Rambling Josh

For those of you that are not on our Christmas card list (you know why), I thought I’d share our 2020 goings on…what there was of it. I’m sure the curiosity has been a dreadful burden to bare. So here you have it…

All Batman ever really wanted was to be left alone. Left alone to play with his Batman toys and do Batman stuff in his Batman cave. Perhaps a short break whenever Alfred appeared with a tray full of wisdom, disguised as milk and cookies, but then, sporting a prominent milk moustache and smatterings of cookie crumbs, back to serious Batman stuff. That’s all he wanted, but some people just couldn’t behave, they just wouldn’t keep their distance. So it goes.

News…news? What’s new and newsy? Maybe you’ve heard, but the other day the newspaper said something about some sort of world-wide pandemic? Sounds serious, and I seriously hope that you and yours have managed to keep your ship mostly above water throughout this storm.

All’s well with milady and I. Still mostly upright and moving along through life, grateful for our family, our friends, and careers we find meaningful. Although our jobs, like most everyone else’s, took a bit of a turn in March, we are quite grateful it was only a turn rather than a full stop. Dawn’s patient load was a little lighter for a bit, but she was back to being busy in short order, and is diligently working to dehitch the giddy up of all who limp her way. My classes pivoted to online to finish off the spring semester, but I had to take my jammies off and go back to campus this fall. We included a picture of our beloved cabin on this year’s Christmas card because it was lost to a 30,000-acre wildfire this past September. All those years of love and labor were laid low in a single day. It’s true that solitude can be found anywhere, but we preferred finding ours there. Thankfully lives were only changed, not lost, as a result of the fire. I’ll step aside for a sentence or two for Dawn to express her sympathies regarding the loss of her Grandma Rosella a few months back. After 97 years of visiting this Earth, the angels came to say “It’s time to see Ray. He’s been waiting patiently to give you a peck on the cheek.”

Our eldest has now been a New Yorker for over a year and loving it. Mostly loving it, the plague has put a damper on some of the footloose and fancy-free city activities she has grown so fond of exploring. Her job as a Production Assistant for Showtime’s Billions, was put on hold due to the whole plague thing, but they plan to start shooting again in March. In the meantime, Sierra is working as a Production Assistant for Tina Fey’s new show, Girls5Eva. As Gotham was a bit of an epicenter for the pandemic I informed you about a few paragraphs back, we were slightly concerned for her safety and wellbeing. We suggested she come home until the dust settled, but she politely ignored our pleas. As her father, I did the sensible thing and began hatching a plan with Kurt Russel to plan her escape…from New York. Kurt, nor I, are as spry as we once were so Dawn and I are quite grateful for the kindness and hospitality provided by Sierra’s boyfriend’s parents in taking her in and allowing her to ride out the worst of it with them in their home on Long Island.

Jackson officially has nothing to look forward to anymore, except perhaps renting a car, senior discounts, and Velcro shoes, as he turned 21 this summer. His job was carried off with the plague wave in March, but as of late, he’s kept busy learning the home flooring installation trade until the looooong enlistment process for the Air Force concludes. The Air Force may aim high, but they’re none too quick about it, which is surprising given the usual operational competence, speed, and efficiency that most governmental entities adhere to. He’s not sure what career path he’d like to pursue in the Air Force, but he’s been given a laundry list of choices. I never expected to see “tail gunner” and “band member” on the same vocational list. My fatherly advice was to pick something he found interesting, useful, and mostly plague-proof. Jackson and I enjoyed another summer as teammates on the Drillers, tearing it up in the Black Hills Amateur Baseball League. Well, he tore it up, I just tore my muscles…and my pants. I had planned on retiring…again…but Jackson guilted me into playing again. I still love the game and enjoy the time it allows Jackson and I to be together.

They say 20/20 is perfect vision, and perhaps 2020 has provided all of us a clearer vision of what is important and essential in our lives. When the world fell away, I hope you landed on your feet and found what and whom matters most. All the best to you and yours.

Well it’s been a wild and woolly start for 2021 here in the U.S. of A. I’m hoping to hang my hat on the old adage, “this too shall pass”, provided I can keep looters from running off with my hat and the hook I hung it on. I’m confident all will be well…eventually.

