Blogging When the Sun Shines

I recently received an email from one of my three readers pointing out that I had not posted anything to my blog since June 11th. Time slips by quickly doesn’t it? Especially when the sun finally comes out. I do have several excuses. The first and principal one being sloth. It’s true. The less I have to do, the more difficult it seems to actually finish anything. Proof to the old saw, “If you want something done, give it to the busy guy.”

The other big reason is sunshine. We finally had some warm weather here in the Pacific NW after a dismal and cold spring. That means fishing and golf. Mid-June my pal, Rob, and I headed over the mountains to the BC interior for some serious fly-fishing at Corbett Lake. The trip got delayed a week when Rob’s 13 year old lab, Sedge, passed away. Sedge had been our lookout in the bow of the boat on past trips and it seemed prudent to give everyone a little time. He will be missed.

Corbett is a private lake loaded with big, fat rainbow trout. A highly productive lake with abundant insect hatches makes Corbett a perfect place for fly fishing and even the Holy Grail of trout nuts: dry fly fishing. The small cabins are, well, rustic. But, Peter the owner and chef puts out some decent dinners in the lodge. It won’t make the Orvis catalogue but serious fly fishermen from far and wide know big ‘bows lurk just off the weed beds ready to test the strength of your leader.

After the first day we figured out the program for ’08. Every day at 1:30 a mayfly hatch started on the shallow flats and the rainbows moved in for a late lunch. Some of the takes were vicious attacks while others quiet slurps. Big, pissed off fish! After breaking off several we both tied on heavier tippets. The action would be fast and furious for 10 minutes and then go quiet for a while before starting again. By 3:00pm, like someone had thrown a switch… it was over. Big fish too. We each landed several in the 4 to 5lb. range and one hog snapped Rob’s tippet like a rotten shoelace. He jumped twice near the boat giving us a good look. My guess: 8lbs. All catch and release, of course. Although on the last day I had a nice 3 pounder that was too injured to live and I brought him home for an appointment with my braising pan.

On July 4th son Mike and I flew to Winnipeg from Vancouver. The next morning at six we boarded a twin-engine turboprop for Hatchet Lake Lodge near the northern border of Saskatchewan (IOW, way an’ the Hell up there). It’s a trip I have wanted to take for a long time and I was not disappointed.

George Flemming built the place 35 years ago and wisely started catch and release well before it became fashionable. Consequently, the fishing is extraordinary for big northern pike, lake trout, walleyes and the rare grayling. George also managed to get a bulldozer in there by hauling it over the ice in winter and built a 6000’ gravel runway on a glacial ridge allowing serious land based aircraft access to this remote wilderness. Unfortunately, we did not get to meet George. He was in the hospital with the dreaded “Big C” and it did not sound like he would ever make it back to Hatchet Lake.

The main lodge is a massive log structure with a dining room capable of handling 50 guests (only 25 present during our stay), a bar and lounge, a tackle shop and a library. The out cabins, also made of logs, feature bedrooms, bath and living rooms. It’s still cold up there at night (and sometimes during the day) so the wood burning stove in the living room comes in handy. The lodge has its own electrical generating system and water system so you wouldn’t say we were exactly roughing it.

Days started at 5:30 when someone came by with a pot of coffee and threw a couple of logs in the stove. Breakfast at seven and with our Native guide we started fishing at 8:00.

Hatchet Lake itself is 20 miles long and 10 miles wide. Several lakes connect to Hatchet and you can access those lakes by portage or run the rapids, an exciting experience to say the least.

Dry fly fishing for grayling in these rapids can only be described as exceptional. These fish have become nearly extinct in the US and southern Canada. Mike and I were catching one on nearly every cast. Nice ones too. Beautiful fish!

Of course, the main attraction was big northern pike. When I say big, I’m talking about 15 to 20 pounders being relatively common. We caught at least a half dozen over 40” with Mike landing the biggest at 44”. It would not be an exaggeration to say that we caught over 200 pike. I wanted to catch them on my 8wt fly rod and got a few the first day before my fly got snagged in the net when Leonard, our guide, (who looked disturbingly like the sketch of Ted Kazinski … the Unabomber) landed Mike’s first big pike and the subsequent chaos in the back of the boat snapped the tip off my rod. So it was spinning gear and spoons. Since it stayed windy and cool most of the time and the pike were not in the shallows, fly-fishing would have been tough anyway.

On two of the days we opted for fly outs to remote lakes. The 15 or 20-minute hops offered a good view of the area and the vast amount of territory and the small amount of human interference with this wilderness. When we arrived at the lakes we found boats and motors waiting and once we took off we never saw the other fishermen until we returned to the landing to meet the floatplane at the end of the day.

Each day our guide would bonk a couple of smaller fish and prepare “shore lunch” consisting of fried fish fillets, potatoes with onions and heated cans of baked beans and corn. Not exactly Adkins Diet, but mighty tasty after a morning of fresh air. Sitting there on a rocky shore munching on a crispy piece of fish and watching an eagle making lazy circles high above…. well, as the man says, “It don’t get much better than this”. All in all, a fantastic trip.

Two days after returning from Hatchet, Loi and I took off on a road trip to the Okanogan, central British Columbia’s answer to Napa Valley. The ostensible purpose of the trip was to attend the anniversary party and pre-house warming of our Whistler neighbors, Tony and Barb. The party at their yet-to-be-completed home on the lake turned out to be a memorable affair. We had an opportunity to spend some time with our friends and get in a game of golf before a couple of days of touring this beautiful part of BC. The five-hour drive back through the mountains gave us a chance to reaffirm just how huge, beautiful and uninhabited our Province actually is.

