Operation Minnie Winnie

So I bought a motorhome.

Sure, I'd had a few beers when the idea came to me. But the next day I had coffee and it still seemed like a good plan. Then I even had some water and it continued to seem like a sound proposition.

I’d learned of an RV being traded in for a sum I considered to be an outrage. So I called up and offered my friends the same outrage. They said OK. But I had to come fetch the thing down in Yuma, Arizona. Pronto.

It turns out depositing cash in someone else’s bank account takes some doing. I had to provide photo ID. Then I was asked to furnish my social security number…uh, this is cash, I mentioned. You'd better ask ol’ Ben Franklin there about his identity, not mine.

My sisters both worked at banks in the long-ago, so I’m aware of reporting procedures for large amounts of C-notes, keeping an eye out for highwaymen and the like. But this wasn’t all that much money, really. It’s not like I was asking to make a deposit in the form of kilos or fenced jewelry. Still, they wanted that SSN and they got it.

Drove home from the bank, winterized my house in four minutes, threw the dog in the truck along with a toothbrush and a sleeping bag, then hit the road.

For the next two days I would try to pass those goddamned RVers going too slow on the freeway, listening to radio commentators poke the corpse that is our national economy. ‘Disappointing indicators’ this, and ‘unemployment crisis’ that. I kept waiting for a report on how the used-RV sector was a bright spot. How that’s where the smart money was being invested. But no.

And that’s how me and a 29-foot Winnebago known as a “Minnie Winnie” started our life together. I’ve got some time, now that I’ve retired early and joined the RV circuit. So I’ll be checking in with updates as Operation Minnie Winnie progresses.

Because if NPR won’t report on second-hand motorhomes as a wise investment strategy, well then, by God, I will.

Chieftain column, July

And Furthermore
Jon Rombach

Rodeo week. Good times. I especially like being in the parade. Driving real slow. Taking your time … between Enterprise and Joseph. On the highway. Going 35. Sometimes even 40 miles per hour. It did give me a chance to read the bumper stickers from all the places those RV’s had been to. How they ever covered that much ground at the speed they drive is a mystery.

I bought some candy to throw out the window on my way to work, because, hey, if you’re driving at parade speed anyway, might as well. But I understand driving slow if it’s the first time you’ve been to Wallowa County. You want to savor what you’re seeing. After all, it’s not everywhere you get to see that many rail cars all in one place. Take a few snapshots.

I do like rodeo week. It reminds me of when I worked on a ranch in Colorado. This particular ranch raised dudes. I was a maintenance guy, so most of my time was spent fixing furnaces and leaky faucets in the cabins. But my buddies and I did go to a lot of rodeos. Every week we would head down to town and try to cash the same paycheck we’d tried to cash on previous visits. Once in a while the bank teller would surprise us by finding money in the payroll account, but mostly those checks were pretty bouncy. Because of this money shortage, we had to economize on our days off. And the rodeo in Snowmass was good for that.

It’s thirsty business, watching a rodeo. And somehow there’s a law of the universe that says big crowds at a large venue must be served warmish and not-very-good beer from plastic cups for exceedingly high prices. I don’t care for that law. Not one bit. I don’t know anyone who does. I take that back. I’m guessing beer vendors don’t mind it. So we were in a tight spot. The vendors weren’t interested in us signing over our worthless paychecks and suggested we visit the bank. We said that was a good idea, as we would need a loan if we wanted to buy any of their food items, which were also priced quite dear.

Market forces were at work here, so we found a market. A super one. And discovered we could purchase certain items on much more reasonable terms. Now I’m no scofflaw. I was raised on Perry Mason reruns, CHiPs and Magnum P.I. Fine programs that instill a healthy regard for following rules. So we compromised. And watched from the far side of the arena, technically not in the area where we were doing anything wrong.

The ticket lady thought otherwise. After we’d been coming to the weekly rodeo for some time, our group from the dude ranch was walking by the front booth one day, heading for our usual spot over behind the fence when the woman in the ticket office leaned out and said, “Hold up.”

