Yellowstone River Rag

Yellowstone River Rag Page 1

Second Installment: A Thin Slice of Sky

Heating with Wood

 

Cut your own wood and warm yourself twice. – Proverb

 

Within a few years, Dad had erected the permanent house. In winter, our bedroom floors were icy. We piled blankets on and pulled them up to our chins, or up to our noses, depending on the temperature. The reason for our frozen exile was that the bedroom doors stayed closed, preserving heat in the center of the house, the common living space, and areas with plumbing.

Our only heat source was a wood stove. Wood stoves in the 1950s were not marvels of engineering and art. They used wood cord upon cord. They smoked. As teenagers, we fretted that our clothes smelled like trappers’. I even resorted to hanging mine outside on the back porch where only the frost and wind could reach them.

But wood heat also has charms to recommend it. The stove was as much a family focal point and gathering place as the dining table and the piano. Like a campfire, the wood stove warmed front, back, feet or hands as needed, but not all at once. Regulating the temperature was a simple matter of moving closer to, or farther away from, the stove. At 6:00 a.m., three shivering teenagers scampered to its proximity to dress. In the evenings, we directed our guitar and fiddle music to it, as if the black behemoth could applaud.

A battered kettle spluttered on its top. Naturally dry air, made drier by burning wood, was humidified in this manner. Sledders draped their soaked clothes on chairs standing in a circle around the stove. They hoped for an expedited return to the hill. Mother used a rack made of wooden dowels for drying laundry in the winter when clothes hung outdoors would freeze solid.

Chopping wood was pleasant labor. I located the weakest part of the log, looking for drying cracks. Then I raised the double-bitted axe, aimed and let fly. Proper aim, strength and judgment were rewarded with a sharp, snapping noise. Halves of pine tumbled off the chopping block. I set aside choice blocks that held promise as kindling. Dryness and straightness are the attributes. With my right hand, I gripped the axe hear its head. Accuracy, not power, is what is called for. My left hand gingerly held the quarter block, ready to release a split second before impact. I cut progressively smaller sticks until what began as bridge timbers was reduced to pencils. I pride myself on arriving at young adulthood with all the fingers of my left hand intact.

The chopping block is flat-topped and bedded into months of wood chips and bark. In its second or third season, it is tenderized, like a bed of moss. Across its top an ant might venture. As pre-teen boys we liked to wager that we were accurate enough to bisect these moving targets. In order to qualify, the axe must be swung from full height. Generally the little beasts were safe, for our brag was worse than our blow.

Radiant heat, the smell of real wood, the satisfaction of providing one’s own fuel and knowing your labor was proportional to the heat enjoyed; these constituted some of the charms of our wood heat system. They partly offset the inconvenience of icy floors and smoky clothes.

 

 

SEASONS

Summer

 

Summer was a Broadway musical. For spectacle, color, and transient passion, no other season was a rival. Cold, white winter was far behind. The endless indecision ofRockyMountainspring had finally given way to the forthright cheer of indisputable summer. When Elisha asked, “How long halt ye between two opinions?” he could have been insisting that a Bear Canyon Spring declare for either winter or summer. Conditions had ranged from cold to warm, from rain, to snow to sleet. Some days included snippets of every imaginable weather. So when the curtain went up on real summer, the audience was more than grateful for the overture’s conclusion.

A procession of wildflowers marked the passing segments of summer. Bluebells, Indian Paintbrush and Glacier Lilies bloomed, then declined in a sequence that to a botanist would have been boringly predictable. Unschooled, we welcomed each new arrival with glee lost on old scientists. The flowers and fruit of wild strawberry, sarvice berry and chokecherry also had a sequence as interesting to children as the progress of beans and squash were to Mother.

One dramatic botanical event was the launching of the cottonwood fluff. I spent serene afternoons, flat on my back, watching the millions of weightless globs drift. I chose one twenty yards up and tried to keep locked on it. I did Euclidean comparisons between its apparent travel and that of a fluff closer in, rough comparisons only, no measurements or calculations.

Monarch butterflies were a similar flood. By the millions they flew through with an Indy 500 urgency. Other moths and butterflies called the canyon home. Their appearance in a certain order marked the relative temporal position in the season.

The biological time posts were a useful calendar because we were out of school and had reduced our trips to town for such things as music lessons. In the summer, obligations to society were less confining, Sunday meetings being about the only reminder of the imperative to synchronize with the rest of mankind.