So now we’re back in Whistler where the house and my golf swing needed some attention. I point all this out to my three faithful readers to confirm that, despite your suspicions, I have not been laying abed until mid day or spending my afternoons sucking beer in the shade. Not yet anyway.

Another Perfect Storm

The fall of 1991 saw the confluence of two massive storm systems off the NE coast: a classic nor’easter and Hurricane Grace arriving from the south. It created what meteorologists called “The Perfect Storm”. Sebastian Younger wrote a book in 1997 using that title and in 2000 a very successful movie of the same name was released. It seems to me that another “perfect storm” is developing on the economic front that could be every bit as devastating and affect more than the east coast of North America.

The first of these “storms” is the so-called “sub-prime” problem. Loose credit and easy mortgages fueled a massive expansion in the US housing market. Some Wall Street wizard figured out that these shaky mortgages could be repackaged as bonds and sold Worldwide to banks eager for high yield. Like the dot COM bubble of recent memory and the tulip mania of the 17th century, the sub prime market unraveled like a poorly knit sweater. Banks lost billions and the Fed responded by throwing money into the system and dropping interest rates as a recession loomed.

At the same time another storm arrived on the scene in the form of rapidly increasing oil prices. With expanding demand in the fast growing economies of China, India and other emerging economies and questionable supplies, prices have skyrocketed. Exacerbating this problem was the dramatic decline of the US dollar and the concurrent speculation in oil futures. (Countless billions have flowed into oil futures with supplies tight and political unrest in many oil-producing countries.)

The confluence of these two storms is likely to give us the ugly twins reminiscent of the Carter Administration: recession and inflation. Those of you old enough to remember those days of 12.4% inflation and 21.5% interest rates may also recall that in that miserable period we also had an oil shortage and gas lines around the block.

Let’s look at these two storms and see what is likely to evolve as a result of the actions of our politicians in this election year. As they say, “Opinions are like assholes: Everybody has one.” Here’s mine.

Storm #1, the sub-prime thing: With actions by the Fed to infuse massive amounts into the system and bailouts, including capital from offshore, this storm would blow itself out. Sure, there would be misery along the way and were it not for Storm #2, would not plague us overmuch.

Storm #2, the oil crisis: This is basically an issue of supply and demand with speculation adding fuel (no pun) to the fire. I agree with Charles Krauthammer that a psychological tipping point for Americans was reached when gasoline prices reached $4.00 per gallon. At the tipping point people start to change their behavior. The evidence coming in suggests people are driving less, using mass transport more and buying fuel-efficient cars. While this is a good trend, it’s not enough to seriously impact demand. Many people remain stuck with long commutes and no mass transit alternative and the Suburban or Escalade in the driveway is now worth less in trade-in than the payments due.

What do the political wizards have in mind in response to the crisis? And, it is a crisis. The cost of oil threatens airlines and trucking companies with ruin and the inflationary pressure will ripple through the economy forcing the Fed to increase interest rates just as we teeter on recession. Well, first you send George Bush off to Saudi Arabia hat in hand to beg them to pump more oil. They must have laughed in his face. They know the US sits on more oil than the Saudis could ever hope for. (They have about 55 billion barrels). The Democrats in Congress have just refused to allow anyone to drill for it for the last 30 years. ANWR is estimated at 10.4 billion barrels. The 85% of restricted continental shelf guess is 87 bb and the 97% of restricted Federal lands? Who knows? Although they do estimate the oil shales of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming hold about 1 trillion barrels of recoverable oil. This, of course, does not include the zillions of cubic feet of natural gas. We don’t have a supply problem. We have a political problem. The Democrats are afraid of the environmentalists and to be fair, some Republicans too. That means drilling is off the table for the near term. Since McCain is against drilling too, a Republican revolt remains unlikely.

Two years ago Congress decided they would get a “twofer” by mandating the use of ethanol. They could please the environmentalists and the farmers at the same time. The law of unintended consequences reared its ugly head and we saw the price of gas go up along with skyrocketing food prices worldwide.

Recently Congress decided that in the midst of the oil crisis it would be an excellent time to introduce a global warming bill called the Warner-Libermann cap and trade program. This 3.2 trillion dollar behemoth was estimated to raise gas prices to $6 to $8 per gallon and represent the largest tax increase in history. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and it got trashed… this time. Expect this turkey to be resurrected in the coming veto proof Democrat Congress. This sop to the global warming zealots comes despite recent reports that global temperatures have not increased since 1998, and 2007 recorded a 1.4-degree decline. Go figure.

In another typical move by Congress they herded the heads of the US oil companies to Washington and grilled them about their “excess profits”. For the record, oil companies average 8.3% profit compared with tobacco and beverage companies’ 19.1%, pharmaceutical and media at 18.4% and technology companies at maybe 40%. Of course, untroubled by facts, the Democrats immediately proposed a windfall tax on these profits. They are seemingly ignorant of history. This was tried during the aforementioned Carter Administration. The result? Domestic production fell some 5% and imports increased by 10%. Gas prices went up by 60% and overall inflation hit 12.4%. This too fell to the threat of a Bush veto, but next time around…?

Still more recently 97 Senators voted to stop putting oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, so they know it’s a supply problem. Strangely, 71 voted shortly thereafter not to approve drilling in ANWR. (I still think some Republican Congressman should introduce a bill to rename the place the “National Artic Wasteland”. I like the acronym too… NAW.)