They say optimism can generally be labeled as courageous or naïve, but I’d like to propose sliding “hopeful” into the middle-ground. Hopeful, but at least a rutabagas toss away from delusional.

Speaking of “rutabagas toss”, the Black Hills area is well known for many things; saltwater taffy, tacky t-shirts, Mt. Rushmore (I think it’s still there), and hail storms. Like many in the area, our house and vehicles took a beating this past year.

One of the vehicles may have been spared if our garage hadn’t been full of all the furnishings we had to move out of our basement when it flooded. So it goes.

One of our cars was beat into submission and deemed a “total loss” by the insurance company. I thought “total loss” was a bit harsh, and made a note not to put an insurance company in charge of deciding whether or not to “pull the plug” on any healthcare decisions I may encounter.

In the event a “hail storm” ever descends upon me, I’ve hand selected who I believe to be somewhat reasonable folks as my healthcare proxy’s to make the optimistically courageous decision regarding whether my dings and dents constitute a “total loss”. I’m extra gracious to these folks, and hopeful their courage is never called upon…for my sake and theirs.

In hindsight, it is a bit troubling that they all so eagerly accepted the request to be included in my advance care directive?

Back to the cars. In short, we found ourselves in need of vehicle, which also put us in need of a car dealership, and inevitably, a car salesman. Some people enjoy this process. My wife and I are not some of those people.

The test driving while attempting conversation with the stranger in the backseat, the price haggling with the previously mentioned stranger in the backseat, who defers any possibility of “deals” to the manager.

The manager, nameless…faceless…mysteriously shrouded from the sights and sounds of the groveling masses and their unreasonable requests and demands. Did you know floor mats are not “standard equipment” in some new vehicles? “Thankfully” the manager took pity upon us and “threw them in” as part of the deal. Along with a key chain. Be still my heart.

Along with floor mats, our new vehicle also has a function that I’ve grown quite fond of, Driver Assist Steering. For about 15 seconds I can let my “assistant” take care of all those pesky steering responsibilities while I attend to more pressing matters.

Making a sandwich, scratching an itch, scratching an itch with a sandwich…if you’re into that sort of thing…weirdo. Hopping into the backseat to knock off a few pushups, do some quilting, put on a puppet show for oncoming traffic…the possibilities are endless.

I did find out that after about 10 seconds the assistant will begin nagging you to steer with threats that it is going on a union mandated break, and at 15 seconds it makes good on that threat. Until then your time is your own to use as you wish. Isn’t that what we all want?

Happy New Year to you, yours, and anyone else in need of such. As is generally the case, this time of year there is plenty of content flooding the many media outlets regarding how to make 2021 such a glorious year that your face hurts from smiling until 2031. If this is the quest you have set forth in search of in these early hours of a shiny new year, I wish you well.

May your fountain of hope never stop springing eternal as the days turn to weeks, and those weeks roll over to the months to come. Like Ms. Romano, take it one day at a time, because one never knows when their show is going to get canceled. So it goes.

One of my favorite podcasts, The Art of Manliness, joined in on spreading some pointers regarding all this sort of New Year hubbub with its latest episode “Begin the New Year by Reflecting on These 3 Life-Changing Questions”. Despite the name of the podcast, you don’t necessarily need to be a man, manly, or even Art, to get something of use from the content the host, Brett McKay, generates on his podcast and his website.

Spoiler alert for those intending to give the show a listen, the three life-changing questions to ask yourself each day are:

1. What have I received today?

2. What have I given today?

3. In what ways did I make life difficult for others today?

A fairly straight forward way for one to take stock of each day, and the manner in which we moved through it. Your daily answers to these three questions doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary, and as the saying goes, “It’s the little things that count.” For the good and for the bad.

Number three is a particularly fun one to contemplate, and isn’t intended to be an opportunity to brag about the masterful means in which you tortured the lives of others. For you perfectly considerate saintly folks, feel free to make an attempt at making someone else’s life difficult each day so that you have something to write about. I’m sure you’ll manage.

