimism

Being a dyed in the wool cynic comes with a cost. It is a condition characterized by an excessive pessimism, bordering on negativism, and it can sometimes bring me down. I try hard to resist the temptation to view the glass as half full and maintain my acrimony, but occasionally I am overcome by the sudden and pervasive need to feel stoked. Fortunately for me, since everything in the human experience is relative to the observer, I always have the option of changing my perspective.

Such is the notion behind Positive Blatherings, a treatise that examines the social, spiritual, and philosophical implications of a practical experiment with positivity. Why choose negative over positive, its authors ask, when each is equally valid? One of them certainly includes a lot more smiles. It is an inquiry worthy of exploration, a daringly humanistic enterprise in a world mired in a morass of misanthropy, and I'm excited to be along for the ride.

Give This Man a Pole and He'll Tangle His Line

Buried amid the mass of random ramblings, tedious humdrum, and other exquisitely mundane revelations found on the typical Facebook newsfeed, one can sometimes unearth a real gem. I discovered one such pearl of wisdom just the other day, when my dear friend Josh Tallmadge posted a comment that really struck me. He said, “Thank god for fishing. If we have fishing, we have hope.”

This notion intrigued me. Josh’s observation seemed to be one of those that go a little deeper. It had a broader connotation, implications that went beyond the surface. It set my boat adrift upon the waters of philosophy. Might as well cast around a bit, I reckoned, and wet a little line.

The first thought I hauled up was that by its very nature fishing is an act of faith, at least for a hack like me. An accomplished angler will certainly argue that any real proficiency depends on a whole lot of skill, but I would venture that even they hold out a little bit of hope while they're waiting for a fish to take the bait. For those less consummate, fishing is the definition of optimism. We cast our net into the dark unknown and hope for the best, never truly certain of what, if anything, we might find.

The next thing I hit upon was the absolute imperative contained within Josh’s comment. Logically, if we accept his assertion as true, then its converse must hold as well. So it follows that, without fishing, we are without hope.

Problem there is, fishing is quickly becoming a delicate proposition. Fisheries worldwide are being depleted at ever increasing rates, overfishing threatens marine biodiversity, and human activity such as resource extraction, waste disposal, and power generation destroys habitat. One in five people relies on fish as their primary source of protein. Josh’s statement may have been made in regards to more personal considerations, but it was equally applicable on a global scale. Loss of fishing might dash the hopes of billions.

There is a wonderful old proverb that goes something like, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat forever.” I have long grasped this metaphor, but in the context of Josh’s comment I have come to see it in a new light. Nowadays, a person can go to market and buy a fish without ever having any idea of where it came from or how it got here. He has been given his fish, and today he will eat. But at what cost? The man doesn’t know. Perhaps there is something to be gained from “teaching the man to fish”, from creating a connection between him and what sustains him, something that offers hope for the future rather than just for the moment.

Lastly I landed at the realization that I need go fishing. Fishing for me is frustrating, since I typically meet with little or no success, mostly due to the fact that I have no idea what it is I’m doing. On one trip up the Blackfoot, after casting with my new Ugly Stik for half an hour to no avail, I handed my rod off to my buddy Tyler Hanley, who promptly caught three fish. Fishing is a learned skill, usually passed down from generation to generation. Tyler learned it from his grandfather, and Josh is teaching it to his boys. Since I want my son Keegan to learn it, my only hope is that there is some patient soul out there who is willing to teach me.

There is a reason why fishing so often appears in literature. Its connotations run deep, inhabiting the very depths of human condition. Fishing gives me faith, even if all I’m really doing is just throwing my line around. Josh is right. If we have fishing, we have hope. Thank god for fishing.

A less than able fly fisherman practices his dubious casting technique on the North Fork Coeur d'Alene river during an annual camping trip to Kit Price

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Fraternal Order of the White Elephant

My brother Jeb has always impressed me with his penchant for saying no to things. Once, when we were kids, our pops took us to a hobby store in Spokane called White Elephant and directed Jeb to pick out “anything he wanted under twenty bucks” as his birthday gift. In about five minutes I had spent that money ten times over, but Jeb was basically overwhelmed by the concept and left the store with nothing more than a few tears to show for his trouble. At the time I thought my brother was a fool, but now I’m not so sure. Perhaps it is the wiser man who will go without rather than burden himself with something that he isn’t absolutely certain is exactly what he wanted.