With Congress likely to seed the clouds of this two headed storm and make it worse, it seems the US is determined to select as the Captain of the ship someone as oblivious to the fury of Mother Nature as George Clooney’s character in the movie. Mr. Obama has promised to raise numerous taxes, the equivalent of steering the ship into the heart of the storm. Just increasing the capital gains and dividend taxes as he has promised will shed another 2000 points off the Dow according to John Rutledge, a wise economist. Americans--especially middle class Americans--have already seen their wealth greatly diminished by the deflation of the US dollar (down 33% against the Euro), the decline in the value of their IRAs and 401Ks due to the drop in the stock market of nearly 2000 points and the loss in equity in their homes and SUVs. Obama’s supposed concern for the middle class is a sad joke. His other promises add up to damaging domestic corporations and driving them off shore with a concurrent loss of jobs. So much for punishing the wealthy and helping the middle class.

OK. I’m pessimistic, but if I were holding a ticket for this cruise I would strap on a life jacket and cinch up my jock. It’s going to be a rough voyage.

The Speckled Pup (A Love Story)

Everybody thinks fuzzy yellow lab puppies are cute. That’s why they use them in TV ads for everything from dog food to feminine beauty products. Personally, I can’t think of anything cuter than white and ticked English Setter pups. Part of that, I think, is my understanding of what happens when the respective pups grow up. The adorable labs grow into barrel chested brutes with tails like runaway fire hoses that knock infants off their feet and sweep everything off the coffee table. Setter pups, on the other hand, grow to be swift, graceful and beautiful with gentle dispositions. (I think I wrote something in this space recently about prejudice… nuff said?)

Growing up as a kid I never had a dog. Of course, there were plenty of dogs on my Uncle Lee’s farm….beagles and cockers. And, I spent a bit of time hunting with my neighbor’s two German Shorthairs, convincing me that pointing dogs were the ultimate in sporting breeds. I also enjoyed some great days hunting with my friend’s full sized poodle named Sardie who was, without question, the best retriever I ever saw. But, for some reason I was attracted to English Setters.

Once I got back from my eight month Med deployment with Third Platoon and Loi and I got settled in a tiny house (but with a big back yard) in Virginia Beach, we decided to get a dog. An ad in the paper announced “setter pups for sale” and we went to take a look. Eight of the little bundles of white fur and black spots tumbled over each other in their joy at our visit. Going home without one never entered our minds. We picked out a bold and inquisitive male with black ears and tiny black ticking. We named him Zeke after the best hunter and wing shot I knew and he became our first baby.

Romping in our yard the little guy would snap on points at butterflies and flowers. Frozen in place with his tail high and still, he would raise his front paw in the classic pose. I had high hopes and immediately went out and bought a book on training hunting dogs. Basic training was going well and we quickly realized that Zeke had superior intelligence and a desire to please. Then I got sent off on another mission for the Teams for a few months. Loi went down to Florida to spend the time with her Mother taking Zeke with her, of course. By then he had developed into a gangly teenager and committed a few crimes… like charging through the screened in porch without the benefit of the door a couple of times. He seemed quite enthusiastic about shagging squirrels and birds out of the yard and the screens got in the way. Loi’s Mom was not thrilled.

Back in Virginia Beach I started working with Zeke in earnest. After dinner Loi and I would head out to the approaches of the airport where the grass and brush harbored quite a few coveys of bob white quail. Zeke loved these romps but showed no inclination to point the quail. He seemed to find great joy in locating the coveys and running into them, watching them scatter in all directions. I was getting discouraged when one night in the gathering darkness as we headed back to the car, Zeke screeched to a halt on a point. I slowly approached from behind and gave him a nudge. He stood firm like a statue. I peered over him and saw a tightly bunched covey of quail directly beneath his nose. The hot bird scent had him transfixed. My hopes for him soared only to be dashed again. His new game: find the birds, briefly point and then jump in to make them fly.

I had to figure out a way to make him hold point until I got there to flush the birds. Otherwise, he’d find all the birds but I’d never get a shot. I bought six quail and kept them in a cage in the back yard. Leaving Zeke in the car, I would take the quail out in the field, spin them to make them a bit dizzy and plant them in the grass. I tied a 4 ft. piece of string to one foot so I could catch them again. I’d bring Zeke into the field on a long lead and work into the wind. When he pointed the bird I would make him stand there until I flushed the bird. This worked well and I next let him run on his own without the lead. Unfortunately, he had figured the game out. As soon as I let him out of the car he simply followed my scent trail through the grass to precisely where I’d placed the bird. He knew I’d taken the bird out there so he had no need to look for the damn thing. We had six quail for dinner that night.

In the fall I got out of the Navy and we headed home to Buffalo for six weeks before I had to report to my job in Chicago. It was time to introduce Zeke to pheasants. He had become pretty good at pointing quail in Virginia but pheasants were all new to him. He just chased them until they flew. He had also developed the nasty habit of hunting on his own. He’d figured out that by circling he could cross my scent trail and follow it until he found me. I had become simply his ride to and from our little outdoor expeditions. I’d be standing there fuming and I’d hear the tiny brass bell he wore on his collar tinkling as he galloped up my back trail. He was always happy to see me and though angry, it made no sense to punish him. One day when he’d been gone for a long time, I spotted a large lone tree in the middle of the field. I made for the tree, grabbed a low hanging branch and swung up into the tree. I climbed well up in the branches and waited. Soon I heard the tinkling as he jogged up my scent trail. He got to the tree and stopped as my scent track abruptly stopped. Zeke looked around, obviously puzzled, and then set off again to run another circle. Here he came again following the track, got to the tree and stopped, totally confused. I almost fell out of the tree laughing. Now he panicked and headed off again at a dead run. When he came around the third time I was sitting at the bottom of the tree waiting for him. Boy, was he ever happy to see me! I would like to tell you that the exercise in tree climbing cured him, but of course it did not. Since we had never actually hunted yet, he had no idea that we were supposed to be doing this as a team.