We all stopped. Clanging noises came from our pockets. There followed a little hush. And then I saw my favorite rodeo performance ever. Fargo Kesey is a pal of mine. Great guy. Scar down his face from being thrown through the window of a saloon in Wyoming for no particular reason. That has nothing at all to do with this standoff with the ticket lady in Snowmass, but you have to admit it’s an interesting detail.

So Fargo says to let him handle this. We all took a seat on the fence to watch, pockets clanking. Ticket lady says we can’t be bringing in drinks from outside. Fargo compliments her on her hair. Asks how her family is. We learned a lot about selling tickets to rodeos and what it was like being in that booth. She allowed we seemed like nice guys, but circled back around to her point and insisted we only drink expensive beverages from plastic cups.

Fargo mentioned several viewpoints he thought she might be overlooking. It was all very interesting and went on for some time, and ended with him denying any knowledge of what she was talking about, throwing his hands up to emphasize his point. The cans concealed in his armpits crashed down through his shirt just then, landed on the gravel, got punctured and sprayed beer all over the front of the ticket booth. It was spectacular. I was thinking it might be time to go, but Fargo asked if she’d like a beer.

She thought for a little bit and said she most definitely would. Fargo pulled one from the top of his boot. She took a swig, thought for a little bit and then pulled off some tickets from her roll, gave them to us for free and told us to have a good time at the rodeo. We surely did.

Chieftain column, August 24

And Furthermore
Jon Rombach

“How’d you get to Wallowa County?” is a question I love hearing the answer to. Even the common responses that begin with knowing so-and-so, who had a house out here, and next thing you know … generally pack along a jewel of a side-story that doesn’t disappoint.

I didn’t come up with the idea of collecting the greatest hits of How’d You Get To Wallowa County? into book form, but I just might steal that notion if I don’t see Volume I pretty soon on a shelf at The Bookloft.

I heard a variation last week from someone who crashed and totaled their car on their way into the county, and her tale was a lovely response to, “How’d you get out?”

Shannon is a dance instructor in Los Angeles who moonlights as a river guide in the summertime. She was on her way home from Idaho at the end of her first river season, and planned a detour to check out these Wallowa Mountains she kept hearing about. A tire got onto gravel along the shoulder of the North Highway and that ended badly with gymnastic maneuvers a car is just not designed for. She made friends in the ambulance on her way to the hospital. Made more friends when she got to the hospital. Got her clearance as being shaken up but not broken, and the front desk helped her find a hotel for the night.

Her gear was still in her car and by the time she was released from the hospital, business hours were long since over. She made another friend when the tow truck driver happily agreed to return to work off the clock so she could get into her crumpled car and collect her bags. “That kind of thing doesn’t happen in Los Angeles,” she explains. I believe her.

So there you are. Wrecked car. No bus station. No car rental agency. No commercial flights. “Where are you again?” is about as far as she got on the phone with her insurance agent. Someone suggested she call the radio station and run an announcement looking for a ride to La Grande. That also doesn’t happen in Los Angeles, she pointed out. I believed her.

I mentioned that she might have gotten a ride on the Stage. “The Stage?” Well, it’s really a van, but it goes back and forth to Union County. She was glad to hear that, because now her initial stay in Wallowa County reminded her of a Northern Exposure episode and a John Wayne movie.

Shannon eventually did find a way out of Wallowa County. And she found her way back, hiring on for a few river trips with Winding Waters River Expeditions. We got back from a float trip and had the night off, so Shannon was telling me her version of how she got to the county while she sent messages to her old friends the tow truck driver and folks at the hospital, inviting them for a thank-you beer at Terminal Gravity.

After talking about how hard it was to figure out a way out of this place, she mentioned she’d been trying to figure out lately if she might reverse that and see about moving here.

