Last Day at the Salt Mines

Today is my last day at the salt mines. I received a maple burl clock made from local BLM wood with a thin bread sliced piece of the original Oregon & California RR rail with 1985 to 2012 on a small engraved piece of metal. The O&C RR Co was granted hundreds of alternating sections of Oregon land in a checkerboard pattern after the Civil War as incentive to build a rail road through the Willamette Valley from California to Washington State. The O&C RR didn't get around to it in a timely manner and the government repoed the land. It was just land covered with trees anyway. In those days, the first thing you had to do was get rid of all those damned trees in order to do anything with the land. The Government Land Office took control of the defaulted land. After the Second World War, the GLO disbanded and the Bureau of Land Management was formed. The O&C RR Co had laid down some track so now when Oregon BLM employees retire or move on after 10 years, they get a piece of the rail on a Big Leaf Maple (BLM) plaque. Gary Wilkerson made us a clock for our wedding back in 93 so I brought it to work and Dave Mattson superglued on a chromed piece of the rail. He even went out and found a new clock mechanism to fit in the recess as the original had died. I aim to crash Dave Reed's BBQ party (we retired on the same day) next Friday and have Dave Mattson read excerpts from The Velveteen Rabbit and all the names of the temps who got to sign it. I hope to work part time gigs at Tyrrell Seed Orchard on occasion in future, but this is it for the 9 to 5 commute to town scene. I will not miss the ce-ment plant across the fence. I got my piece of the rail superglued to the maple burl clock made by Gary Wilkenson for our wedding in 93. I moved back to Eugene from Ashland in 1985 to use up the last of my GI bill at the U of O partying—I mean studying journalism. Eventually I ran out of dough and decided it was time to get a job. I happened to be listening to the radio one morning when I heard the announcer babbling about help wanted in the Eugene Springfield area. At the end of his list, there was a half breath spent on the Eugene BLM needing four temporary forestry techs. Down I went to the Pearl Street Office and submitted a SF 171. A week or so later, I was hired along with Brett Jones, Mark Herron and Weird Albert. We were all promptly banished to the red house where the other three were snapped up by the silviculture and timber shops. I was assigned to Wayne Tinglum, Lorane RA’s surveyor, as his point setter. I didn’t know anything about surveying but I did know how to cut brush so I hacked line for Wayne and picked up a basic understanding of land surveying. Found some original corners and three naval stores trees in my time in the woods. One of my fondest memories of being a temp was the time I didn’t get a paycheck. Remember paper paychecks? Anyway, I gave it a few days before going to see our payroll technician. I discovered that I had been terminated two weeks previously but nobody had gotten around to informing me of the fact. After a couple of seasons with Wayne, I applied for a temp position on the cadastral crew. I got the job but was only allowed a GS-4 rating because I had been working as a forestry tech for Wayne. I pointed out that I had been working as a surveyor’s assistant the past couple seasons but this failed to cut any ice. Mark Herron also wound up on the cadastral crew with a GS-5 as he had college education in forestry. GS-4 it was. I spent a couple seasons on the crew with Mark and Rad Brad. Eventually Pete Pisani and Oscar joined us for the Deadwood abuse. We visited places that time forgot and got introduced to devil’s club and giant Pacific salamanders walking through the woods. And then it rained harder. While working out of the Pearl Street Office, I originated the seasonal fun of jumping out of the shrubbery wearing a hockey mask and starting a chainsaw on Halloween morning to greet people coming to the front door. There was plenty of camouflage, cover and concealment. The shrubbery was too small when we moved to Chad Drive so this fine tradition languished and died. During my second season of cadastral fun, I applied for a permanent position as a forestry tech. Fire fighting was a significant portion of the PD and I didn’t have so much as a red card. Still, I went for it. The District planned to hire four forestry techs. I came in second on the list of eligibles (with veteran’s pref) and felt that my future was secure. I was wrong. I kept asking when I was starting in my new position—and encountered a stubborn silence. I was forced to call a meeting with the state director. He was coming to town on other business anyway, and so he brought