a New New Deal

Stuff has been happening at a breakneck pace. It’s already two weeks into hunting season and I’ve been out exactly once. I just bought tickets for the Banff Mountain Film Festival’s annual World Tour stop at the UM Theatre. Halloween is gone and Thanksgiving is looming. Snow is an almost permanent feature in the sweeping panorama that now greets us every time we turn our eyes west.

We have moved into our new home on Summerdale Road. Stress that had been building throughout the cumbersome process of purchasing the foreclosed home from Fannie Mae culminated in a mad dash snatch and grab mission to Lincoln County for the tractor. It was done in classic Pintok fashion. In, out, down to Corvallis, and back to Missoula in less than 24 hours. The high cost of renting a trailer meant that I had little time to spare.

Fortunate for a trailering rookie like me, all went remarkably well, meaning no major catastrophes, unlike the infinitely less dangerous undertaking of picking up our trash bin from the alley behind the old place, which cost the truck a rear bumper and quarter panel.  I did have to get a little NASCAR in the pits when a sheet metal screw flattened my front tire at the gas-n-go outside of Noxon.  No thanks to the trailer aficionado who talked me up through the entire tire change without lending a hand, I still made the cabin and had the tractor loaded by the time night fell, which was my goal. I even got the binders on her right in only two tries. Properly securing a heavy load like our old Ford tractor is paramount to trailering success, and seeing as it is something I had never done before I felt pretty good to have the job all wrapped up by the time my brother Calen arrived to visit me.

Calen lives full time in the home country, working as a surveyor. Money there is scarce and, financially speaking, he could probably do better if he took his skills elsewhere, like when he moved to Texas and went corporate. But a poor day in heaven is still better than a good day in hell, so he prefers eking out his existence in the nicest place no one can afford to live, cultivating cynicism with the rest of the valley’s economically woeful population.

Its tough being destitute in the most affluent country on earth, and living so encourages a certain mocking contempt for the Haves amongst the Have-Nots. The biggest Have of all, everyone knows, is the government, and in no place is this as evident as this place. The only people with a steady income are the teachers, road maintenance workers, postmen, Forest Service employees, and the contractors working for the Superfund operation in Libby.

Once, industry here was extraction. Resources were hacked and pulled from the land in dirty, ugly, bottom line motivated ways. Now those resources are gone, played out or no longer profitable. Only their messes remain.

The biggest offender in the area, at least the one recognized as such by the US Environmental Protection Agency, is the W.R. Grace vermiculite mine outside of Libby. Around the turn of the century, high incidences of lung-related illness and death in and around Libby gave experts cause to investigate, and lingering health concerns bequeathed the site with Superfund status. A clean up operation is on-going, to the tune of some $500 million dollars.

“They spent three hundred thousand dollars cleaning up the Rod and Gun club,” Calen tells me. “Said the whole place was full of vermiculite. Found it six feet deep in the ground.

“Hell, that place isn’t even worth three hundred thousand. They say that it’s a good thing, that it stimulates the local economy, but it doesn’t. Give me three hundred thousand dollars and I’ll clean that place up. I’d burn it to the ground, build a new one. Put a dozen people to work.

“Paying to clean up a trailer park? I mean, c’mon. I’d burn all that, build some nice apartment building that’s energy efficient with sustainable blah blah blah. Tell the people, you want some place to live? I’ll give you a place to live, hell, I’ll pay you to build it, but I’m not gonna waste a bunch of money cleaning up a trailer park. I’d just tell ‘em, you can’t clean up a trailer. There’s no more of that in this valley.

“So they’re gonna dig up all the ground out at the Rod and Gun. I’m like, what? To do what with it? Haul it someplace else? It’s six feet underground, for Pete’s sake. I mean, where do they think the stuff comes from in the first place? What, are they mining vermiculite?”