We spent our time lounging, reading, exploring with the dogs, practicing music, helping in the garden, picking berries, fishing or taking turns riding our only bicycle to the bridge and back. City kids would have thought we were living in the Dark Ages.

Behind the First Cabin, Dad built an extension of the roof, a lean-to. Here stayed the ringer washing machine. It was Rhyll’s job to wash and ring out loads of laundry using this machine. The Consumer Product Safety Commission hadn’t hatched, or the washer would have been recalled and banned. Oh, for the simplicity of those risky days! A creekside washboard would have been safer. One day, Rhyll’s fingers got caught in the ringers, stalling the machine and wrenching howls of pain from her. We extracted her hand and rushed to town where the doctor pronounced no major harm done. The only casualty was that Mother’s innate distrust of technology was confirmed.

Dabs of grass and other forage grew on the shady hill behind the back step. Our gentleJerseycow sought out the tender morsels. I didn’t concern myself much over her absence. Neither did anyone else. But in the late afternoon, Mother urged us to find and bring her back, knowing Dad would want to milk the old bovine when he got home from work. The tangles of snowberry and ninebark frustrated our search, by eventually, we found her by honing in on the soft clang of her copper bell. Then we shoo-ed her home. She tossed her head, smiled, and kicked a little to show that she had gotten the upper hand. She had pried us away from our quiet afternoon of doing nothing.

The horses wandered further when they escaped. Since they didn’t need to be milked, and were practically useless for riding, we had less motivation to bring them back. When the goats got out of the six-foot high board and wife fence, Dad wished them “good riddance”, but Mother made us retrieve them. Dad had no love for goats and cats. When the pigs sought adventure in the thickets behind their pens, we deployed all squadrons, as they were the most creative at resisting capture. We built a tree house in the massive firs that towered around our small clearing. It was constantly in need of repairs. Summer was the time to consider its state, and to expand the wobbly rungs that led up to it. Our committee meetings usually ended up with more talk than action. The house never accommodated more than two people or complied with even our primitive building code. Life was a gamble.

Children squander summer. It is as expensive as tickets on Broadway, and not a step behind in entertainment.

 

Fall

 

Too soon the summer carnival is over. The fall colors, though simple compared to those ofNew England, provide a modest glory.RockyMountainMaple turns a showy red, the best of any shrub in our native collection. Dogwood leaves turn a dull, purple-red. Aspens supply contrasting patches of yellow and green-yellow.

We put the garden to bed. We place straw bales over the rows of carrots so the ground will not freeze. Otherwise, frost penetrates the ground to a depth of two feet, making it impossible to dig. We sack potatoes, squash and onions, then stow them in the root cellar’s bins below shelves of bottled tomatoes, peaches, pears, cherries, apricots and applesauce.

It was time to get out the rifles and try them for accuracy. Dad had a 30-06 with open sights. It was the main hunting rifle. When the boys reached an age when they could hunt, they used the 45-70, an old war relic that shot one shell at a time and delivered a great blow to the shoulder. Once, when I missed a shot at a deer, I saw the fat bullet plow a trench in the hillside.

We were lukewarm hunters, both as to avidity and prowess. Yet the fall always brought with it the urge to pursue deer, elk, and moose for the meat, as well as for the excuse to wander in the woods in trails beyond our usual network close by the house.

The perpetual search for wood stove fuel accelerates in September. We cut up a few fallen cottonwoods and spruces, but they are inferior for fuel because we lack the patience to wait enough seasons for them to dry. Green wood makes early morning fire starting a frustrating business. We sometimes traveled to the lumber mills in Livingston andBelgradefor slab wood. It is cheap because it is inferior; it is small and still has bark.

The house needs to be readied for winter. Window covering goes up. We stuff cracks with bits of insulation to thwart cold drafts. Dad arranges a zig-zag pattern of heat tape on the eaves to melt snow and ice. We cover the crawl space holes with plywood. The holes have been open all summer, allowing humid air to escape. The pump house gets new insulation and heat tape, if needed.

An abundance of windfall apples necessitates a cider pressing party. We invite other families to come. Instead of being a chore, it becomes a party.

Fall is a time of few contemplative moments because of the return to school, music lessons, and other obligations of the civilized world. New Yorkers close toCentral Parkprobably have more time to revel in nature than we do. Their supply of heating oil is secure, food storage is handled by their supermarket, and their dwellings require few modifications at the change of seasons. For us, the summer party is over and it is time to prudently face the coming winter.