A household bathroom alone provides ample opportunity to make life difficult for those you share that household with. Toilet seats left agape, toilet paper rolls left empty, Febreze left unsprayed, sinks left in various states of nastiness, and so on and so forth.

The intent of these questions is to generate gratitude for the daily good we find ourselves the recipient of, to allow us to mindfully reflect on the authentic personal pride and satisfaction derived from giving what we give, and to create awareness of how our actions (or inactions) impact others.

I’m sure many of you probably engage in this sort of thing, formally or informally, already, but I thought I’d share this with you…just in case you needed something to occupy your time during the new and improved 2021 edition of plague lockdowns. Ha…ha…….ha…

Dear Mom and Dad, as you are most likely aware, on December 18th your holy matrimony odometer will roll over to 49. 49-years! Many…many…many people haven’t even been on this earth for as long as you two have been married to each other, the same each other… the entire 49-years. No pauses…no breaks…a full 49-year streak of uninterrupted togetherness since 1971.

A December wedding in upstate North Dakota is risky enough by today’s standards, but wayyyy back in 1971, prior to indoor plumbing and with burn barrels filled with dried manure the only indoor heat source, the moxie of you two youngsters is commendable. Questionable, but commendable.

As the eldest of your four offspring, I would like to suggest that those last three were completely unnecessary. I have such fond memories of my first 18-months of life, just us three kids living it up. Elvis, Faron Young, and Charlie Pride spinning on the Hi-Fi, Tang for breakfast, T.V. dinners for lunch, Banquet Chicken for supper, Vantage Menthols for dessert…man we were livin'. But you just couldn’t leave well enough alone. So it goes.

Suddenly there were more of us. More than was economically feasible to feed so extravagantly on a GTA Second-Man salary and sewing leisure suits for local fashion trend setters. Then, as if it weren’t enough that Elvis up and died, “they” said it wasn’t advisable to enjoy Vantage Menthols seated comfortably on your davenport while your children fought about which board game to fight over.

Not stopping there, “they” had the audacity to put laws into place making it illegal for you to get at least one of those bickering bread burners out of your hair for a few minutes to peddle their banana bike up to the Red Owl with a note for a fresh pack of Vantage Menthols. “Not Vantage 100s, Vantage Menthols…with the green colored package…not the blue…and don’t crush them.”

I believe I’m justified in blaming this downward spiral of our quality of living on those siblings you so flippantly introduced to the mix, without even once consulting me on the matter. We could have passed on the 1978 Ford Econoline Van and got something sporty, something with a little speed and sass.

Something like that 1969 Plymouth Road Runner. The car you drove Mom to the hospital in to give birth to me. Remember that car Dad? Us three could still be drag racing Canadians for cash, leaving them all in a cloud of burnt rubber and Vantage Menthol second-hand smoke. But no.

Here you are 49-years later. Your four, following your lead, went and fell in love, and filled your lives with even more. It’s all your fault, I hope you’re proud of yourselves. Us 15 are certainly proud of you, proud to call you Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa. Proud of the people you are, the love you share, the life you live, and the many ways you give of yourselves.

Enjoy your day, just as you have the previous 17,885.

Here we are, somewhere in time between the holiday trifecta of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. This time, like many times in our lives, makes its way around to us each year. Hmmm…like clockwork. Somewhere in time these times shift and change, sometimes slowly, so slowly they feel almost permanent. They feel as if they have somehow made it to a forever place in time.

Like a massive granite boulder, these times seem poised to sit unchanged, a reliable waypoint to reconvene with those that share our particular orbit in time. Always there, always steady, always solid, always right where it was the last time you moved through that time. A forever place, or, as the great philosopher, Buzz Lightyear, was fond of professing, “To infinity and beyond!”

But, just as that massive granite boulder is sure to erode, bit by bit, as the rain, wind, and snow wear on it day in and day out, so too are our forever places, and one-by-one, those that shared those places. Sure, time heals all wounds, but it also takes no prisoners and leaves no witnesses. So it goes.