So there’s your side story. Car crash and inconvenience turns into unexpected friends and a genuine attachment to a remote mountain valley with no rental cars you wouldn’t mind moving to.

How’d you get to Wallowa County? I’m collecting answers to that. Send me yours at jonrombach@gmail.com.

Message in a Bottle

One of the guys on the weed spraying crew I was floating with on the Grande Ronde last week found a message in a bottle. An honest-to-God rolled up piece of paper stuck in a bottle, then flung in the river.

I don't care who you are, it's hard not to be interested in what's on that scroll of paper somebody took the time and trouble to send into the world by tossing it on the water.

But first, a word on weed spraying via raft. The idea is to get where you can't otherwise. We target riverbanks where no vehicle or ATV will get you, unless you're talking helicopter. So we float down, hit the bank and the weed warriors take off wearing their backpack sprayers, on the hunt for leafy spurge, dalmation toadflax, knapweed, and some others I can't recall the names of. All on the Most Wanted list for noxious weeds. They had a spare backpack one day, so I helped out as best I could, though I was most tempted to spray the obnoxious weeds I'm familiar with, rather than the noxious ones I don't have quite the history with. The weeds that raise my ire are poison ivy, those beggar's lice plants with the velcro nubs designed in Hell, and stinging nettles.

After a couple days on the river with the spray crew, it dawned on me that they look just like the Ghostbusters. Four guys carrying backpacks with hoses and wands, heading out to do battle with a nuisance that isn't supposed to be there. These guys earn their money. Aside from being around the chemicals, there are rattlesnakes out in force, plenty of ticks, poison ivy and sundry other small nuisances. They seemed to feel sorry for me when they'd come back to the boat and I would be sitting in the shade, sipping lemonade and reading a good book. I can see where they'd think I might be bored, and they nicely offered to see about getting another sprayer so I'd have something to do to pass the time. Awfully nice of them. And then they'd compare notes on how many rattlesnakes had almost bit them, how many ticks they'd found trying to burrow into their skin, and I'd glance at my icy cold bottle of lemonade and adjust my chair in the shade and try to nicely explain that I appreciated their concern for my boredom, but not to worry themselves. Somehow I'd manage.

I did pry myself out of the shade now and then to hike down the river and scout for landing spots. I found a fair amount of flotsam on those walks. Or jetsom. I can never remember which is which. Let's just call it trash. An inner tube, styrofoam blocks, a lady's compact with makeup and a mirror in it. Some plastic toys. And lots of footwear. For some reason lots of shoes in the river, washed up on the bank. A flipflop. A little girl's plastic sandal. The rubber sole to a boot. Some others. But nothing like the message in a bottle.

I'm looking at it right here. It's a clear plastic bottle, blue screw-on cap. Inside is an orange piece of paper, half of it faded, making some of the writing illegible. It was written by a young girl. Her name's at the top but I'm going with the confidentiality clause for messages in bottles. It reads like this:

My 4 Wishes

1. World Peace.

2. (Something-something) best friend forever.

3. My cat (something-something).

4. (Something-something-something).

So really I can only make out the first wish, and it's a good one, young lady.

I had plenty of time to think this over, sitting there in the raft while the other guys were off spraying. And I thought, good for her, wishing for world peace. Too bad that's not in the cards.

Before I left for that river trip, I was reading the news filled with North Korea rattling nuclear sabers, Iran and Iraq and the Holocaust museum shooting and a shocking list of unmentionable doings in Portland in the past week. It was anything but peaceful and a quick look at the headlines now, or any time, really, would seem to suggest that, no, we can't all get along.

But why not. That's rhetorical, because you and I both know why not. Politics. Money. Religious differences. Racial differences. Ad hominum infinitum et cetera carborundum and so on.

But still. Why not.

I don't want to be the one to explain to a youngster why leading off her list of wishes with world peace is silly, since it ain't never going to happen. And that's when I came up with an idea that might get us to the point where it's not so silly.