the state office head personnelist with him. I had put together personal flip charts for all parties that demonstrated conclusively that I should be hired. There was ever so much more to this story but I will omit it in the interest of brevity. Eventually, I was advised by my boss that if I didn’t quit causing trouble, my fine GS-5 (finally) cadastral temp job might not be waiting for me the beginning of next survey season. I decided that it was time to roll the dice. On the last day of my term, I discovered the boss’ brand new yellow rain jacket in the rig as I was putting stuff away. I found a magic marker and drew a fine target on its back, at least a foot in diameter before folding it up and putting it away for the winter. Sure enough, I was not rehired the coming spring. I was working for a private surveyor but heard through the grapevine that the yellow rain jacket was a huge hit on opening day of field season. Eventually, after 20 months, the Office of Special Counsel finally arrived on Eugene District and interviewed 36 people. The official attitude changed from: Go away Boy, you bother me—to Can you start work next Monday? I had told my current boss that I was going to force the BLM to hire me but I don’t think he believed me. He did when I gave him a week’s notice. My original plan was to take a week off before starting my new permanent job. My old boss couldn’t find anybody to replace me so I wound up working the interim week after all. As luck would have it, my first day as a permanent fell on an all employees’ meeting at Harris Hall. Ron Kaufman, the DM, asked all the department heads if they had any new employees to introduce. When it was Brad Krueger’s turn, he denied that he had any new employees. Feeling slighted, I stood and raised a fist like a victorious boxer . I had broken the temp barrier! I had taken my position by conquest just as had William taken England! I had boldly gone where no temp had gone before! The rank and file cheered and clapped. Most of them were aware of my struggle to shatter the temp barrier. “Oh yeah,” Krueger finally acknowledged, “Hamar’s back.” And that was that. I ordered a custom license plate for my new pickup that read X-TEMP. I was careful to always park the rig (when I wasn’t riding a motorcycle to work) so its front was pointing at the main employee entrance at Fort Chad. I wish to go on the record here to state that the X-TEMP plate was the idea of Ian Johnson—a recovering temp who finally turned to teaching at the age of 45. When I was a wannabe permanent, I would say things like: “When I become real I will do thus and such.” After breaking the barrier, Dave Mattson gave me a copy of the Velveteen Rabbit. Since then, all temps who become real get to sign the fly leaves of the book. I have left it in the stewardship of Dan Christenesen for future ex-temps to autograph. I soon found myself resentenced to cadastral crew as a permanent. The mutual fondness between me and the boss hadn’t waxed any and so I sought to break the gravitational pull of the CC. Eventually I succeeded and then I discovered that there was the GS-7 barrier to break. Myself and some other ceilinged GS-7 FTs utilized the formal EEO process on this one and after 20 months (is this a magic number of some kind?) we all achieved Mach II, and became promotable to the GS-9 level. I got to participate in the fire program. Got a red card finally. I remember paddling across Waldo Lake with shovels when a boat motor wouldn’t start on the High Spirit Complex. Warner Creek, Warm Springs, Montana—too many fires to remember. I hiked Storm King while doing helicopter duty in Glenwood Springs in 2002. We moved to the new office on Chad Drive. There was a lot more room. John Peacher was killed in an automobile accident and I inherited his junk car program in 1996. John liked to utilize the system of employing the road department with dump trucks and backhoes to round up abandoned automobiles and store them out at the Triangle Lake Maintenance Yard. I elected a more low tech method. It took some doing but eventually I trained Oregon’s Dept of Motor Vehicles and Schnitzer’s Steel to do it my way. I would write a paper giving me (representing Eugene District) the right to own a junk car and sell it to Schnitzer Steel for scrap value. Our LEOs liked this system. Adam and Jon would get email reports, pictures if they wanted, and for the most part, the junk cars would move quietly out of the woods to the steel yard where they started the long road to reincarnation as a new Toyota. I dealt with camp trailers full of crap, boats, cars, school buses, trucks & major appliances. Sometimes I poached junk off the reservation but nobody seemed to care. At one time, the 5310 used car fund