I’m paraphrasing here, but I was laughing so hard at the time that it’s difficult to quote him exactly. His scorn was sincere but so was his rationale. It echoed a theme I had been pondering earlier that day on the drive up there.

Government can’t create jobs, only private entrepreneurs can, I heard some politico say on NPR. Maybe, if we’re talking about random nonessential niceties. But massive, capital shifting changes in the paradigm? Only government has the horsepower to motivate that kind of thing.

As Calen points out, they say that they’re trying to stimulate the economy, but they’re not. A cursory survey of economic history demonstrates that America only prospers when we’re changing, when there is an ushering of a new era. If the government really wanted to encourage things, they would rouse the slumbering beast of transformation. They would lead us from the desert to the watering hole.

We need a new New Deal. We need a new Industrial Revolution. We need to begin construction on the next incarnation of transcontinental railroad or interstate highway system. We need to embrace the prospect of progress, the challenge of change. Because it is when this country is moving forward that the world is at its best.

A Future Forgotten

For some reason, I want to believe that I once heard it said that before the Japanese plant a tree, they carefully consider how its placement will affect the landscape over the course of the next one hundred years. Now this precept may be true, or it could just as easily be something I made up, a product of the same romantic Western notions of Oriental wisdom as Sobe and the Karate Kid. I'm not really sure. What I am sure of is just how much better the world would be given even a fraction of that foresight.

Towering cottonwoods crisscross the Bitterroot between Corvallis and Hamilton in neatly ordered rows. Valley lore maintains that famed Gilded Age industrialist Marcus Daly lined the avenues with these trees so that his carriage would travel in shade everywhere it went. The fact that the Anaconda Copper King passed long before the trees realized their full potential lends credence to more philanthropic motivations than that, but even if the original impetus for their planting was less than altruistic I believe that whoever put them there would be pretty disappointed by our failure to safeguard their legacy.

The trees are all dying. Whole lanes are being stripped as the giant cottonwoods become nothing more than hazards. The avenues, once so elegantly defined, a touch of cultivated formality and order in an otherwise uncivilized landscape, are being denuded. The sentinels, grown old and weary, are falling down. No juveniles stand ready to replace them. Generations have passed yet no generation rises beneath them. In the one hundred years since they were planted, no one has given them much more than cursory consideration.

I find this lack of forethought, this failure to account for the future, this inability to consider the whole rather than the part or the moment, this disavowal of any sort of planned progression indicative of America. Such manner pervades our culture, our economy, our manner and our mode. We are reactive, not proactive. We do not build upon the foundations of the past. We do not invest capital in the future. Ours is a society disposable. This is our zeitgeist.

We have been working on acquiring a foreclosed property from Fannie Mae. Unoccupied for only a short period, it is already quite literally falling to pieces. Owing to a broken hanger, a gutter that listed only slightly on our first visit has since collapsed completely. To the megalithic lien holder the value of this real estate is defined by a set of numbers on a balance sheet. For us, the home has a worth that is a bit more intrinsic.

If not simply to further our own interests, out of respect for Marcus Daly we should have preserved his legacy. We should have accounted for the inevitable demise of one generation and secured the naissance of the next. We should have planted young trees between the mature ones, so that through succession the prescience of Marcus Daly would endure, alive in perpetuity, shading future lanes and carriages for years to come.

On a bench above Corvallis, along the course of Summerdale Lane, there are planted ordered rows of cottonwood trees. How long they will remain is anyone’s guess, but let it be known that, should the Williamsons take up residence upon this path, their numbers shall surely increase.

Leave it better than you found it.

Summer Break

A friend noted the other day that it has been awhile since I’ve put pen to paper, so to speak. Of course, I fully realized this myself and had, on several occasions, attempted to identify a topic about which I was sufficiently passionate enough to write. The little one keeping you too busy, my friend asked. Or is it the Man and his job? Neither actually. I just haven’t come up with anything worth writing about.

