Operation Minnie Winnie: Night One, Boise, ID. Kesey is Cheesed.

(confidential to the state of Idaho: If I was you, I’d name a town ‘Girlsie.’ Then you could use those paper doll cutout pictures of men and women for some of your road signs. Brilliant, I know.)

Stayed the night at Fargo and Cathy Kesey’s in Boise. Their boy, Mac, has this for his full name: Cormac Harrison Jess Kesey. Jess is a family name, recalling the Kesey who trapped golden bears in California for a living back when.

Cormac, Harrison and Kesey could double as a reading list, and that seems to have soaked in with this kid. He’s reading at a fifth-grade level while still in first grade. He’s a machine. Doesn’t seem to sound things out, just looks at a word he’s not familiar with and makes the connection.

Cathy said go ahead and test him, so we picked random labels that were handy on the kitchen table and asked Mac what they said. I pointed to ‘fiesta’ on a salsa jar. He pronounced it right, then asked what that meant. He was a little unsure about ‘vinaigrette’ on the salad dressing label, but I just now had to look up the spelling on that myself, so I won’t hold that against you, Mac.

His dad, Fargo, is writing a story I’m looking forward to seeing in print. Goes like this – he grows weary of hearing “We’re going to end up like Canada,” during conversations about health care reform here in the U.S. In part, he suspects these people don’t know anything about Canadian health care, aside from hearing rumors that it has fangs, eyes like a serpent and steals children in the night. I think Fox did a story on that.

So he goes home and calls people in Canada to ask what they think about their health care situation. Talks to a lumberyard worker, a teacher and the owner of a bed and breakfast. Then calls around to a lumberyard worker, teacher and B&B owner in Boise to compare and contrast what they think about their health care.

It’s good stuff. The title is ‘Cheesed,’ from a comment made by one of the Canadians who is ‘cheesed off’ about . . . well, I’ll put up a link when it gets in print.

Fargo made me some sandwiches in the morning, a bag of Cheez-Its and I hit the road, facing 15 more hours or so of driving until my date with destiny in the form of a 1998 Class C Minnie Winnie in Yuma. I was beginning to be vinaigretted off at myself for not just getting a plane ticket.