exceeded $80K. The used car program at least defrayed its own expense. I got the National Guard to participate in this fun and the motor section would use a five ton wrecker to yard up junkers that Bubba and Billy Bob had pushed over cliffs to reinact their favorite Dukes of Hazzard scenes. The members of Echo Company’s motor pool seized the opportunity to practice extricating heaps out of canyons. Now the price of steel has risen to the point where you rarely find an abandoned car in the woods. Old fiberglass boats appear to be the medium of choice of today’s recreational dumpers. I got involved in a land watch group and help resist the Oregon Military Department’s attempt at building a new armory across from Lane Community College. Lane County’s Land Mngt Div ran interference for the OMD. Big name developers lurked in the shadows hoping for the success of the project so that there would be changes of zoning and free infrastructure so they could make millions with nearby housing developments. Eventually the Russell Creek Neighbors prevailed. Not because of the many highly questionable and even illegal gambits attempted by the LMD/developer complex, but because the OMD would lose funding if it didn’t break ground soon. No good deed goes unpunished. It wasn’t too long before I learned that the BLM was going to share a roof with the National Guard, FS and others where the OMD found a place to build on Pierce Parkway. Time accelerated and I failed to evolve. I still did the same sort of labor intensive things I always had only a little slower each year. I participated in the removal of much of the junk at the foot of Blue Mountain. Suddenly I found myself in the aging parent zone. I discovered how to utilize my months and months of accrued sick leave as Family Friendly Leave I helped my father to the exit in 09. We were never close but I am glad that I did this. I used up the last of it over 2011 and 12. I learned way more than I ever wanted to know about foundations working on Mom’s house in Astoria to make it more user friendly for her decreasing mobility. I trained a replacement for my used car business. There wasn’t a line up for this collateral duty. I tried the indispensability test. I stuck my finger in a glass of water and removed it. There wasn’t a hole in the water so this meant I was not indispensable. Everybody is expendable—Everybody is replaceable. I remember that from the merry military forty years ago. Since I wasn’t indispensable, I decided it must be time to get a life. I did not wish to implement the Neil Armantrout retirement plan and keep coming to work until I expired noisily at my desk. I look forward to asking my wife to please make a little less noise in the morning when she goes to work. I can get plenty of abuse and rejection trying to publish a trash novel I wrote. Maybe someday I will get a new copy of the Velveteen Rabbit when I break the wannabe writer barrier. I met many fine people in my years on Eugene District. I enjoyed meeting the tree planting/thinning crews in the cold, wet dark and racing them to the bottom of the unit where I would stand on a stump and ensure quality by my presence. The Spanish speaking crews would call me Rojo. Now I am more Rojo y Blanco. Saw a lot of wildlife in my time in the woods. A big cougar stalking two branch antler bull elk on my birthday. Three cougars in the road one dark morning. Mom and two grown kittens, I assume. An all black bobcat. A three legged bear. Moose in Montana and Alaska on fires. I was born in Alaska before it was a state. And all the small day to day timber tigers one encounters in the woods. This morning I am busy throwing away junk and confining my keepings to one box that I will take home with me and winnow out later. I am sure we will run into each other around town. You might see me out riding my MC on a fine day while you are going to or from the field. Maybe you will see me doing an odd job at the seed orchard. I will continue to donate blood at the facility here until I find a better venue. The new generation will see my name around and wonder who I was. Maybe somebody will tell them that I am the X-TEMP who became real. Sure was easier getting out than it was getting in. N

Big Fish