It's one of those notions that makes me think I must have heard it before, it seems so obvious. So I'm putting a disclaimer on it right now: I may have seen this on a bumper sticker, or heard it in song lyrics. Quite possible. Matter of fact, I hope it's not original, but I can't trace it if so.

Here's my proposal. Before any war is declared, we have to clear it first with a bunch of kids. The presidents, congresses, generals and prime ministers of the world draw up their invasion plans, but in order for any conflict to get the green light, the situation has to first be presented to a kindergarten class in their country, and if you can convince that group of kids that the alleged bad guy deserves a "time out," then OK. Otherwise, work out your differences.

It's naive, I know. But like I said, I had a lot of time to think down there on the river and these are the kind of things you end up with. I'm not really kidding, though. Years ago I worked as a substitute teacher in a kindergarten class in a very rough neighborhood, and those kids were still full of innocence and a good, solid sense of right and wrong. Maybe our world leaders need a schedule that includes more snack time with juice and crackers, followed by a nap.

So there's my plan for world peace. Kids as mediators. An advisory board of kindergartners. I've heard of youth leadership conferences and the like, with young adults getting involved. But it may be time for the United Nations to include and consult younger kids to help sort out our differences. If we're going to get along, that may be our best shot.

Then that wish on the message in the bottle might not be so far-fetched.

That's the kind of thinking you get with a whole afternoon of sitting on a riverbank. Maybe I should ask for a weed sprayer so I don't have that much time on my hands.

Better Fishing The Metric Way

I used to be a mediocre fisherman. Well, those days are over. Last week I witnessed a brilliant technique that improves your fishing success instantly, dramatically and easily. It’s so simple. No fooling around with learning new casting methods or studying fish behavior and boring feeding patterns. The secret shortcut to better fishing is … are you ready? The metric system. And I must say, it’s good to finally find a use for that thing.

I discovered the wonderful world of metric fishing thanks to the Enterprise High School class of 2009. I was along on their senior trip through Hells Canyon last week, rowing one of the cargo rafts. We had some big water, since Idaho Power was leaving the gates cracked pretty wide back at the dam.

We camped the second night at Salt Creek after a full day of running the big rapids. River guide Sam Macke baited the sturgeon rig with a trout and dropped that offering out in the eddy. Mike Baird grilled burgers and tubesteaks for dinner and we were having a grand time when the tip of the sturgeon rod started bouncing, then line pulled from the spool. Fish on.

I went down to look when they landed the sturgeon. A nice one. I eyeballed the length and figured we were looking at a six-footer here. If you haven’t seen a sturgeon up close, imagine a swimming dinosaur with armored plates down the spine. They’re odd creatures, for sure.

There were two exchange students among the graduating seniors, Giacomo from Italy and Esteban from Ecuador. We walked back up to camp after the sturgeon was released and I was standing there for a discussion on how big the fish was. “Two meters,” is what I heard Giacomo say. Esteban was consulted and agreed. Two meters. According to the conversion table I just consulted on the inside flap of an old Pee-Chee folder, that works out to just over six and a half feet.

Now jump forward to several days later at my house in Enterprise. Sam, the guy who caught the sturgeon, was explaining to some friends how the senior float trip went. Great, by all accounts, except for some holdups as the kids and chaperones were on their way back to the dam after waving goodbye to the Winding Waters River Expeditions crew at the Pittsburgh Landing boat ramp. The group was riding back upriver in a chartered jetboat, but a mechanical problem caused a delay and another jetboat company was called to bring another boat.

The second jetboat had something go haywire, so a third boat was called in from the bullpen. Highly unusual, and this third jetboat was considerably smaller, requiring two trips to shuttle everyone and their gear back to the dam.

The second wave of students and chaperones got on the road for home a long while since eating lunch, so I’m told that they pulled in at the Hells Canyon Inn in Oxbow, which was closed. After knocking on the door and explaining the situation, the owners fed these weary travelers and then refused payment, saying the kids had been through a long day and dinner was on the house.