With the opening of the pheasant season rapidly approaching, I decided to go to a pheasant farm and buy a couple of birds, shoot them over him and see if he’d catch on to the program. With him on a long lead he’d pointed and I’d shot the two birds, but I was uncertain he’d learned anything. The game farm owner had cautioned me not to shoot any other birds than the ones I’d purchased. But, on the way back to the car with Zeke off the lead he snapped into a solid point. I walked up behind him and a big rooster flushed from under his nose. I capped that bird and Zeke brought him back to me quivering with excitement. I had to beg forgiveness from the farmer and pay for the extra bird but I could care less. A light had gone off in Zeke’s head. From that day forward we hunted as a team. Yes, he had a lot to learn and made mistakes but he knew what we were doing out there and would stand forever on point waiting for me.

Like this. One day that season a friend and I were hunting near a small lake. A flock of geese circled and looked like they were going to set down in the lake. I ignored Zeke while watching the geese. After ten minutes or so the geese buggered off and I started looking for the dog. No bell and no white dog bouncing in the field. I spotted a large clump of bushes and walked over. Peering under the brush I saw Zeke locked on a rock solid point. He’d been standing there patiently for about 15 minutes. I kicked the brush and out popped a hen pheasant. Now hens are not legal and I would never shoot one…. except my young dog had just done something extraordinary and he needed to get his reward. I shot the hen and then dug a hole and buried it. May God and the New York DNR forgive me.

Zeke had an exceptional nose and although pheasants are tough and wily buggers and will run like the wind if wounded, he never lost a bird I’d downed. One time he brought me a hen that someone else had shot illegally. He seemed quite pleased with himself. But, we were hunting at a public hunting grounds routinely patrolled by game wardens. I could see myself trying to convince the officer that I had not shot the bird and that my dog had simply found it. Right. I placed the bird in a grassy road that meandered through the field and led Zeke 50 yards further down and turned him loose. He made a big circle and picked up the hen again and brought it to me. He seemed to be saying, “Hey Dick, you forgot this!” Thanks. I dropped the bird on the road and led him about 300 yards away before turning him loose again.

Zeke had had a good first season but it was now November and time to head for Chicago. We rented a small basement apartment and I commuted by train downtown where I worked on the 1st National Bank building setting granite slabs on the side of the building…20 to 30 stories in the air. Working six or seven days a week at 10 hours per day left no time for much of anything much less hunting. Zeke had a long wire strung in the back yard that allowed him to run back and forth. One night the doorbell rang. The man at the door asked if my name was Dick and I gazed past him to the car parked at the curb. There in the back seat between a couple of kids sat Zeke looking quite relaxed. The man explained that Zeke had scaled the fence to their back yard and had his way with their female collie that happened to be in heat. They lived about a mile away and fortunately, Zeke’s collar had our name and address on it. I apologized profusely and vowed it would not happen again.

Two nights later the doorbell rang again. There he was with Zeke. This time he had torn down the wire and made the trip with his 12-foot chain dragging behind him. Missy was inside on this night so Zeke went up on the porch and managed to accidentally (?) ring their doorbell. When they answered there sat Zeke waiting to call on his lady friend. Luckily the guy had a good sense of humor. Some time later, after we’d moved on to Olympia, WA., we got a letter from them. Enclosed we found a snap shot of Missy and her litter of ten white and speckled puppies. Our boy had strong genes. The pups didn’t look like collies.

We made the cross-country trip from Chicago to Olympia in our ’66 Plymouth Barracuda. In the back we had a bassinette containing our new baby daughter, Tara, and Zeke who was somewhat whacked out on Dramamine. He rode most of the way with his chin resting on the edge of the bassinette. Through the big back window of the ‘cuda it must have made a pretty picture. We got a lot of friendly toots and waves from passing motorists.

Like I said, Zeke possessed exceptional intelligence. I calculated that he understood 24 words and commands. Like a lot of exceptionally intelligent humans, he did have his quirks. For some reason he was hypnotized by Loi’s emery board. Whenever she filed her nails he would sit in front of her motionless with a glazed look on his face. Loi could balance the emery board on his nose and he would sit there staring at it cross-eyed and never move. He loved oranges and hated peas. If you peeled an orange, he would sit in front of you and drool like a Great Dane. He would gulp down any slice tossed his way. But peas? Furgetaboutit. We often mixed some gravy and meat scraps in his kibble. He’d wolf down the bowl in seconds, leaving it as clean as fresh out of the dishwasher. If there were any peas in the mix, there they would be, sitting in the bottom of the bowl. I could never figure out how he could gobble the food down and avoid the few peas.