Went to The Dalles, Oregon for a little sturgeon fishing this weekend. My friend Marc lives in TDs and knows all there is to be knowed about sturgeon fishing. He had caught a bunch of shad ahead of time for this event. Shad run by the millions up the Columbia in June and the great white sturgeon keg up under the dams to eat the unfortunate shad that get chewed up in the generator gatewells by giant turbine blades. For some reason Marc had always discarded the shad heads when cutting baits out of the narrow, bony fish. I asked why the sturgeon wouldn't bite on heads so we tried some and discovered that sturgeon like head too. He froze some shad heads in vacuum pack plastic. We got lots of mileage out of having to give the sturgeon head to get a bite. White sturgeon get huge. The biggest one I have ever caught was probably ten feet or a little longer. You are only allowed to keep one a day about four feet long. A four foot sturgeon is not very exciting to catch. Marc knows all the holes and how to fish them upstream and down from The Dalles Dam. June has been very cold and wet around TDs this year which regularly achieves 100 degree days. We were out early Friday morning in Marc's 25 foot boat. I boated a seven footer without too much effort. Marc released it with his needle nose pliers. The wind rose in volume as it blasted up the Columbia River Gorge. We don't use the word "wind" when fishing. If you say it, the wind always increases in volume. So we say; "The boardheads are happy." When the wind decreases, we say: "The boardheads are sad." Hood River, 20 miles down river, is the sailboarding capital of the US if not the world. We caught a couple more way too big sturgeon. When a giant jumps out of the water I like to holler: "He breaches!" like Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab. We didn't catch any keepers or too small fish by noon so we trailered the boat at the public boat landing. Thje fish checker was in our face wanting to know what we had caught. We went back to Marc's garage apartment where we ordered a Chicago stuffed pizza from Papa Murphy's. I drove down to the pizza parlor and took delivery and we baked in the oven of Marc's garage apartment. In this day and age, many parents have adult children "basement dwellers" living in their garage or basement. Marc is different in that he lives in the garage while his son, daughter in law and grandson live in the house. When company comes, you just assemble a one by two meter Cabela's folding cot to crash on. We ate our pizza and took a nap. Marc's two year old grandson and the yellow lab he shares with his son's family both came out to visit. Around five o'clock we decided to hit it again. You don't have to go very far to the boat ramp and the fishing hole we were using was only a mile upstream. I drove the truck and Marc idled around in the boat while I parked the rig at the top of the hill. We charged upstream and I dropped the anchor. I dropped a fresh shad head on a big hook over the side when I noticed the back of the boat was filling with water. Oh shit! Marc had plugged the wrong drain hole with the screw tight rubber plug at the boat ramp. I frantically plugged the hole from the inside with paper towels while Marc fired up the bilge pump. We raced back to the ramp and I got the truck and we pulled the boat out of the water and let a ton of water drain out the nickle sized hole in the back of the boat. I told Marc that I got a pass on any comments on my performance as a deckhand from this day forward. We got back to it and hooked a few more monsters. One was so big that we chased it with the boat and I couldn't do a thing to influence the big fish. Couldn't slow it or turn it or make it jump. I finally broke the line and we went back and found our cast off anchor line by the floats on the end. I made fast and we fished untill just before dark. A hefty eight foot sturgeon wanted some head and I wrestled him to the boat without casting off. It took a good 45 minutes. He possibly weighed 250 pounds or more. Marc released him and we called it a night. We turned on the running lights and avoided one fool who didn't believe in running lights. Saturday morning we were hard at it. Marc caught a 41 inch legal fish! It sure wasn't very exciting after muscling in eight footers. We bagged it around noon. The boardheads were grinning and the rain was pouring down like in the Willamette Valley in December. Marc let me off and I hiked up the hill to get the rig. I saw the fish counter sitting in her little PU and motioned her to roll down the window. I told her we caught a bunch of too big fish and one keeper thinking it would keep her out from underfoot. Wrong. She wanted to see the fish. I told her it was 41 inches. Still wanted to see the damned fish. Next time, I will tell her we just caught a bunch of too bigs. There were trailers and rigs parked everywhere as it was Saturday and the last day of keep a sturgeon season. I had to carefully jack back the fifty foot outfit up, being careful not to hit the motorhome some moron had parked behind the trailer. It rained harder. I backed down the ramp and Marc drove the boat onto the trailer. I winched it tight and pulled it up the hill, parking on an incline to let the water run out the drain hole after I removed the plug. The fish counter was there and made us stand in the pouring rain while she measured the sturgeon and looked for tags. Marc made beer batter and fried up some bits of tasty sturgeon. The smaller ones taste better than the big ones. We chowed down and took a nap and then I rolled for home. I have my 19th wedding anniversary tomorrow and my last week at the salt mines starting Monday. Might go halibut fishing next weekend if the weather cooperates. N