So there we are out in front of my house and Sam begins to describe the sturgeon he caught, and I distinctly hear him say, “nine-footer.” I politely inquired what topic he had shifted to so abruptly, since it obviously wasn’t that sturgeon anymore. He asked how big I thought it was. With truth shining in my eyes, I replied, “six.”

“No,” Sam disagreed. And I should mention here that truth was also shining in his eyes. I can vouch for Sam as one of the most truthy persons I know. “Those exchange students,” Sam explained, “said it was three meters. Nine feet.”

And that’s when I realized the exponential beauty of fishing with the metric system. By altering just one digit, you gain so much more. By slightly bumping two into three, the same fish grows by three feet in that same instant. Marvelous. All fish have a tendency to grow by inches between the catching of them and the telling about it, but using meters just streamlines the process and I finally see how terribly useful this metric system can be. Until now it just cluttered up my toolbox with sockets I never used.

I remember when I could only cast my flyrod about forty feet. Now I’m casting flies upward of a tenth of a furlong, or well over a decameter. I don’t even know how far that is in cubits. There’s no end to the utility of this system. A two-pound fish that took a little while to land sounds infinitely better weighed in bushels and landed in something under a fortnight. Not to mention my new flyrod, which I couldn’t afford until seeing how cheap it is in shekels.

A modest proposal for more railroad storage

You can blame me if you’re not pleased about Wallowa County becoming a storage unit for train cars. Pretty sure I brought that on, not the commissioners or train committee. Last month I drove past miles and miles of parked rail cars in Idaho on my way to a rafting trip on the Salmon River. There were the miles of parked lumber cars, then an occasional gap for a driveway and you could just glimpse a house behind the wall of railroad fencing. And I thought, ‘Those poor sons-of-guns, that must be miserable, looking at that instead of the view they used to have. Glad it’s not me.’

So as soon as I got off that river trip, I opened the newspaper to read how Wallowa County would soon be storing train cars in just the same fashion. For all I know, the exact same cars in front of that house in Idaho I felt sorry for will soon be resting in front of my house. I tempted fate and lost.

I admit I’m not excited about the whole deal. And I’ve been told that I should buck up. It’s good for the county and just a temporary inconvenience. Well, allrighty. I propose that we embrace this economic community spirit by expanding our new industry of storing train equipment and also store those portable container cars in the front yards of every home in Wallowa County. I saw yards full of container cars stacked in towers last time I was in Portland and it looked like they were running out of space. So let’s get a contract to haul three or four thousand out here, put them on truck trailers and park them in front of every Wallowa County home until this economy picks up enough that the railroads need their cars and containers back. Not excited about a container sitting in front of your house? O, come on. Buck up. It brings revenue into the county and provides wages for the workers who will be backing the trailer up and dropping the container in front of your place. It’s only temporary, after all. Three years isn’t so long.

I hold no grudge against the signers of this rail car storage agreement. It’s kind of refreshing, actually, to hear the train is making some money to pay for itself. But I do sincerely want to see a container car parked in front of anyone’s house that says those living in sight of the tracks shouldn’t complain. Look into that, will you please, commissioners? I think it’s an exciting opportunity.

I might just build a spur line around my property and contract on my own to store cars. It would save me the trouble of putting a fence around my place and bring in some revenue. Might violate a fencing ordinance, but if the railroad can do it, I don’t see why I couldn’t. Rombach Railyard. Has a certain ring to it.

Last summer my family was out here visiting and we talked about how it’s tough to scrape by in this place, but, man, is it beautiful and you can see why a person would want to live here. You can’t eat the view, et cetera. But, still, just look at those mountains. I explained how I’ve thought of moving elsewhere for work, but I just never get tired of coming home and looking at that view.

The rail cars aren’t backed up to my place yet, but I’m just outside Enterprise city limits and keep watching the empty cars roll by, heading toward Joseph and waiting for them to stop. And I think when they do that maybe I will get tired of looking at that view.

