Scooby Dooby News

One of the smartest people I know is Claire. She’s three years old. Take it easy, other people I know, I’m not saying you lack smarts. Claire just has the advantage right now of fresh eyes. Sadly, I’m sure the world will tell her ‘just because’ and ‘that’s the way it is’ enough times that she’ll catch up with the rest of us on buying what’s put before us. But for now her critical thinking skills are uncluttered and she cuts right through the nonsense.

Her latest victory is rejecting clunky attempts to sway her belief system with a childish premise propped up by dubious and contrived circumstantial evidence. She was shown the recent hidden camera footage of NPR executives talking to fake bad guys and failed to see the outrage. OK, no, it was actually reruns of Scooby Doo cartoons. But there are similarities.

Here’s the transcript of Claire’s investigation into popular belief and why society is willing to suspend skepticism when told there is a monster on the loose:

Claire: “Mom, did you know that the monsters in Scooby Doo are just people in costumes?"

Her mom: "Well, they’re pretend monsters so you don't have to be scared about real monsters."

Claire: "So why do people think they’re monsters if they’re always just people in costumes?"

Her mom: "Good point, Claire."

I laughed when my sister told me about Claire rejecting Scooby Doo. I was proud of my three-year-old niece for seeing through the fakery and cooked-up intrigue to find the whole thing silly, even though it was designed specifically to draw her in. Then I felt like an idiot, because I remember being entertained by Scooby Doo. I got off the phone and went back to reading important news from around the world. People saying other people were doing bad things. Those people saying the other people were really the bad ones. Still more people trying to decide who was doing what – and it all started to look a lot like tired episodes of Scooby Doo.

Thankfully Claire’s schedule is pretty open right now, so I can run things by her before forming my own opinions. I don’t know what I’m going to do when she starts kindergarten. I try to call right after nap time when she’s rested to ask about things like collective bargaining, foreign intervention to remove dictators from power and things like that.

I made a handy reference guide to convert complicated matters into Scooby Doo terms. Oil, lucrative contracts and basically anything financial are Scooby snacks. Contested areas or a theater of operation become the haunted mansion. Occasionally Claire will shift her analysis away from the Scooby Doo model and tackle the problem by using a Blue’s Clues approach – so I’ve had to become familiar with another fact-finding cartoon dog to understand her findings.

So far Claire has the jump on political pundits by arriving at the logical conclusion at least two days before adults sift the details of a breaking news story and unmask the monster, which usually turns out to just be a person. I didn’t even finish explaining the NPR hidden camera controversy before she interrupted and said, “Uncle Jon, this is silly.”

The news was just coming over the wires that an NPR executive was resigning amid the fallout of this cartoon episode so I told Claire I had to get off the phone and make a call to NPR headquarters before it was too late to stop this nonsense.

But it was too late. And following the news just isn’t the same anymore. I tried to sit down and absorb the latest scandal today without reaching out and pulling off the cheap mask…and I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for that meddling kid. Thanks a lot, Claire. You ruined the news for me. Can I come over and watch Blues Clues instead?

(Wallowa County Chieftain column for March 24, 2011...though in keeping with the Scooby Doo theme, I changed the ending. Claire's mom Jessica pointed out that 'those darn kids' kind of has to be included when there's any mention of Scoob, and she's right.)

You should have seen the septic tank

A broken toilet seat. Not a burned-out lightbulb. Not a leaky faucet. The seat on the toilet in my house broke.

It’s pretty basic. A lid and a ring on a hinge. Been contemplating the universe from that seat for, oh, I’d say about five years. Nice looking wooden model for that rustic experience while moving things from one place to another.

I didn’t figure on ever replacing that toilet seat. I really thought that was one item you would install and be done with it.

But craftsmanship isn’t what it used to be and the copper tube this seat used for a pin on which the seat would pivot was made from ultra-thin metal. A big copper straw, really. I’m surprised it withstood that many visits, once I saw what we were dealing with.

So I bought a new one that will probably fall apart five years from now and confronted the dilemma of what you do with a broken used toilet seat. It’s a little bit gross, even to be throwing in the trash. So another solution occurred to me. And it gave me the closure I was looking for.

This is what chorizo will do to you.

Aluminum marks the spot

Chieftain column, March 9 2011

I don’t just pinch pennies. I squeeze those things until Lincoln complains of migraines. People have tried calling me cheap, but I don’t pay attention. I never pay if it can be avoided.

So there are times when I wonder about my attraction to fly fishing. Plopping fake insects in the water can get expensive. I’ve seen fishermen on the river with enough fancy gear to equal my entire earnings for the year. And they see a guy in duct-taped waders with a garage sale flyrod equal in value to the change under their sofa cushions.

So I don’t enjoy losing flies when I’m fishing. That’s two bucks you just left on the river bottom. Lost one the other day. Hooked a steelhead, he came up shaking his head and, snap, broke my leader. Despair.