Fathers' Day

My parents divorced when I was a few months old so my father was never a major part of my life. My very first memory of Dear old Dad was fishing on the Coquille River near Myrtle Point. I guess Mom must have let him have me for a weekend or something. I think I was three or four years old. I can remember Dad and his stepdad and another man all casting from the bank with spinning poles into the small river while rapidly drinking cans of beer. My sense of smell was acute as a child and I can remember the biting smell of the stuff when they opened a fresh one with a church key. I believe Dad and the guys caught fish although I don't remember specifically. Then Dad broke out the firearms and I remember learning to shoot a .22 rifle at a beer can at a range of 15 feet. Dad coached me and propped the long gun over a log or something for me. Alcohol, guns and children. No problem. Happy Fathers' Day, Dad! N

Riding the Dark Side

I have been riding motorcycles for most of my adult life. They have all been smaller machines except for my last one: a Triumph Rocket III. It used to be that a 1200 cc Harley Davidson was as big as you could get. Bigger is better, nodded the Harley crowd At 2300 ccs the R3 is nearly double displacement--bigger than many small cars, and comes with 140 horepower. If that won't do it for you, upgrades are available that will boost performance as far and fast as you and your wallet want to take it. The beast is powerful enough stock that its onboard computer will not permit maximum throttle in first or second gear to keep neophytes from winding upside down with 800 pounds of motorcycle on top of them. It also will not allow the bike to exceed 140 mph. I haven't felt the need to test this but I accept the word. The only comment I hear from Harley rider's now is that the R3 is too big. I guess anything bigger than a HD is too big. Oh well. It's OK to ride little motorcycles--it really is. I got burned out on replacing the rear tire on the R3 every 3 to 4000 miles. The huge rear Metzeler the Rocket was designed around is expensive and I can think of better things to do than groveling on the ce-ment floor of the shop removing/replacing the big wheel & tire. The bike is so huge, I sprung for an after market center stand to hold it up while I remove the muffler and axle and slip the worn out tire off the final drive (made by the same company that builds Maserati transmissions) and drive the wheel into town for new rubber. I had heard of people riding larger motorcycles on car tires on the back wheel. I got on the net and found a whole raft of posts of people riding Rockets with car tires. "Riding the Dark Side," it's called. One R3 rider had a video camera taped on the handlebars of a chase bike filming him as he rode through various curves and straight stretches. Another rider wired a camera underneath his R3 so you could watch close up how the car tire performed as he put it through its paces. There seemed to be a general consensus that once you ride on a high performance car tire, you'll never go back to making Mercedes payments for the managers at Metzeler. Anyhow, the last Metz rear tire sprang a slow leak and I had the option of paying forty dollars to have it repaired so I could take it off again in a thousand miles to be replaced--or just buy a new one. That does it. I went across the street to America's Tire Co and bought a cheap 225/50/16 inch directional car tire. Some of the people who posted on the Dark Side subject used bigger tires but I wanted to start out small. The gang at the Triumph shop cheerfully mounted and balanced the tire for less than they wanted to fix the leaky M 880 Marathon. I rode around on the new tire for a while and decided that while it wasn't as good as the high dollar Metzeler for road racing, it was superior for cruising on the highway. After I decided that there was nothing tricky about riding the Dark Side, I took my girlfriend for a ride as my wife was in Florida. I aimed for bumps in the pavement to see if the square shouldered car tire would grind on the inside of the fender. No problem. I might consider a 225/60 16 next. In over 1000 miles there is no perceptible wear on the directional car tire. I fully anticipate getting 20,000 miles before replacing it just to be safe. You can get longer, stronger rear shock/spring assemblies for an R3 if you need more clearance and I might do this if the larger tire rubs on bumps two up. At any rate, I have decided don't fear the Dark Side. N