If you buy a house next to an airport, you expect planes to be flying in and out. What you don’t plan on is the airport storing a blimp in front of your place that will sit there for three years.

I used to think if I sold my place, the listing would have the standard real estate language of ‘Stunning mountain views!’ or ‘Little Switzerland from your front porch!’ Now, I don’t know. Maybe, ‘Infrastructure Right In Front Of You!’ or ‘Open Your Own Hobo Bed and Breakfast!’

Maybe we can dedicate some of this rail storage money to commissioning local artists to paint landscape murals onto the cars so it looks like what it used to. We can always paint them back to their original color when it comes time for the cars to roll back out. Might be inconvenient, but think of the good it will do for the local artist economy.

The Good Steak Diet

Two sisters are Vaudeville contortionists. My grandfather is the brother of these two sisters . . . this is not a riddle. It’s the family history on my Mom’s side.
So the two Hubbard sisters met the two Pingle brothers and there were two weddings. Then everybody eventually moved from Los Angeles up to a remote ranch in southern Oregon, near Butte Falls.

My mom was seven during this move from L.A. to a ranch in the boonies. I remember when I worked on a haying crew one summer in high school and tried to explain to my mom just how hard this line of work was. She nodded and said she sure was proud of me for being so tough. Years later, my Auntie Ella showed me a photo of my mother working on the haying crew at the Mill-Mar Ranch. Mom was eight years old in the picture, and the haying was being done with a team of horses. I, uh, try not to complain to Mom anymore about much of anything.

Mill-Mar was a dude ranch originally, then later shifted to a working cattle operation. Mom told me a clear memory of hers when they first arrived at the ranch was her dad and uncle cutting and peeling logs to build new bed frames. I was out at the ranch some years ago, visiting my Uncle Morley and Aunt Julia, and asked if any of those log beds were still around. There were a few still in the barn, Morley said. So my mom got a log bed frame for Christmas that year and, if I remember right, her eyes got a little leaky.

Morley fed me a steak for dinner during that visit. He was probably in his late-eighties or early-nineties then. He told me his good health and longevity had a lot to do with eating a good steak nearly every night. I went back to visit several years later and he fed me another good steak. I’m now inclined to think of red meat as a health food, because although Morley Pingle just passed on, he was 99 years old.

I’ve known other rancher folk who didn’t seem to pay attention to the usual rules of being healthy, but still ended up that way. One robust old-timer in Wyoming outlined his health plan to me, which involved large quantities of beef, a daily shot of whiskey and pinches of Copenhagen, which he was sure possessed medicinal properties. I know he was wrong, but you try telling that to somebody who can still beat you at arm-wrestling when other people their age are in a nursing home.

I suspect the real common denominator among these folks who seem to get around the regular laws of aging is hard work and plenty of it. It’s too bad. I like the idea of a medium-rare steak with grilled onions every night. I’m less crazy about the notion of bucking hay bales or whatever else it takes to work that meal off every day.

Otherwise I’d be writing a best-selling fountain of youth cookbook and fitness program that’s mainly just a collection of recipes on how to prepare a good steak. I might do it anyway. I’ve heard of some diet plans out there that don’t make nearly as much sense as eating a good steak every night. And I don’t remember those diets having a spokesman that lived to be 99.

My Aunt Ella is 94 and not too long ago I watched her prove that she can still stand on her hands. She and her sister Julia, Morley’s wife of 70 years, trained from an early age for their work as contortionists. Ella is rightfully proud of still being able to stand on her hands, but don’t bet her any money. Rather than raising her feet in the air while balancing on her hands, she bends down and places her hands beneath her feet. Technically, that’s standing on your hands. And I know some folks half her age who couldn’t pull that off.

So watch the bookstore for my upcoming book revealing the secrets to long life and flexibility through cattle ranching and Vaudeville contortionism. In the meantime, Vaya con Dios, Uncle Morley.