Fishing guide Tom Farnam told me to stop sobbing. I recovered and hooked a steelhead again twenty minutes later. When this one surfaced, Tom said he believed this was the same fish. Got this one to the bank and removed my fly. Then I got back my other fly that had broken off and was still hooked in his mouth. Tom was right. Same fish. So that’s one way to economize when fly fishing.

The steelhead train from Minam Motel to Rondowa along the Wallowa River isn’t running this year. When I rode the steelhead train last year it had a bunch of happy fishers on it, staying at local hotels and motels and discussing dining options at the LT, TG, Lear’s, Mutiny, Friends, et cetera. I heard plans to bring families back in the summer. I heard the sound of economic stimulus actually working through a unique interaction with Wallowa County just like the train people said it would. Then I heard they stopped running it. Okey-dokey. At least it’s a pretty shade of yellow on those parked rail cars we’re storing. Yep. Sure are pretty.

The good news for steelheaders is that some outdoorsmen have devised a way to make it easier for out-of-county fishermen to find the good fishing spots along the Wallowa River that you can access next to the highway. Most popular fishing spots have been clearly marked. Just look for the cluster of Keystone Light beer cans. Sometimes Coors. Or Bud Light. Mostly Keystone though. This marking system cuts down on the time you might waste scouting for good fishing holes. Also look for remains of warming fires, sometimes with charred Gatorade bottles or half-burned Styrofoam bait containers. It really spiffs up the outdoors. Looks great.

Coors Light used to flow from that culvert before the recession.

Instead of the Adopt-A-Highway system, where volunteers pick up other people’s mess, how about we lift fingerprints off the Keystone Light cans, then call the mother of whoever left the garbage and tell them to get their kid back out there to clean up their mess.

This is like a high school senior portrait, where 18 year-olds
lean on a branch, looking like they're trapped in shrubbery.

I’m not usually concerned with things being spic and span. The floorboards of my truck look like an archaeological dig and it’s time to wash dishes at my house when you can’t balance one more dirty cup on the teetering pile in the sink. But I don’t leave old receipts and junk mail in other people’s rigs and at least offer to do the dishes when I’m at someone else’s house for dinner. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m guessing the same folks leaving garbage on the riverbank wouldn’t be OK with me tossing my trash in their yard. Anglers would start showing up at their house, thinking it must be a good fishing hole.

If these beer cans were made in a pleasing shade of yellow I might not mind so much.

Same fish twice

True story: broke my line when a steelhead shook its head at me. Lost the fish. Then caught the same fish again twenty minutes later.

This here is the fish.

And this here is the fly he ate the first time.

Full report over at the Gearboat Chronicles site.

Persistence. Let this be a lesson to all of us. And also, let the broken leader also be a lesson about making sure your leader hasn't been banged up on the rocks so bad that it will break if you get a steelhead on. That's also not such a bad lesson.

Possibly the worst way ever to leave this mortal coil

Aaaaand I'm back.

Hoo. The updates got away from me there for the past . . . what, since August of oh-ten. I believe the idea is to put something on here more frequently than every 8 months.

I was on a black ops mission. Real hush-hush. Didn't have a secure line to update the site and couldn't compromise the mission. But I've managed to elude the border guards in a certain unstable country and smuggle my way out in a container full of toaster ovens. So democracy is safe once again and I can resume the important work of posting here items of great relevance.

So. Where was I. Oh yes. I went back in the photo annals to pick up where I left off and found this dispatch torn from a newspaper that I got from the recycling center as fire-starter for my wood powered hot tub.

Thank the stars this story caught my eye, otherwise you and I would both have missed the -- no. I can't make sport of this. It's tragic. More than that. Horrible. The stuff of nightmares. Except nobody would think up such a thing.

He did not go doing what he loved.

A guy isn't seen for a while. Reported missing. Digging activity in backyard. Man located inside septic tank. Cause of death: accidental drowning.

I mean . . .

"No evidence of foul play," could have taken the day off in this case.

How deep is that septic tank?

That's all I got. I could dwell on this, but would rather not.

Good day.

A Rapid By Any Other Name: Chieftain column 8/11/10

Here's my Chieftain column from last week...this here photo gives a look at some of the new rock in the river at high water.

And Furthermore
Jon Rombach

That resurfacing job on our highway looks great, if I tilt my head so I can see past the crack in my windshield from all the rocks kicked up during the chipseal project. Ah, well, good roads are important and it stimulates the economy. I’ll be swinging by Mountain View Glass for a quote from Joe and Mandy on just how stimulating a new windshield is going to be.

I got that crack driving to Minam for one last rafting trip down the Grande Ronde before the river gets too shallow. All that rain and snowmelt we had a couple months back blew out tons of rock in the section of river near Barnes Spring and, by golly, Wallowa County and the Grande Ronde River have a brand new rapid. It’s a bouncing baby Class II, I’d say. Has its mothers eyes. I floated over right after it was born, and at high water it just kicks up easy waves. At low water, the Grande Ronde now pools up on the right side, then zags left over the new gravel bar through shallow braided channels. Not difficult to negotiate, just interesting to see a new feature.