I appreciate Buzz’s enthusiasm, optimism, confidence, and selfless dedication to all those that share his orbit. We should all be so lucky as to have someone (a real someone) with those characteristics in our corner. We’re all on a trajectory to eventually fall, might as well fall with a little style and panache while surrounded by those that want the best for us and we for them.

The holidays are the time when many of our oldest and most cherished memories were forged. So inevitably when this time rolls around, so to do those memories. The results of this yearly slow roll of memories can be mixed. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad, many times a bit of both, dependent upon the company you keep and how heavy their hand is when mixing your Tom

Our car has a manual transmission, a stick-shift, four-on-the-floor, actually six on the middle console, but that doesn’t have the same rhyme appeal. I had a 1958 Chevy Biscayne when I went to college, it had three-on-the-tree of course, people like lyrical stuff like that.

I’m sure many of you remember learning to “drive stick”. Whoever took on this instructional task most likely remembers it as well, and may still have lingering effects from the repeated whiplash they endured as their jerky voice tried to calmly spit out, “Give it some gas…not that much…ease out the clutch…EASE it out…start it up and try it AGAIN…”

Unlike standing on the porch and pointing out all the random swaths of grass that somehow evaded the notice of a lawn mower in training, teaching someone to drive stick is not a coffee drinking task.

I believe my Grandpa Ardell took on the task of teaching me to drive stick? By “teaching”, I mean that he stayed at a safe distance while I figured it out.

I was about 10-years old, and I was “helping” Grandpa and Uncle Tim repair some fence that bordered a stubble field. As I busied myself throwing dirt clods and rocks towards the general vicinity of my brother, they worked their way down the fence line. Eventually, they needed the pickup moved down the fence line as well.

Grandpa said, “Boys…Go get the pickup and bring it down by us.” Unlike most other requests, he didn’t have to repeat himself. We never passed up a chance to drive…or to fight…I won the footrace to the pickup, and the wrestling match in the cab, so I got to drive this time around.

I believe it was a blue Ford Club Cab? I remember the two tiny seats that faced each other in the club portion of the cab. It was an exclusive club, reserved for small children and limber adults. Small children that lacked the neck strength to keep their oversized heads from ricocheting between the back of the front seat and the back window as the driver lurched through the gears. So it goes.

Our son recently decided that it was time for him to learn how to drive stick. As a proponent of people limiting their limits, I was happy to set my coffee aside and ride shotgun. Rather than the preferred wide-open stubble field, we went to a wide-open parking lot before we kicked off the training wheels and took to the streets.

“Give it some gas…not that much…ease out the clutch…EASE it out…start it up and try it again…”

I always thought they should have a statement, suggestion, or warning on the rear bumper of vehicles with a manual transmission. Maybe, “Clutch In Use: Wide Berth On Incline Suggested.”

Although he might occasionally experience a little flop-sweat at a stoplight on an incline, Jackson is now a member of the stick shift club. One less limit in life.

Happy November. November is a sneaky month, a month that sort of hides out between fall and full-on winter. Then it leaps out from behind a leafless tree, in a slightly tattered Halloween costume, to say, “Remember everything you had planned to get done this year? Ain’t gonna happen…again.” So it goes.

I recently came across my inaugural “Ramblings” column, published in the November 3rd, 2004 edition of the Burke County Tribune. For some reason I had always thought that I had started writing this column somewhere around the summer of 2006? Like many things I’ve thought, it turns out I thought wrong.

So, if my math is correct, which is highly unlikely, this is the 16th anniversary edition of “Ramblings”. Dry your eyes.

Much has changed in life between the first and the pert near 400th column. Our kids were still kids, my parents were still the “D” and the “J” of DJs Food Center, Grandpa Ardell’s laugh and Grandma Rose’s kitchen creations still filled the air at the farm. It seems as though our lives expand and grow to a certain point, and then begin to shrink and contract.

This shrinking and contracting doesn’t necessarily lead to emptiness, it can lead to a stripped down version of life that is more authentically full, rather than just “full of it”. Fewer bells and whistles, more prairie breeze.

What has changed in your life over the past 16-years?