We lived out in the woods on one of the salt-water inlets outside Olympia. We had a gentle and fluffy cat named Phoebe. Zeke and Phoebe got along fine and occasionally could be found cured up together taking an afternoon snooze. Never anything but friendly….except when Zeke was in his kennel. Phoebe would jump up on his doghouse and then vault up on the 2 x 4 that capped the wire enclosure. She would casually stroll the narrow board and stop to wash herself while Zeke went absolutely nuts down below. Why was he so upset? I can’t say.
Territorial maybe? I know why Phoebe did it: just to piss him off. Cats are like that.

For the next four years when we lived near Olympia, Zeke and I did a lot of hunting. Most weekends I would go out with my business partner’s high school aged son. We usually headed over to a nearby valley for a little duck hunting at first light. With his thin coat Zeke was not designed for cold water and he did not appreciate sitting around. He was built to run. But, hunting is hunting and he enjoyed the birds coming in and the excitement of the shooting. He hated the taste of ducks and refused to pick one up on dry land. For some unexplained reason he was OK with swimming out to retrieve a downed duck. Once his feet hit solid land he spit the duck out, refusing to pick it up again. It seemed as if he were saying, “OK, I will do this thing for you, but I refuse to keep this stinky bird in my mouth any longer than absolutely necessary.” I was grateful and told him so.

About 9:30 we would head over to the public hunting grounds to hunt pheasants. By then most of the early arrivals were leaving. One morning, two guys with two black labs were leaving one of the 40-acre plots. They said, “Don’t bother with this field. We just covered it with our two labs. No birds in there.” As you can expect, we hunted the field and Zeke pointed two nice roosters and we smugly put them in our game pockets.

With each new season Zeke became wiser and wiser about the sneaky pheasant. From painful experience I gave up trying to tell him where to go and what to do. His exceptional nose and uncanny sense of what the wily birds were attempting never failed and made me look foolish telling him otherwise. He was now six years old and at the peak of his game.

Living as we did, out in the boondocks, with few neighbors, I never worried about letting Zeke out at night for his evening constitutional and a little rambling. One night he didn’t come home. The next morning and for several days thereafter I drove the country roads and searched the ditches for miles around looking for him. We posted rewards. We never saw him again.

Later we learned that a number of purebred dogs had gone missing in our area and a dog-napping ring was suspected. The culprits were never apprehended. I mourned him, as would a parent of a kidnapped child never returned. Over the years we had other hunting dogs. They tried hard, although none could fill the considerable paw prints of ol’ Zeke. I miss him still.

Racism

Prejudice is a pretty universal human trait. Stuff like the Yankees are better than the Red Sox, Ford builds better cars than GM, Coke tastes better than Pepsi and the like are pretty harmless. As a friend of mine, a professor at the University of Miami, once said, “We have to be constantly aware of our prejudices, for once we are rid of one, we generally adopt another.”

Racism represents the malignant and far more dangerous form of prejudice. Unfortunately, it’s pretty common and often quite inexplicable. In their book, The Japan We Never Knew, Mr. Suzuki and Mr. Oiwa assert that the Japanese are the most racist people on the planet. (Hey, I didn’t say it. They did). The Japanese certainly showed they regarded the Chinese as less than human by killing (by some estimates) 30 million or so Chinese men, women and children during World War II. If you have a strong stomach you can read Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking and that will clear it up for you.

Of course, the Japanese didn’t exactly corner the market on racism and turning it into mass murder, which we more politely now call “ethnic cleansing”. We should not forget the Serbs in Bosnia, the Hutus in Rwanda or, more recently, the goings on in the Darfur region of Sudan. Perhaps because of their typical efficiency, the German Nazis occupy the most prominent place in our memory for their slaughter of six million Jews and maybe twice that number of other “undesirables” such as: Poles, gypsies, homosexuals, cripples and various enemies of socialism.

My ancestors suffered under racism in Ireland and when they arrived in the US in the middle of the 19th century. After a generation or two the Irish blended in and the racial prejudice faded away. The Blacks, with their history of slavery, the bitterness of the Civil War and the inescapable color of their skin were not so fortunate.

I never met a black person until I joined the Navy. There simply weren’t any in my small town outside of Buffalo or in our high school. The only black with whom I had any familiarity with what so ever was Booker T. Washington. I had read his biography (along with that of nearly every other famous American) from the long shelf of them at my local library.

I got to know my first blacks personally from my BUDs Training Class (33) in 1964-65 and I didn’t really know any of them until Hell Week. By then there were only two left who had survived the abuse and extraordinary harassment they received. I absolutely could not believe the crap they endured and the stuff said to them…. Racist stuff. Funny thing though, it did not come from the white instructors. We had a black instructor by the name of Waddell who was one of the most imposing men I’ve ever met. Waddell, a big man with a huge head, carried himself like a Nubian prince and displayed a fearful scowl most of the time. No one dared crossing him or falling asleep in his classes. His booming voice struck fear in the hearts of all the Trainees but he reserved his worst abuse for the blacks in our class. He and a couple of other black SEALs who served part time with our training exercises, picked on the black trainees without mercy. Any white man, even a racist, would not dare to say the things to a black man that these instructors said to these young men. I guess they figured that if they couldn’t stand the shit, they did not deserve to become black SEALs.

I got to know one of the guys quite well when we deployed to the Med for eight months with 3rd Platoon. He was one tough SOB during training. He was not a great swimmer in those early days. Heavily muscled with zero body fat, he floated like a tombstone. Everyone had to swim two lengths of the pool (50M) under water. No exceptions. Very few people can hold their breath until they pass out. Doing it a second time is even more extraordinary. I saw Ed do it twice. On that day he passed out as he neared the end of the pool and, unconscious, glided to the wall and bonked his head. No matter… he’d qualified. (For the record, he also shit in the pool.)