 

 

Winter

 

When winter comes, it is not with a blast, but with a firm hug. Notice of its approach is given in shorter days, falling cottonwood leaves and penetrating frosts which burn zucchini to the ground. The Bennie Goodmans of summer – the thrushes – depart and the air grows still but for the Mick Jagger croaks of the remaining crows.

Our protected enclave escapes the wind; no buffeting blasts assist the cold. The icy bear hug seeps through from all directions. The stove flexes and radiates in mighty opposition.

Snow falls straight, like feathers after a pillow fight. So still is the air, the whole winter’s snow accumulates and settles where it falls, most conspicuously on fence posts. Even the clothes line and barbed wire fences are decked with several inches. They appear as sagging white planks on edge. Fir and spruce hold more snow on their boughs than the laws of physics predict.

Snow settles, melts and compresses on all horizontal surfaces. Fresh snow frosts the older sediments, like icing on cake. In this manner, a brief history of the long winter is preserved in layers – archaeology with a six-month time frame. No drifts are whipped up, though two miles away, at the mouth of the canyon, crusty drifts pester motorists. In our fold, the snow falls deep enough that, unaided by wind, it thwarts half-hearted doings.

But however restricted, our lives must go on. We tromp paths to essential destinations; tool shed, root cellar, wood stack, sledding hill, pig pen. Otherwise, the field is an untracked carpet, a massive down quilt.

I reverently watch the falling snow. The clouds settle in to a siege of the canyon then send their millions of ambassadors. I spend an entranced hour watching. Daily concerns vanish; even my connection with humanity weakens. I feel embraced and comforted.

Winter is a time for reflection. I am introspective and stay inside near light and warmth. Near the food. A lamp, a book, a guitar, theses are the implements of winter. We sip herbal teas, sometimes steeped from the peppermint we gathered in summer. We entertain a small group, serving cinnamon Rolls and hot cider. Under the grasp of cold and snow we warm ourselves with friends, wood fires and quiet reflection.

 

 

Spring

 

The days lengthen and promise spring before the weather actually makes good and delivers warmer temperatures. The north-facing slopes ooze pent-up stores of water, creating rivulets and froggy ponds where the lawn is to be. We dig trenches to divert runoff away from the house’s foundation.

As the ground underfoot begins drying, we begin to traipse the trails. At this time, brilliant Glacier Lilies emerge, a dazzling carpet at our feet. Their citrine yellow petals, delicately turning back, enliven the heart so long mothballed by winter.

The creek boils with rusty runoff. Butterflies return. I had read of Indian fathers requiring their sons to chase and capture butterflies to gain agility and endurance. I tried it but decided that agility and endurance were too expensive.

Cottonwoods perfume the air. Roadside ditches harbor frogs, snakes and a gelatinous slurry of tadpoles. Horsetail ferns are the size of a drinking straw, gradually tapered to the top and divided into stacked sections. We take them apart and try to reassemble them as necklaces and belts.

The rock chuck colony at Rock Corner comes to life. Wobbly baby moose accompany their mothers.

Rain falls for days at a time. And sometimes it is white and flaky; the ghost of winter is not fully exorcised.

Mother orders loads of sand and manure put on the garden and that fences guarding the garden be repaired. She sets out petunias and pansies. Dad hauls haying equipment to the mechanic for repairs. We clean the root cellar and wood shed. Dad removes the plastic covers, poor man’s storm windows, from the window frames. He supervises the cleaning of animal stalls. He purchases chicks from the feed store and sets up heat lamps and feeding trays in the workshop where chicks can safely spend their first two weeks.

The longer days of spring cultivate hope. Life will return; winter is not forever.

 

Hunger in America: The Myth

Montana Watchdog posted my recent article,

Hunger in America: The Myth.

The link to read it is:  http://montana.watchdog.org/files/2011/12/Hunger-In-America-Tom-Burnett.pdf

First installment of my book: A Thin Slice of Sky

 

A Thin Slice of Sky

by

Tom Burnett

Copyright 2003

 

This book is dedicated to my parents, Darwin and Barbara Burnett. What they have given me, and all of their posterity, is not gold, or worldly wealth, but a blessing of love, joy and health.