New Freezer

Our old freezer was on its last legs. The hinges had finally outlasted the metal on the coffin like lid on the 6 foot, 6 inch chest freezer that lived out in the shop. Sande and I bought it 20 years ago--used. We were shopping classified adds in the local newspaper and we looked at this one first. It seemed just too effin big. The owner wanted $150. We toured three or four other used freezers but at the end of the day I called the owner of the BF freezer and offered him $100. He countered with $125. Sold. It just fit under the canopy of my new 92 short bed Dodge Dakota. Couldn't put the tailgate up so had to tie a rope to keep the huge Amana from sliding out the back while ascending a hill. I got technical assistance from some friends & neighbors and we moved it into our old mo-beel home. It was heavy--possibly four hundred pounds empty. AMANA made in USA was proudly emblazoned on a chrome badge on the latch. Many Thanksgiving turkeys resided in the old chest freezer over the years. Many Easter hams and containers of frozen applesauce. Half our wedding cake spent a year in suspended animation in the hoarfrost of the white enameled sarcophagus. A half an elk was our guest. One time when we helped with a T-Day inner in the Whitteaker Neighborhood, we diverted a dozen turkey carcasses that were headed for the dumpster after the event. They rode home in clean garbage bags in the back of the Dakota. Into the freezer they went and Sande eventually boiled them all down into gallons and gallons of turkey stock that went back into the freezer. The Amana was totally huge. You could stack at least two, and possibly three bodies in it. "Sande? Oh she went back to Florida. Said I was a loser and a pathetic small time clown and she was tired of being married to a piker. No, she was pretty adamant. I don't think she'll be back " I enlisted the neighbor's aid and she ran a computer program for the best deal in the neighborhood. I measured the inside of the old Amana and calculated that it was a 27 cubic foot model. I had to admit, we never filled the thing to capacity. I studied the options and decided that an energy efficient 20 cubic foot upright would probably be the best choice. If nothing else it would free up a little more floor space in the shop. Lowe's was having a sale that amounted to 70 dollars off the regular price. There was nothing for it but to drive to Eugene and check it out. I decided that the Fridgidaire was as good as it was going to get and told the salesman to load one up. Todd took a dolly and fetched one from the back while I paid for it up front with a credit card. The cashier asked for ID and I showed her my official ID card from the salt mines. It has a bigger hi def photo on it than an Oregon Drivers License. Because my agency shares a roof with the National Guard, MCR, Forest Circus and USNR my ID card has OREGON MILITARY DEPARTMENT laser jetted on the plastic in big black letters. "Oh, so you're in the military," cooed the cashier. "Um, yeah--that's right." I agreed, following along. "Todd, did you give this gentleman the 10% military discount?" Todd had not. Bad Todd! If anybody had called BS on this, I would have just played the artillery ears card and said "Oh, I thought you asked if I was (past tense) in the military." I have that T shirt. I pulled Linda's grey Tundra to the front door and three of us easily boosted the new freezer in the back of the truck. Todd and his assistant left and I fastened the big carton in the vertical position with ratchet straps and rope. I did not exceed 45 mph the 25 miles home. Linda and I easily slid the new freezer over the edge of the tailgate and onto the ce-ment floor of the car port in front of the shop. I walked to the end of the road and borrowed Kevin's dolly. It was standing outside in plain sight. Ginger rushed out to bark at me until she saw who it was and shifted to wagging mode. It was no challenge wheeling the new freezer into the shop by myself. I placed it by the back door next to the old Amana and plugged it in. I transferred the frozen food from the old to the new and found I was barely able to skid the empty Amana on the six inch thick concrete floor. The new freezer's compressor is a quarter the mass of the Amana's and has a sticker reading Panasonic made in Singapore. I somehow doubt if we get 20 years out of this one. I will need help removing the old chest freezer. There must be enough steel in it to build half a Toyota. N