On So Solly Day, the last day of Hell Week, the Instructors bombarded us with explosives while we belly flopped in ice -covered swamp. It was a couple of hours before someone discovered that Ed had been slogging around in the freezing water with only one boot. The other had been blown off by one of the half-pound blocks of TNT they were setting off around us every 10 minutes. He’d never complained. The only way to get him to quit would have been to shoot him.

Ed went on to a long and successful career in Special Warfare, making Master Chief and, at one point, was in charge of all submersible operations for the Teams. Good man.

After a couple of years in the Teams I got my dream job as Platoon Officer of one of the operating platoons. My Platoon Chief Petty Officer (also named Ed) happened to be a black man. At that time there were fewer than 20 operational platoons in the whole damn Navy. The Chiefs were tasked with keeping everything together and preventing young junior officers like me from screwing up. They didn’t give these CPO jobs to just anyone.

My Chief and I got along great and the fact that he was black had pretty much slipped from my consciousness. One day we were on a recruiting trip to a Navy base in a southern port. As we strolled down the hot street in our uniforms, I noticed an air conditioned bar.

I said, “Chief, let’s grab a beer. They’ve got A/C.”

“I can’t go in there,” he replied.

Thinking he had forgotten his wallet, I said, “No sweat. I’ve got some money.” We stood there on the hot sidewalk: me, confused, and him with a sad look on his face.

“I can’t go in there," he repeated. Finally, it dawned on me. We walked on. I was seriously pissed off and not because I could not get a beer. I couldn’t believe that one of the US Navy’s finest was excluded from a public place because of the color of his skin.

There is another story, oft repeated, in the lore of the SEALs. A platoon, headed out for a training exercise at a base in the South, set off early in the morning. They stopped for breakfast at a café on the outskirts of a small southern town. The group of 15 or so SEALs had one black Teammate. Everyone had been served and was tucking into their bacon and eggs-- except the black SEAL. The guy sitting next to him noticed and grabbed the passing waitress.

“Where’s his food?” he asked, pointing at his Teammate.

“I can’t serve him in here,” she replied sheepishly. He immediately rose to his feet.

“They won’t serve our Teammate in here fellas,” he announced in a loud voice. They all looked up, figured it out and stood as one. No one took a final bite of toast or sip of coffee. They just silently walked out, got in their vehicles and drove off. No one ran out with the bill.

All this happened in the middle 60s when racism still persisted in many places and, of course, still does in the hearts of a few. However, no reasonable person can assert that there has not been remarkable improvement in the last 40+ years. No sane person should suggest that the government foisted the AIDs disease on the black population or that crack cocaine became a problem in the black community through a CIA plot. No black leader should rationally suggest that the social ills that plague urban blacks could be solved by racial separatism. Dr. King preached the exact opposite!

It’s because these ideas are so kooky and wrong headed that his voluble pastor, Jeremiah Wright, has caused Presidential hopeful, Barack Obama so much trouble. His twenty-year relationship with this pompous fool and reluctance to distance himself has tarnished his rock star image and raised questions about his judgment. Racial prejudice will always be a problem with human beings, but it’s not THE problem in America. How about Islamo-facism? Or the economy? Voters are going to take a harder look at Obama now, and that’s a good thing.

Hooray the First of May

May Day, the first of May, has ancient Pagan origins. The Druids of the British Isles celebrated it and later, when the Romans took over and occupied the BI, they brought with them their own early May festival, the feast to worship Flora, the goddess of flowers. The two merged and in Medieval times the May Pole got added to the mix.

In modern times May Day got taken over by the International Labor Movement. That concept apparently got going to commemorate the Haymarket Riot in 1886, a nasty labor rally that got seriously out of hand when an anarchist tossed a bomb. Socialists, communists and anarchists still celebrate the day big time and the few remaining countries that still suffer under Communism like the Peoples Republic of China and Cuba mark it as an official holiday.

But for me, the 1st of May resonates because on that day in 1941 General Mills, a company located in Golden Valley, MN, introduced the product “Cheerios” to the World. Until 1945 it was called “CheeriOats”, but became an instant hit anyway. The serious marketing push in 1945 came with the signing of the Lone Ranger (one of my favorites in my early years) to be their product spokesman. It was one of the longest lasting and successful relationships in brand marketing and lasted until the ‘60s.


Cheerios, the first oat based ready to eat cereal, was invented by a guy by the name of James W. Evans, a professor at Central Missouri State University. I don’t know if Evans ever got rich off his invention. He certainly never achieved fame. But, ya gotta hand it to ol’ Jimmy- he invented a product with legs. It’s still plugging along in its original formula 67 years after introduction. Amazing. How many products can you think of with a better track record? Yeah, me either.

Our company developed and released a credit card receipt printer in 1996 that lasted in its original design for ten years. We still sell small quantities of an updated version. I thought that was pretty good since most new products, especially technology products, last a couple of years, if that.

It wasn’t until the 90s that Cheerios began marketing the health benefits to a more conscious populace, but they have always been free of artificial flavor or coloring. Cheerios has forever been low in sugar, fat and cholestorel and contained plenty of fiber and folic acid. Mostly, Cheerios persisted because they tasted good-especially with some berries or a banana tossed on top. Millions of kids have grown up on Cheerios and continue to munch on them as adults. Several generations of toddlers have been quieted in their high chairs when Mom tossed a handful of the little 0s on their trays while she prepared the rest of the meal. And, most parents traveling with youngsters keep a baggie of Cheerios handy to quiet the little nippers when they get the cranky munchies.