Obviously, there is no going without when it comes to diapers. They are one of those things that fall into the category of necessity. But if human beings are anything then they are creatures of habit, so when his wife Sharie told us that Jeb liked Fuzzi Bunz reusable diapers the best, well, I was certain they must surely be the Cadillac of the diaper scene.

There was never any question in my mind that we would be using durable diapers, if for no other reason than I just couldn’t stomach the thought of that huge mound of crap I would be contributing to the landfill. Whether or not durable diapers are more ecologic than disposables is anyone’s guess; both exact a sizeable toll, especially when one considers the modern materials with which many durable diapers are constructed these days. Laundering alone consumes a significant amount of energy, not to mention water. Still, the idea of demanding the production of something for the explicit purpose of throwing it away really wasn’t a concept I could readily align myself with.

Flash forward a few months and those disposable diapers have begun looking like the last doughnut on the break room table. I know I shouldn’t, but boy do I want to. Especially when our son Keegan hasn’t had a movement in awhile and I know one is looming on the horizon. Its times like that when I most desire to just slap some Huggies on him, wait for the poopin’ face, and then pitch that thing out like yesterday’s newspaper. Trouble is, my conscience doesn’t seem to discard them quite as easily.

Not that we haven’t used disposables; we definitely have. There was a period where we used them at night to help us get a handle on a pretty bad case of diaper rash. On a recent whirlwind trip to Troy and Brandi’s parents’ home in Kennewick, we used them exclusively for about a week. After a taste of that, however, I couldn’t wait to get back to using cloth, no matter what kind of pain in the butt they might occasionally cause.

So far we have been, if not diligent, at least fortunate in our attempt at a three R approach to baby paraphernalia. Not only have we gotten mounds of gently used baby stuff from friends and Craigslist, but Brandi’s mom invested a huge amount of time and energy into making us a gigantic pile of cloth diapers. And while they aren’t as high-tech as some of the reusable diapers on the market, after some field testing and a little retrofitting, Cindy’s cloth diapers are still pretty darn slick.

If, when you think of cloth diapers, you imagine a cotton rectangle and a pair of clothes pins; forget it. They may get filled with the same thing, but that is where the similarity between modern diapers and those relics ends. Today’s diapers are all about convenience. True, it’s not as effortless as throwing them in the trash and forgetting them, but after seeing how well they work and how easy they are to use, you wouldn’t want to anyway.

Because this is America and durable diapers is a niche market serviced by numerous small producers rather than a couple big businesses, there are quite a few styles to choose from, each with their own set of strengths and weaknesses. Having had the “which diaper to use” conundrum solved for us by Brandi’s mom, we never had to decipher which of the myriad durables would work best for our purposes; we just used what we were given. But after Brandi related our initial cloth diaper woes (which have since been remedied … thanks Cindy) to our sister in law Sharie, an avid durable diaper proponent, a package containing several examples from the modern era promptly appeared on our doorstep. And just as I figured, the Fuzzi Bunz that Sharie had included were as technically advanced as a jet fighter. I couldn’t imagine Jeb appreciating them more lest they be made of recycled pop bottles and sporting a Patagonia label.

In the end, as with everything, it really comes down to personal choice. Is the use of cloth diapers likely to save the world? No. Does it make you a better person than someone who doesn’t? Not even close. But it may change the way in which you view yourself, your environment, and your relationship with it, which could lead to lifestyle changes that, through cumulative effect, may ultimately have a positive impact somewhere down the line. Perhaps you feel durability is a virtue worth embracing, that eschewing disposable society is worth a little inconvenience. Or maybe you figure cloth will still be there when the Pampers run out, so damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead. Either way, it’s for each to decide. What’s important, I believe, is that the matter is one well worth considering, and that there is a lot to be said for leaving the store empty handed.