It seems like just yesterday that Jodi Benge, in her final “Just Jodi” column, suggested that anyone interested in writing a column should contact the tribune. When I contacted them regarding my interest in giving it a go, they responded with a few questions, such as, why I wanted to write a column, what I planned to write about, and how much I would charge?

My “why” was simply that I enjoy writing, and wanted a consistent reason to purposely engage in it. I thought that I would mainly write about health and nutrition, with a little bit of family life and the general goings on of day-to-day life sprinkled in. As it turns out, and as my Grandpa Ardell hoped, over the years I’ve written very little about health and nutrition. Boring my students with that stuff seemed sufficient enough.

Being a shrewd negotiator, my response to their final question of “how much I would charge”, was, “I didn’t know I was going to get paid?” My wife handles the finances in our household.

I named the column “Ramblings” because that seemed to indicate the least restrictive boundaries of potential future column topics. One can ramble about most anything, and I am grateful to the tribune for providing the space to do just that for the first and third Wednesday of the month over the past 16-years, and to you for reading some of them.

What I wrote 16-years ago still applies, “I enjoy writing, and my dad always told me I should make a career out of it. I’m not quitting my day job just yet, and if you find that you would rather clean your geese on this column than read it, you can blame my dad. It’s always the parents fault.”

I received word from my mom the other day that Marlis Glaspey had passed away. Part of living, being alive, and taking part in this life is that we receive word of such more and more as we move further and further along in our journey. Receiving such word always comes with an unpredictable array of thoughts and feelings, all dependent upon one’s personal relationship to the recently deceased individual.

If you lived in Lignite, you knew Marlis. My brother and I were paperboys in Lignite in the early 80’s. My brother, Jarvis, delivered papers to those living east of Main Street, and I delivered to those living west of Main Street.

Due to the very varying temperaments possessed by my brother and I, those that lived east of Main Street were generally a few hours ahead of the game when it came to being “in the know” of any newspaper worthy goings on. As my Grandpa Ardell always said, “Old news is still news if you haven’t read it yet.”

Marlis was the Post Master in Lignite when we were kids. The newspaper bundles were dropped off at the post office, and my brother and I would come to the post office to get the papers for delivery.

I was just a kid, but I remember that Marlis never spoke to me as “just a kid”. She spoke to me as if I might actually know something, and she appeared honestly interested in what that something might be. I always appreciated that, and as so often happens in life, I wish I would have expressed my appreciation to her. So it goes.

As I begrudgingly filled my bag with newspapers, she would always…always…always, ask about my day, and wished me well as I slogged out the door, my scrawny frame swaying under the weight of news, sale flyers, comics, and the such.

Even as a knucklehead little kid, I remember being amazed at how quick, yet effortlessly, she moved while attending to her various Post Master duties. When I got older, no less of a knucklehead, but older, I was always impressed by the dignified way in which she carried herself. Always neatly dressed, hair always done, spritely, spirited, yet graceful with a ready smile and a kind word.

I would go so far as to say that if there were ever a Queen of Lignite, it was Marlis. Not the type of queen that sits around barking orders and pointing her scepter at what needs to be done, but the kind that leads by doing what needs to be done.

Lignite has lost a rock, a pillar of the community, an individual that took it upon herself to selflessly give of her time, and do whatever it was that needed to be done while never asking for anything in return except to proudly call Lignite her home.

My sincere condolences to Marlis’s loved ones, may you find some comfort in the life she lived and all that she meant to Lignite.

Long live the Queen.

“Have a good day sir”…“Good morning sir”…“Good afternoon sir”…I’m suspicious of a conspiracy of late, a conspiracy bent on attempting to make me feel old. These greetings, salutations, and general utterances of good tiding, with the added “sir”, have seemed to increase in the frequency of which they are aimed at me throughout the average day.

I believe the conspiracy was first set in motion by a few students on campus, most likely in hopes of kindness when it came time for me to dole out grades, but it seems to be spreading to the wider world of my general comings-and-goings.

I suppose that the politeness of others should be accepted as such, and simply enjoyed without excessive suspicion. Especially given the impolite arc that is portrayed so often on social media and media in general.