Over the years General Mills provided gainful employment to hundreds of marketing types and they came up with a dozen different slogans. While the relationship with Kemosahbee was the longest in any brand history, they later became associated with Donald Duck, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Scoobie Doo, Star Wars characters and even NASCAR drivers.

Of course, no marketing department worthy of its name could resist spin-offs. Over the years they introduced: Honey Nut, Apple Cinnamon, Multi-grain, Frosted, Team, Purely Os (organic), Team and Berry Burst. None ever eclipsed or even touched the original. With the expanding girth of today’s children, it seems unlikely the sugary spin-offs ever will.

Cheerios and I share the birth year 1941 and I still love them. I always appreciated that the stragglers floated jauntily on the milk instead of sinking into a soggy mass at the bottom of the bowl.

Unless you are a Communist or anarchist and choose to celebrate May Day in their fashion, I suggest a bowl of Cheerios on that day in honor James W. Evans. After skimming the last floaters, raise your bowl of milk on high in a silent toast to the estimable Mr. Evans.

Way to go Jimmy! R.I.P.

Driving

Humorist Dave Barry once observed that driving in Italy had only one rule- you’re supposed to be in front of the guy in front of you. Having driven in Italy, I can attest to the truth of that statement. The motorways of many European countries have a posted speed limit of 120K, but that seems to be merely a suggestion. If you go that fast, you are just in the way. I once drove from Geneva to Zurich on a beautiful four-lane highway. I did not feel all that comfortable going much over 120K. When I did come up on a slower moving vehicle, I’d look in the rear view mirror and, seeing no one in sight, pull out to pass. Immediately, some guy would be right on my tail flashing his lights for me to get out of the way. I could never figure out where he came from.

In North America I have noted several immutable laws of driving.

1. No matter how fast you go, someone always wants to go faster. If you are on the freeway passing a line of slower cars, this person is always right behind you pushing you to get the Hell moving.

2. If you are in traffic and you leave a little space between you and the car in front, someone will always cut in front of you to fill that space.

3. If you are on a two lane road with a long line of cars in front of you, the guy behind you will ride right on your bumper. It’s never clear to me what he wants me to do… go faster? Pull over, so he can get behind the guy in front of me? (See driving in Italy above.)

From my experience Canadian drivers are more polite and patient than Americans. This excludes people from Montreal who, like their French cousins, drive as if they have a death wish. Canadians will almost always wait and let you merge in front of them. It is required, however, that you give a thank you wave. Not doing so is regarded as bad manners indeed, and you may get a single digit salute for your oversight. Unlike Europeans who seem to drive with one hand on the wheel and another on their horn Canadians seldom employ the honker.

Canadians also have a technique called “alternating” when two lanes merge into one. Like we were taught in kindergarten, we take turns. The Lion’s Gate Bridge in Vancouver puts this practice to the test. The bridge has three lanes total and, depending on the time of day, may have only one lane going into the city. At those times four lanes of traffic must merge into one to cross the bridge. First the four lanes merge to two and then the two into one. Everyone alternates politely one after the other and it works surprisingly well. Anyone who violates the protocol gets a few angry toots of the horn. Few do. One time I was taking my friend, Daniel, across during one of these four lane merges. Daniel is from Paris and he just shook his head in amazement. He said, “You put this bridge in Paris and the second day the government would be overthrown!” He’s right of course, for driving in Paris can only be described as a blood sport. It’s a continual game of chicken and not for the faint of heart. Although I have visited Paris dozens of times, I have never driven there, and never will.

Every time I drive down to Seattle and get caught in one of their seemingly constant traffic jams, I wonder about our love for the automobile. Does it stem from our distant past where every man had a horse? You would think so by looking at the cars that are mostly occupied by a single person. Miles and miles of cars jammed together on a ribbon of concrete, creeping along, burning up gas and spewing out that dreaded C02. Every morning and every evening in every major city in North America people sit in traffic, inching their way to and from work. It seems to me to be a horribly inefficient way to move people from one place to another.

The hefty per gallon taxes on gasoline has generated billions of dollars for state and federal governments who in turn spend it on building more and more highways. As soon as they are finished, they are choked with more cars. Instead of five lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic, you now have six. We are rapidly running out of places to build more highways and, as the price of gasoline creeps ever higher, building more monuments to the automobile seems less and less like a great idea.

Air travel also appears to be reaching the maxed out stage. Here too, taxes on tickets and airport fees have provided cash for tremendous expansion. But, the system operates on the ragged edge of collapse. A hiccup or bad weather at one of the major hubs ripples throughout the continent and everything grinds to a halt. The skies are choked with airplanes and the airport terminals teeming. Air travel has become another nightmare.

With the highways and airways jammed, you have to wonder why we Norte Americanos have not made even a token effort to improve our dismal rail transportation system. It’s not like we don’t have an excellent model to emulate. Anyone who has traveled in Europe has likely taken a ride on one of those high-speed trains. Whizzing along at 200+KPH in comfort makes one wonder why we go through the hassle of flying- the parking, the long line ups waiting for some yahoo to confiscate our toothpaste, the hour or so on the tarmac waiting to take off. At many European airports you can arrive on your trans Atlantic flight, take an elevator downstairs and hop on a train to anywhere. And, it’s efficient. If it says the train leaves at 9:15 and you arrive at 9:16 you can be certain you missed that one.

