Archives: a wedding in Montana

     Two vegetarian philosophers arrive at the Jennis' beef ranch to be wed.

     We asked the reverend to go easy on the God stuff, but he seemed to have other ideas.

     Is that a Presbyterian thing? He laid it on pretty thick. He said he wouldn't.

     On my side, the whole "famdamily" insisted on attending the wedding. (In town, 8 miles to the east, there was actually a restaurant called, "The Whole Famdamily." We went there; all they had was beef.)

     Three dogs—well, two and a half dogs—a salty grandpa (former Communist, later fought under Rommel), a lunatic brother (don't ask), et al.

     Good grief.

     Kathie's dad, Floyd, avoided military service because of a messed up elbow. Later, he became the Grand Wizard of the Masons in Montana. Very important, respected guy. That's him in the middle. Very Republican. But nice.

     It's "big sky country," you know

"Farmer Ron," age sixteen, was bemused by this absurd adventure.

Eventually, he became a philosopher, too. Earned a doctorate at UCLA.

Now, he works for Honda. Go figure.

He's a dad with four small children. He's always covered in kid sauce. When they show up, it's like a military invasion, what with all those special seats and sibling rivalries.

Four kids. I told 'em to stop at two, but would he listen? No.

So everybody's got to pitch in to take care of all those rascals.

I seem to be the favorite uncle. If Ray had lived, he woulda been the favorite, I'm sure. The guy really loved kids.

I suspect that there are one or two little Rays somewhere in the Philippines.

And maybe one around these parts.

It's hard to say.

Mom.

Brother Ray at his most reasonable--next to my dad. Ray seemed to bond with the good ol' boys at the ranch. Soon thereafter, he joined the Marines. He broke his foot kicking one of his charges up some hill; it never healed right. A year or two later, he sought help from a Navy doctor. The darned guy placed a pin on Ray's foot and, without warning, stomped on it, breaking it anew. Ouch. Ray responded with a haymaker. The Marines were unimpressed. Ray ceased being a Marine.

Lots of barns in Montana. They've got rednecks in each one.

Actually, everybody in Montana seemed nice.

That's right. In 'Tanner, guys (like Kathie's bro, Gary, above) wear Stetsons to weddings.

That's Kathie's sister, Cheryl, at right. She was an air-traffic controller just as Reagan became President. The union called a strike, so Cheryl complied. All of 'em were fired. End of story.

Buicks and Oldsmobiles, man.

Ildy and Attila were there, our favorite guests.

I can't tell you how much I loved these two.

Attila died in '86; Ildy died a few years later, an invalid, really, owing to hip displasia.

But my mom took good care of her to the very end.

Sweet sweet girl.

Archives: Pt. Reyes in '77; the arrival of Attila in '75

     In the summer of 1977, my brothers, Ron and Ray, and I got the notion of travelling up the coast to visit my sister Annie, who lived in the Bay Area with her husband Dave. (I had just finished college at UCI; Ronnie had just turned 11 and Ray would have been 16.)
     We borrowed my folks' 1971 Volkswagen Vanagon, and off we went.
     Here are some shots of our visit, with Annie, to Point Reyes National Seashore, a wonderful place across the Golden Gate. It was pretty quiet and isolated at the time. Couldn't see anybody for miles. Don't know about nowadays.

     Ray started to get into "trouble" (drugs, etc.) two or three years earlier. It was a big deal, devastating to everyone. My parents decided to get Ray a dog, a purebred German Shepherd named Attila. (Mostly, we called him "Billy.")

     Well, that didn't work out so well--Ray made no effort to take care of Attila, though Ray grew to love him, as did everyone in the family. 

     That pup was wonderful. He and I became great pals. We used to explore together in the Santa Ana River. We drove around the Santa Ana mountains together, where the family moved (right after acquiring Attila).

     Here's what Attila looked like as a puppy (in 1975). A year later, we acquired a companion pup, Ildico. Another wonderful dog.

     As a small pup, Attila seemed obsessed with biting everything, including our ankles, with his tiny, needle teeth. He also loved to chase small objects, such as the pea gravel in a part of the yard. I recall coming home after midnight from my job at a gas station, taking him in back to play the "rock game." He was nuts about it. Later, we played the "shadow game," which involved a flashlight.

     The ear thing finally got straightened out after a few months.