Keegan is doing well. A good natured fellow, he takes it pretty easy on us. He hasn’t shown much interest in self-propulsion as of yet and spends most of his free time sitting upright investigating how useful hands can be. He was first in his age group at Stevensville’s Creamery Days Milk Run and has mastered a raucous belly laugh. His presence infuses my routine with a constant yet pleasant bustle, but I wouldn’t say he demands any undue amount of attention.

Work has been infinitely less of imposition. Weather nationwide has conspired to produce what could arguably be the quietest fire season on record, counterpoint to the Great Fire of 1910 centennial. A rogue thunderstorm did kick off a flurry of activity in the Bitterroot recently, including a fire on the hillside above Hamilton, which gave me an excuse to spend a couple days in the hometown helping out at the dispatch center there. But beyond that and a few other minor examples, fire season has been a snore. So I can’t attribute the long recess to my gainful employment either.

And it isn’t that I haven’t had plenty of time to ponder relevant themes. The lengthy drive into work allows me ample opportunity to pine for an alternative to our current transportation scheme, namely an investment by the United States in high speed rail. Scant produce from our garden reinforces the knowledge that we need to focus time and energy on increasing our personal yield. The pile of disposable diapers stacked neatly on the shelves of Keegan’s changing table constantly reminds me of just how “high-impact” our prototypical American lifestyle truly is.

Recreationally, the focus this summer has been on preparing Brandi for the marathon she is running this September in Salmon, Idaho. Saturday is our day off together, and typically consists of Keegan and me crewing for Mom on her long run, plying her with Brawndo and swapping out huskies when they reach their thermal thresholds. We missed the heart of the huckleberry harvest. The only thing on our plate has been finding and buying a house.

About this, I could probably speak volumes, but they would be more economic in nature than ecologic, though I don’t really believe you can separate the two. The process gave me a chance to get out and really examine the human imprint upon the Valley, a sensory roller coaster operating between the limits of “now that’s a nice spread” and “what an absolute waste.” I looked for irrigated acres, fenced pastures, and outbuildings; Brandi kept me honest and ensured our house would be inhabitable. We sought to split the distance between Hamilton and Missoula, concentrating our search between Florence on the north end and Victor on the south.

What we achieved is a beautiful synergy, if you forgive us our abject failure in shortening my daily commute. The property, on which we hope to close next month, lies east of Corvallis, close enough to our dear friends the Pintoks' place to elicit the comment “guess I better finish siding that eyesore” from Jake. A modest house on two and a half acres, it has mature trees and a barn for the tractor. Gravity fed irrigation from the Big Ditch. A healthy crop of Canadian Thistle. All in all, this American’s Dream.

Before the dream can become a payment, however, we must first negotiate mounds of paperwork, rounds of inspections, and a significant outlay of cash. Signing the buy-sell agreement last night took the better part of an hour, and when I reached the end and affirmed that I had “read and understood” it with one final signature, I just had to laugh. Like a co-worker advised, trying to make sense of it all would be a frustrating exercise in futility. Just keep signing until they hand you the keys.

Why did the Skunk cross the road?

I was fortunate enough to get out of the office the other day and accompany my boss on a field trip. Much as the land administered by the US Forest Service is broken into National Forests and Ranger Districts, state and private ground overseen by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation is organized into Land Offices and Units. Southwestern Land Office, for whom I now work, is headquartered in Missoula, Montana and consists of Hamilton, Clearwater, Anaconda, and Missoula Units. Since I had come on board in May, Mike and I had already made visits to the other three. Anaconda Unit was last on our list.

At Drummond we turned south off I-90 onto MT Highway 1, otherwise known as the Anaconda-Pintler Scenic Route, and passed quickly through a section of pastoral looking ranchlands before beginning the climb to Philipsburg. Around a bend in the road, we happened upon an SUV parked haphazardly along the guardrail. Heads and cameras protruded from its open windows, focused on the highway ahead.

“Little black bear,” Mike said.