Speaking of “impolite”, I watched my first presidential debate last week. I blame it on all the “sir” stuff. I am officially an adult…though none the wiser.

Politics doesn’t really blow my hair back, never has, even when I had hair. Mullets and rat tails tend to be apolitical, although, if a presidential candidate were to sport such, they would have my vote.

I’ve always found the whole political party thing interesting to occasionally observe from afar. Very far afar. We humans are very social, tribal, team orientated animals who have been evolutionarily programed to view the “other team” with varying shades of suspicion, contempt, and outright dislike.

Sort of like the old high school rivalry between the Panthers of Burke Central and the Eskimo’s of Bowbells. “Those people” think they are so good, “those people” are basket of pompous jerks, “those people” deserve utter destruction on the athletic field.

Then school and sports co-ops occur, and “those people” become teammates, “those people” are sitting in the same dugout with you, cheering for the same things as you, even cheering for you. All through the simple magic of putting on the same jersey, and working towards the same goals, our view of “those people” is forever altered.

The mudslinging between political teams is nothing new of course, Plato wrote about it over 2,000 years ago, and some find enjoyment in observing and being a part of the whole spectacle. Some revel in engaging in meme wars on social media, bent on making the goofy rich mascot of the other team look goofier than the goofy rich mascot of their team. Goofy indeed.

With all the technology we have, would it be possible to have a political-free social media outlet where we can simply enjoy keeping up with the lives of our families and friends? You know…the stuff that really matters. Sure, maintaining our democracy requires an engaged public, but everything surrounding that engagement doesn’t live and die within the nuthouse of Goofy and the gang.

There are no Republicans or Democrats in foxholes, only Americans. Americans helping Americans, people helping people, humans being humane. Panthers and Eskimos uniting.

The silly season is upon us, but like the intestinal impact of a tainted gas station corndog…this too shall pass. Stay well my friends.

Wildfire season comes and goes each year with varying amounts of acreage burned, structures lost, and sadly, lives lost. In passing, we might see the video footage, photos, and news reports of these fires, but generally it is just that…in passing.

In passing, because it’s not our acreage, it’s not our structures, it’s not the lives of anyone we know. It’s news, and, for better and for worse, our lives tend to be inundated with news. Most of which has very little to do with the various comings and goings of our day-to-day lives.

We had a log cabin in Montana, an authentic hand-made-from-the-bottom-up-inside-and-out-off-the-grid log cabin, and by “hand-made” I mean by our hands, the hands of the Ellis and Richter families. We have small hands, so the cabin took quite a few years to fully take shape.

Bits and pieces from our lives gradually came together like the notes in a song, each bit, each piece added something to the melody of our cabin. That melody slowly unfolded into verse and song. A song that seemed to perpetually add verses and to stretch on without end.

Is a song that stretches on without end a song? Logic and reason would indicate that a song, no matter how good, must have a final note. It must end. It must end, or we won’t get to listen to it in its entirety again and again and again…We won’t get to sit back with our eye’s closed and say, “this is my favorite part”.

We could have done without logic and reason. We all could have done without that “final note”. We all would forgo the opportunity to sit back with our eye’s closed and say, “this is my favorite part” for the joy that came from adding more favorite parts. The joy that came from adding notes and verses to a song that wasn’t supposed to end.

As we sifted through the ashes we found various bits-and-pieces, various notes that reminded us of a particular verse of that song we were composing. Maybe in time we’ll begin another song…maybe?

Until then, and most likely ever after then as well, we have the memories of something beautiful, something we built, something cherished, something good. A good thing gone. So it goes.

Thankfully, no lives have been lost in the Bobcat Fire that has burned over 30,000 acres in the Musselshell County of Eastern Montana. Most are not aware of this fire, some may have heard or seen a bit about it in passing, and that’s well and good. To know more than what one learns in passing about any wildfire is to probably know about something one wishes they didn’t have to know about.

We know about the Bobcat Fire, we know the acreage burned, we know the structures lost. We wish we knew nothing about it. We wish our cabin was standing on its ridge, the ridge with grass and trees gently swaying to the music of a never ending song.

We wish that all good things didn’t have to end.