 

 

Contents

 

Chapter One: A Thin Slice of Sky                                      page 2

Chapter Two: Fun with Father                                           page 26

Chapter Three: Motherhood Undaunted                         page 36

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

A THIN SLICE OF SKY

 

 

ENVIRONS:BearCanyon- Bear Creek – Bald Mountain

 

HOME AND HEARTH: The First Cabin – Heating With Wood

 

SEASONS: Summer – Fall – Winter – Spring

 

EATING TO LIVE: Lunch from the Garden -BerryPicking – Beverages – A Brief Catalog of Edible Plants and Unorthodox Foods

 

Neighbors: Lou Jonas – Will Adams – Patron Saints

 

ANIMALS: Vaccinating Hogs – Pinto – Fowl

 

 

Environs

BearCanyon

 

BearCanyonwasn’t our first, and certainly not our only home. Married Student stacks at Montana State College and a range-rider’s cabin nearWhitehallpreceded theBearCanyonyears. Yet our canyon home was the old “homestead”, the great adventure, the cradle in which our family formed.

We leftBearCanyonfor three winters in easternMontana, a school year inOgden,Utah, and four complete years in Deer Lodge,Montana. No member of the family considered these as anything more than temporary wanderings. Like Indians following buffalo, we knew we had to go where a livelihood could be had. The folks never sold theBearCanyonproperty and we knew we would return.

Once, when finances must have been especially precarious, Dad called us around the kitchen table for a council. He had accepted a teaching position inUtah. Should we sell the house and land? Howling like wolves, we pleadingly made known our disapproval. We threatened mutiny. We wanted a secure place of retreat if our excursion the big city didn’t work out. All through the scene, Mother patiently waited, smiling a Mona Lisa smile. She must have predicted our adamant position and the effect it would have on Dad. She might even have engineered the meeting to take this course. She was quietly pleased when the decision was so obviously against selling.

Though the Bear Canyon years were only a part of our family’s experience, they were the formative ones. In all our travels, our humble sanctuary in the mountains beckoned us to return. It was home. The other places were mere outposts, temporary assignments away from headquarters. Like mica in granite, we were part of it, and it was part of us.

 

Bear Creek

 

Bear Creek is a modest tributary of theGallatin River. The Lewis and Clark expedition crossed it almost two hundred years ago, camping near its confluence with Rocky Creek. Our narrow canyon gathers and sends forth this creek; a large river, theMissouri, receives it thirty miles to the west. Despite its small proportions, the creek and the canyon that nests it were the macro-elements of our physical world, major shaping factors.

Annually, spring run-off is a miniature flood of rusty water carrying several times the average flow, but rarely threatening our bridge or buildings. Flooding struck only once in the three decades we occupied the place. That flood pushed boulders, propelled large trees and pounded out the bridge. The creek’s banks crept to within a rod of the house. We had built barely a dozen feet above the low water level of the creek, and back from it fifty yards. Dad refused funds the government offered for rebuilding the bridge. He had built it in the first place and still enjoyed the health and stubbornness to provide his own crossing.

In the early days, the creek was used for laundry and bathing. It watered our horses and cows. In the winter, Dad axed holes in the ice to make watering holes.

The three hundred feet of creek cutting through our land was the Parks and Recreation Department. All kids ought to have such a creek to play in, to build ineffectual dams in and to explore. It was a racetrack for our version of theAmerica’s Cup. It was a foot cooler. It was a boundary for games of pursuit. The creek formed a buffer against the county road, subtly separating us from the human race plying there.

Expectant young eyes imagined fish, big ones, behind rocks and submerged trees. Only at later, less idealistic ages would we realize that fish grew to a maximum of eleven inches there, with the average being smaller. Feed simply was not that plentiful because tumbling waters were too cold and fast to allow the growth of fish food. But we did not know that and preferred to see more potential in our private fishery than really existed.

Frontier families have no access to symphonies, sonnets or galleries. But the little creek partly supplied the lack. It gave us music, a passport to the other-world of poetry and a perpetually variable visual feast.

Bald Mountain

 

Across the road rose the open, sage-covered mountain. Due to the steep sides of the canyon and the spruce and fir trees hemming us in like the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the south-facing mountain provided the only vista available to us. It bore no dark secrets; everything about it was exposed to view, inviting full perusal. Bears lurked behind the house in the damp forests; in front, perky deer and haughty moose roamed double-chinned, dome-faced BaldMountain.

The sun came blaring over the crest on summer mornings- not too early, for our home was squeezed into the bottom of the canyon like a speck in the bellows of an accordion. Welcome rays parted the border of fir trees cresting the top of the hill. The old trees stood like so many Indians atop a ridge in a John Wayne movie scene. Like their stern chief, the sun edged through the ranks to lead a daily charge to our encampment.