This new rapid doesn’t have a name yet …I talked with Dennis the BLM river ranger at the boat launch and we briefly discussed this lack of a name. I casually referred to it as Rombach Rapid just to see what he thought, but he didn’t seem to think much. I’m just worried this rapid is going to be named the obvious ‘Barnes Spring Rapid.’ Booooring. No offense, Barnes. The other rapids would just be picking on Barney his whole life. Martin’s Misery will steal lunch money. Minam Roller will start fights. And The Narrows – well, The Narrows is a Class IV and can be something of a bully. Wears a leather jacket. Moved out and got it’s own apartment in Clarkston. Drives a muscle car. You know the type.

Maybe we can do a write-in campaign to name this thing. Whittle your suggestion onto a piece of driftwood and drop it in the Wallowa River. All entries will float down toward the confluence with the Grande Ronde and some might even make it to this rapid I’m talking about. We’ll have Ranger Dennis check in the springtime and if there’s a name on a stick floating in the eddy, then there we go. If not, we go with ‘Barney Rombach Rapid.’ I’m sure the Geographic Names Board will approve of this method. It sounds almost scientific.

I’m disappointed with myself, though, for not being able to come up with a decent name in this situation. Ever since I was a young boy, my dream job has been to grow up and get paid to think of names for colors of housepaint. You ever pay attention to those? Rustic Tangerine. Misty Floormat. I think the paint industry people cut words out of old 18th century novels and cooking magazines, then spinning all the words inside a Bingo ball cage to draw out unlikely matchings when they need to name a new shade of semi-gloss ... ‘OK, people, here we go … our new version of tan shall be … “Croissant” aaaaand … “Countryside.” Oh yes, that’s lovely. Soon all the breakfast nooks of the world will be graced with the gentle hue of Croissant Countryside.’

Actually, that’s not a bad name for a Class II rapid. I’m going to go carve that on some driftwood right now.

Kesey, Cassady, Kerouac: Chieftain column, July 28, 2010

Here's the 'Furthermore' column from the Chieftain from last time around...I don't recall if Fargo ever did get that blue 70's Camaro on the road.


And Furthermore...

Ken Kesey once asked if he could help me. I didn’t know much back then, so I said, Nope, I’m just waiting. Kesey wrote ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ ‘Sometimes A Great Notion’ and helped co-author the 1960’s. The man knew more than others about how certain things work. Or stop working.

He also knew some kid was in his barn, staring at his crazy painted bus. Apparently trespassing. I grew up about five miles from Kesey’s farm, in Pleasant Hill, Oregon. My buddy, Fargo Kesey, bought an old Camaro in high school and asked me to help get it on the road. The Camaro was parked in his uncle Ken’s barn. Fargo was late. And that’s how I had my big conversation with literary heavyweight Ken Kesey: Can I help you? Nope.

Years later, I did have questions. What are the odds that the same man, Neal Cassady, would drive Jack Kerouc’s ‘On the Road’ and other work, which helped drive the Beat Generation … then Cassady ends up behind the wheel of Kesey’s bus, Further, helping to drive another cultural shift. Did Cassady use his turn signals so America could brace itself? Did anyone ever ask Neal if they were there yet? Did Cassady ride the brakes, or use them at all?

‘Kerouac, Kesey, Cassady’ became the title and focus of my final research project in college. It was supposed to be a history paper comparing cultural shifts among the Maori in New Zealand with North American tribes, specifically the Blackfoot Indians. My notes from studying abroad in New Zealand got soaked with saltwater during a sailboat wreck in Hawaii. I took an extension on that final paper. Then another. The University of Montana finally hinted that if I wanted my piece of paper with ‘Diploma’ on it, I’d better send them their paper. Soon.

My copy of Kerouac’s ‘The Dharma Bums’ had more notes written in the margins than what survived after my New Zealand research floated around on the bottom of my ruptured boat, so I wrote all night about cultural shifts America experienced because Neal Cassady learned to operate a clutch. If Ken Kesey had asked, ‘Can I help you?’ during that frenzy, I would have said yes. Get this down to FedEx and overnight it to Missoula, would you, Ken?

Japhy Ryder turns the engine off in ‘Dharma Bums,’ sets the e-brake and takes Kerouac for a walk. Shows him the mountains. Gets Jack interested in Buddhism. Slows him down. Gets him to listen for quiet. It almost seems a yang to the full-throttle yin Kerouac picked up from speeding around with Neal Cassady.

This Japhy Ryder is based on Gary Snyder, Pulitzer prize-winning poet who was here in Wallowa County at the Fishtrap writing conference this month. My favorite moment came during a question-and-answer session when someone in the audience explained they had taken a year-long course studying poetry, and the instructor had asked them to answer this question: What is the poet for? They never found the answer. Could Snyder help?

Snyder’s studied Zen Buddhism, so I prepared myself to not understand his answer. To be honest, I didn’t even understand the question and never really understood poetry. What is the poet for? Snyder took two seconds and cleared it all up with the answer: To write poetry. Next question. No wonder he got the Pulitzer, this guy.

I should have asked Ken Kesey what his bus was for when I had the chance.