2009-11 BOZEMAN

Dump! While much of the nation was unpacking bathing gear and inflating beach balls, a few days ago I sat staring into a near whiteout – easily 2 feet on the ground and snow predicted to continue for another 24 hours or so. Good (and deep) things come to he who waits. Then in the blink of an eye brilliant sunshine was making fast work of the 40+ inches that ultimately descended. Sad that such great beauty vanishes overnight, but perhaps a metaphor for much of our daily experience.

The local populace has for months bemoaned the lack of moisture, particularly as a massive beetle infestation has decimated hundreds of acres of pine forest. Apparently reduced moisture combined with diminished forestation conspire to produce effects of which I am largely ignorant but have been assured will be horrific. Be careful what you wish for; April snow showers bring May runoff.

And as I was assured that spring was on its way to the Gallatin Valley, I grabbed some shorts and Tees and headed for Montana. An unremarkable drive north on I-25 turned déjà-vuish as I merged west on I-90 and found, you guessed it, another whiteout. Seventy degrees yesterday, 8 inches of white stuff today, and seventy degrees tomorrow. Just another reminder from Mother N. that it is most unwise to anticipate her.

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Just when I took on Twitter with a few snide comments, there has been a virtual blizzard of interest in the technology. Politicians, teachers, and emergency management officials have joined the usual suspects -- tweens, starlets, druggies and the like to increase visibility and massively expand usage.

I still find the majority of its application to be narcissistic and self absorbed, announcing to the world factoids that only a mother might evidence interest in, n’est pas? See how I cleverly avoided ending the last sentence with a preposition! Perhaps it’s true that good can be found anywhere, if one is willing to rummage through the persiflage.

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As the ursine population awakes from hibernation, so do those who respond to natural and man (and woman) inflicted carnage. While disasters can occur on any day of the calendar, spring-to-fall is high season for tornados, floods, forest fires, and of course hurricanes. I am now receiving requests to “stand by for deployment”, but here I sit ployed, waiting for the glass to break and the alarm to sound.

It will be interesting to see if the new Administration jiggers the national response system and in what way. One silver lined post-Katrina advancement has been the use of technology to stage, transit, and track equipment and material moving in response to disasters. There really was not a gross lack of response to Katrina/Rita/Wilma, just dismal coordination and terribly inefficient application of human resources and material dispatch. I sat in Montgomery, Alabama for 4 days after Katrina watching the televised pleas of the Mississippi and Louisiana Governors for assistance of any and all kinds, while my Red Cross handlers swore and affirmed that no credible assistance requests had been submitted.

Improved logistics management would certainly be of some comfort to the FEMA functionary who, some 10 days after Katrina departed Hattiesburg, came upon a parked 18-wheeler sporting a large “FEMA Disaster Relief” placard. Obviously abandoned, he cut the padlock, threw open the doors, and was swept away by an 8-foot wall of water, a result of the transformation that ice undergoes when subjected to the snail-like plodding of the federal bureaucracy.

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Being neither politician nor government official, I am most reluctant to make predictions, as without the aforementioned protective cover I fully expect to be held at some point accountable. But I will venture the thought that the North Dakota native recently convicted and sentenced to an eight year term by an Iranian tribunal will likely be released down the road. Such regimes have a consistent record of dragooning the innocent and then at some future date, after a suitable period of torture and usually as a negotiating ploy, release the wrongly confined as “a humanitarian gesture,” much to the delight of loonies of the stripe who believe that Castro has brought paradise to the Isle of Cuba.

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I find much of organized religion (I keep wondering if the unorganized component is any better) to be overbearing, sensibility challenged, and somewhat disjointed, but I question the motives of those who harbor a pathological need to mock and ridicule. Whistling past the graveyard?

Some years ago an acquaintance passed away, the result of a tragic (some say freak, but the word freaks me out) accident. Such was his stature in the community that the Episcopal Diocese sent a luminary to preside at the interment. She faced a chock-a-block sanctuary and with appropriate solemnity began: “I know many of you are asking how and why such a senseless act could come to pass? I am here to help you understand.”

I felt hair rise on my neck and a butterfly or two danced about my sternum. Could this possibly be my long sought logical, believable explanation of the meaning of life, its origins, passage, and beyond? I held my breath, as did I imagine the assembled throng. There followed a good forty minutes of the most appalling psychobabble imaginable, heavily larded with the standard warning – we don’t have a clue what’s going on here, but if you don’t believe absolutely and unquestionably, you are a dunce and fool, and you better be prepared to don asbestos underwear, as eternal fire will figure prominently in your everlasting future.

Despite all this, I have no quarrel with those who find solace in religion. We all need something to get us through the day, be it The Word, love of family, satisfaction of achievement, or bourbon.

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Radio is a mental salve on long car journeys such as the 11 hour transit from Georgetown to Bozeman. Hearing a snippet of a song, “she was baptized in dirty water” reminded me why I like country music.

And then there are the items that almost make one veer across the center line, like the lady who commented “my car got into an accident.” Yup, sure did. All by its own self I gather. And an NPR story of parents suing a school district which, to conserve gasoline, redrew bus routes that resulted in some students having to walk up to three blocks from home to access transportation.

In 2009 when children are found to be obese, do-gooders blame (and sue) McDonalds, with apparently no recognition that 50 years ago children exercised the extremities below their knees to access the 3 Rs, while today their tushies are massaged by upholstered seats as they are motored to classes on social networking and politically correct speech, resulting in severe atrophy to both ends of their delicate corpi.

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…I have for some time been predicting that the Adventure is morphing into spring. Il arrive. One of these days. Address all complaints to Mother Nature. Il n'est pas de ma faute.
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