Riding a train in the US cannot be described as convenient or fast. OK, there are a couple of commuter services that work well, but if you want to go from Kansas City to Chicago or Chicago to LA, forget it. You might do it for nostalgia or for the unique experience, but you certainly would not do it for convenience.

The US and Canada has built a wonderful highway system. Now it’s time to devote that same energy and ingenuity to building a continent wide system of high-speed rail lines connecting major metropolitan areas. The Europeans managed it. We could too…. if we wanted to, that is, or demanded it from our elected officials. Let’s face it. It’s time.

Da Bears

The calendar says it’s spring and the weather outside seems like January (photo of granddaughter, Cammie, taken during a snow storm on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 in the Seattle area). But, despite the tenacity of winter the seasons march onward and the snows here in the valley of Whistler recede a bit more each day. I spotted a few sprouts of skunk cabbage poking their noses tentatively out of the slower sections of Crabapple creek this week. This means that any day now we should start seeing our black bears emerge from their long winter snooze and start wandering through our neighborhoods.

Whistler sits in the midst of vast tracts of forested mountains so we share the place with the bears, bobcats, coyotes and the occasional cougar as well as other wildlife including; grouse, deer, show shoe rabbits, eagles and osprey.

Last year a cougar got away with shagging a couple of mountain bikers… we have plenty of those and one or two would not be missed. However, he made the mistake of stalking a couple of Japanese golfers up in the foothills of the Chateau golf course. Even the skilled public relations folks for Whistler could not imagine dealing with the disaster of having a Japanese tourist turned into cougar brunch, so the cougar was sadly given the death penalty.

Whistler has a large and healthy population of bears and, for the most part, the residents and the bears coexist in relative peace. When we first moved to Whistler twelve years ago the town did a poor job of controlling garbage. There were open containers and dumpsters all over town. The town dump was wide open. Black bears spend the summer months as walking eating machines, to first recover from the long hibernation and then to pack on the pounds prior to heading into their dens for the long winter nap again. Bears, like humans, will take the easy way out.

Garbage provides the easiest source of calories for bears prior to the berry ripening in the fall, so bears in the bad old days were constantly found raiding garbage cans right in the village and dumpster diving near hotels and restaurants.

This brought bears and humans into conflict and close contact and, as a consequence, the authorities killed an average of 22 bears per summer.

About six years ago the resort got serious about controlling garbage. Truly bear proof garbage containers were devised and installed throughout the valley and a massive public education campaign aimed at both tourists and residents undertaken. The results were immediate. The elimination of problem bears dropped to 3 or 4 per year. Only the most aggressive and repeat offenders of the rules paid the ultimate price. Breaking into homes to raid the fridge or pantry seems to be the most serious offense. Minor infractions can get the bear a nice yellow tag in the ear identifying him as having been in trouble before.

For the most part the bears and humans of Whistler coexist in relative harmony. The bears are accustomed to us and wander through the residential areas and the golf courses seemingly ignoring us. I know of only one person being injured by a bear. That occurred last summer when a fellow came home and discovered a bear inside his house. The bear paniced and gave the guy a pretty good swipe while trying to escape. The only thing to worry about is a female with cubs. Mama bears are very protective of cubs and can be quite aggressive. They have to be especially wary of roving male bears that will kill the cubs. The males know (presumably from watching Dr. Phil and Oprah) that females who lose their cubs will immediately go into estrus and be available for breeding.

We got a first hand demonstration of this aggressive female behavior last summer. The top of Blueberry Hill right behind our house is a large park land of wild forest and jumbled boulders. Several bears hibernate in the caves and rest there during the summer months. The traditional path from Blueberry Hill down to the valley floor where they can find water and food takes them right through our yard. We frequently see bears making their way through our gardens.

One evening last June my fishing buddy, Rob, and I returned from an expedition and pulled up in front of our house to unload. Rob let his aging lab out of the truck to relieve himself. At that moment a young female bear and her cub were making their way down from the top of Blueberry. Spotting the dog the bear began to make a sound I never heard before, a loud (and I mean really loud) “whoomph, whoomph”. The cub shot up the nearest tree like he had a rocket up his butt and the female hurried to the very edge of the 8’ bank beside the road. We hustled the dog back into the truck, backed off to the safety of my open garage and waited for her to calm down. Eventually, she retreated to a position between her and her treed cub and we got my gear unloaded.

My only other encounter with an aggressive bear occurred on the Chateau Whistler golf course several summers ago. The fairways for the course are hacked out of the forested bench lands of Whistler Mountain and therefore encounters with bears and other wildlife a common occurrence. On this day I was playing with a couple of other young locals and as we rounded the hairpin curve leading to the 16th tee box we nearly ran into two bears. We screeched to a halt and immediately reversed back up the hill as the bears were only about 20 yards away. Since one bear was so much larger than the other we assumed that it was a female with her cub from last year. (Cubs will stay with their mom through the second winter before getting kicked out on their own the following summer.)

I climbed out of the golf cart and approached to where I could peek around the corner. I could see that the smaller bear was too big to be a cub and that the other guy was simply huge. This became even more apparent when he spotted me and stood on his hind legs giving me a hard stare and a threatening grunt.

I backed off but continued to watch as he started pawing the smaller bear around until, positioning himself behind her, he began to hump rapidly. Ah, sex on the tee box, and me without a camera! The whole act lasted a few seconds and afterward the two wandered off in different directions. No cuddling.

For the record… I was so aroused I double boggied the hole.