As we closed the gap, I too caught sight of the bruin's shuffling form. It was a young male, probably three years old and just now finding his way on his own. He darted one direction and then another, uncertain as to which was the safer path.

We continued past the parked SUV, closing to within twenty yards before the bear vaulted the guard rail and rumbled down the slope, effectively spoiling the tourists' photo op. I turned to Mike and gave him as much grief as one can safely give their boss before settling back to appreciate the fact that I live in a place where such titillating sights are a regular occurrence.

By contrast, the appearance of wildlife during my daily commute has a much more somber tone. Instead of a thrill, it is rather a constant reminder of the price the local fauna pays for our 60 mile per hour lifestyle. My count so far is 3 foxes, 2 raccoons, one magpie, numerous house cats and ground squirrels, an elk, and countless deer. That in only six weeks of driving 47 miles each way. I fully accept that it is only a matter of time before I add my contribution to those statistics, but so far I’ve been lucky.

Passing through 88 feet each second, I wonder how many of my fellow commuters even notice these unfortunate figures. Are they as affected as I am by this wanton bloodshed? The skunks must certainly arouse some attention but what about the rest? I can only assume that since these motorists live in Montana they have an appreciation for wildlife, but such constant carnage makes me skeptical. Too many of us are obviously unwilling or unable to make the sacrifices necessary to bring down the body count. What, I wonder, will it take before we realize the value of protecting the quadrapedestrian's right to cross the road?

Sitting in my car, watching the gas needle plummet and the corpses pile up, this predicament becomes a source of gnawing frustration. How did we come to this, I ask?

Without much planning, is the answer that comes to mind. And in way too big a hurry.

I am sure, as the miles rack up and I surrender more irretrievable minutes of my life to this enterprise, I will too often return to this theme. Our current model for living is seriously flawed. It places value on things that have none and cheapens that which is most precious on Earth. All creatures, great and small.

My mind wandered a mere moment, but that was all it took. I saw a flash of color in the headlights and exclaimed “oh, damn it!” in the instant before the little scurrying creature disappeared beneath the Honda’s tires with an ugly thump.

“What?!” cried Brandi.

Her voice was tinged with panic, more than I expected. A bit further down the road she revealed that for some reason she'd conjured up the thought that I'd hit a person. I hadn’t, but as bad as I felt, I might as well have.

“Skunk,” I replied.

It's called Independence Day

During my hour long commute yesterday I saw a sticker on the bumper of a jet black Toyota pickup. The massive globe and anchor decal on its canopy rear window had caught my attention from several hundred yards out, and from this information I already had a made a host of prejudiced assumptions about the driver, all the more so given my recent viewing of the film Jarhead. Still, the bumper sticker astounded me, even despite my lay understanding of Leatherneck mentality, in large part due to the fact that my mind had at that very moment been contemplating exactly the sentiment it disparaged.

“In the face of terror and murder, the call for peace is not patriotic, it’s cowardice.”

Now I never intended this blog to be a forum for this sort of discussion and I don’t plan to let it become one. But since it is Independence Day weekend and I’m still thinking about the subject, I thought I’d indulge myself.

I realize there are few true followers of Christ left in the world, so I understand that the argument that a braver man offers his other cheek falls on deaf ears here. And, really, that isn’t what amazes me about this bumper sticker. No, what truly dumbfounds me is how antithetical its premise is to the notion of America.

First, I have to say that, as a real American, I fully grant this individual the right to their opinion, even if it absolutely vexed and infuriated me. To each their own. The freedom of expression is exactly what America is all about. But I must also add that I honestly believe any logical analysis of this statement proves it to be wholly Un-American.

Patriotism is the defense of the ideals upon which America was founded. America was founded on the premise that each individual has the right and obligation to self-determination. The call for peace is an exercise of this right. To exercise this right is patriotic. Therefore, it is the patriot who calls for peace in the face of terror.

Et in terra pax hominibus, bonae voluntatis