     Attila's favorite thing in the whole world was to bound through mountain creeks, looking for rocks and stuff in the fast-moving water to pull up. He'd stick his head into the water and check out the creek bottom. His face would get wet and sandy, and then he'd yelp from sheer joy!

     The previous family dog, Prince, was nuts about oranges, which were everywhere in the county when we arrived in 1960. As we drove around (which we seemed to do endlessly), Prince would smell oranges nearby and he'd just go nuts. We'd let him out of our pink ("salmon") '55 Ford station wagon, and he'd run through the orange groves, ferociously chewing up any orange he could find.

     Attila turned out to be a very good-natured, kind-hearted guy. (He was over 100 pounds.) He welcomed the pesky young Ildico; he actually took care of her in surprising ways, e.g., guarding her when she go loose from the garage during her first night with us. But, despite her relative smallness, she was the domineering type, while Billy was the go-along-get-along sort. He'd good-naturedly put up with her endless directions and peevitude--though, occasionally, he would have enough of it and he'd suddenly roar or snap at her. Awesome. She'd cower for a few seconds. But that's all he'd ever do.
     Billy was a very virtuous and loyal fellow. He could be ferocious, but he inevitably acted as a peacemaker (I won't get into that).
     One of the great dogs of all time.

Neanderthalic right-wingers grunt indecorously on both sides of the Atlantic

     We're living through a period in which so-called "conservative" pols have abandoned reason in favor of the prejudices and “common sense” of their benighted and debased “base” (and of a certain peppy, gun-wielding Alaskan).
     Is this sort of thing occurring only in the U.S.A.?
     Nope. The British are experiencing the same dang thing. In this morning’s Guardian, Martin Robbins reports that Britain’s Conservatives have put “Dumb and Dumber”—namely, Nadine Dorries and David Tredinnick—on the House of Commons' Health Select Committee.

     Dorries appears to be about as goofy as, say, our own Michele Bachmann:

Over the years, Dorries has issued a number of ill-founded claims about abortion. They include the ”hand of hope” story [a fantasy about a fetus grabbing a surgeon’s finger] that she helped to propagate across the web; the incorrect assertion that the NHS didn't carry out abortions after 16 weeks; the claim that charity Marie Stopes International supported her policy views; an attempt to dismiss scientific studies that disagreed with her view as "an "insult to the intelligence of the public"; and some rather dubious interpretations of opinion polls that led a frustrated Dawn Primarolo to exclaim that "The Honorable Lady has asserted many things to be facts that are not."

     And Mr. Tredinnick? He’s wackier than our own James Inhofe, Republican senator from where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain:

     [Tredinnick] explained: "There are [phenomena] such as plant cycles, the tides, that are linked to the moon. That's a fact of life, and there is a school of thought that says the moon affects other things as well. It's easy to make fun of me over this but the fact is there is a link."
     Indeed, Tredinnick's views go further. In a Commons debate on Complementary and Alternative Medicine last year he made the extraordinary claim that "... at certain phases of the moon there are more accidents. Surgeons will not operate because blood clotting is not effective." One wonders if Tredinnick wraps himself in wool and plaster at every full moon, lest a stray paper cut cause his blood to drain completely from his body.
     Tredinnick is also a passionate advocate of homeopathy, and has filed a string of Early Day Motions in an effort to raise support for magical homeopathic remedies in parliament. EDMs are listed with their signatories on the internet, providing a handy guide to the identity of the more credulous and ill-informed MPs.

     Like right-wingers on this side of the pond, Britain’s conservatives aren’t high on fidelity neither. Robbins ends with: “…[Q]uestions should be asked about why a party that rejected alternative medicine before the election, and promised an evidence-based approach to public health has managed to place two such clearly unqualified people on this important Commons committee.”

Academic freedom takes a hit—in Pennsylvania

AAUP Blasts Pennsylvania Textbook Bill (Chronicle of Higher Education)

The president of the American Association of University Professors, Cary Nelson, issued a statement today calling the Pennsylvania State Senate's unanimous passage of the College Textbook Affordability, Accountability, and Accessibility Act "the first dangerous step in restricting academic freedom in textbook selection." The bill would require faculty members to choose "the least expensive, educationally sound textbooks." Authority over textbook selection has traditionally belonged to faculty members, although some for-profit institutions save money by having students use a common set of electronic textbooks. Pennsylvania is not the first governmental entity to try to legislate cheaper textbooks. Recent federal and state laws have also confronted the issue.