The mountain provided many landmarks, labeled, cataloged and mapped in years of juvenile exploration. The Three Sisters, towering fir trees, formed the points of an eight foot triangle. They were ideal for climbing owing to comfortable spaced, sturdy horizontal branches. From them one could spy on town and beyond into theGallatinValley.

The Big Tree, a stately old thing, stood aloof just above the point where other evergreens and aspen gave up their fight against the dry southern exposure. This granddaddy served as a rendezvous point for young hunters. We sometimes ate lunch there and agreed how to split up and reconvene. When, years later, we watched the Big Tree explode in an eight acre forest fire, we felt we were losing a friend. The ground was always dry under its expansive branches.

At the mountain’s crown, behind the fir trees at the scalp line, snaked the trace of an abandoned logging road. Beyond this road another drainage began: Stinger Creek. The formidable terrain rebuked hikers. Moose inhabited the bottoms, but to shoot them, a hunter had to negotiate deadfall timber tangled enough to make WWII barbed wire defenses look harmless.

Two hundred yards from our place, at the bottom ofBaldMountain, two cabins languished in the advanced states of their lives. They may be the oldest structures inBearCanyon. As explorers and cosmologists are prone to name peaks and galaxies, in a stupendous effort at creativity we named the cabins Number One and Number Two. Number One had a porch of rotting planks from which we peered in to see a tousled mattress and not much else. Number Two, a hundred yards up an overgrown trail, had two out-buildings and a grinding wheel. Of the two, it showed more evidence of a woman’s touch; a line for drying clothes and an addition for storage at the back.

BaldMountain, a pleasure to view, was not lightly tackled. Even to reach the Three Sisters, a mere fourth of the way up, one had to muster significant resolve. The slopes with the dark forests behind the house suited walkers more. This difference madeBaldMountainlonelier for visitors. One day I went to the vicinity of the Big Tree to pray. I knew that I would not be disturbed, though the house was close enough that I could hear dogs bark, cars pass and hoods slam. We mostly viewed the dome from the bottom as tourists do theEmpireStateBuildingwhen the elevators are out of order, with admiration, but little inclination to climb the stairs.

 

 

Home and Hearth

The First Cabin

 

Dad and Mother bought twenty timbered acres inBearCanyonas he neared the end of his college training. They immediately erected shelter. The outside dimensions were twenty by fifteen feet. Eight-by-eights set at the corners and in the middle bore the roof’s load. The roof pitched slightly, shedding water at the back. Rough two-by-fours framed between the main posts. Concrete was too expensive so we did without a foundation. The floor consisted of plywood sheets nailed to studs placed on edge. A few weeks after the sheeting was put down, Dad laid some thick brown linoleum from a demolished Army barracks. This was superior to the plywood because it could be mopped. It may have served, before the barracks, in a battle ship.

The preschool children were exceedingly helpful during the construction of the first cabin. We played with anything that presented itself. A refrigerator standing beside the stud wall begged to be used as a “house.” Everyone else was house-raising; why shouldn’t we? Quickly we placed dibs on what we considered the choices compartments, ground level rack, mezzanine rack, or penthouse rack. As we climbed into our cramped new lodgings, the big, white appliance tumbled on it face, evicting the squatters without due process.

We wailed and whimpered as Mother whisked us down to the creek. It was “running water” in the most primitive sense. It now served as first aid bay, a place to wash cuts and expose any real damage. In years to come we would resort to the creek as a place to heal a harried soul. Constantly changing, gurgling and splashing, its kindly patter calmed tired nerves and weary hearts.

Friends from the church came to help build the first cabin. The Boy Scout troop came one evening to help insulate. Mostly they gawked about, surprised that people actually planned to live in such a dwelling. The first bridge was a log. Crossing the creek on this log, one of the church ladies lost her glasses. Several men pawing around in the stones and clear water failed to recover them.

A few weeks into construction, and prior to completing the insulation and siding, we entertained a visitor. This uninvited guest called late one summer evening. It was fully dark. Dad was due back from town at about this hour. Mother was in bed. Like sausages on a skillet, my sisters and I slept on the floor, side by side on a mat. Attracted by a ham hanging above the cook stove, a bear entered the framed doorway and proceeded in that direction. Mother shrieked with a volume meant to be heard at our neighbor’s, two hundred yards distant. This alarmed the poor bear greatly. His paw had set the ham swinging, but he reconsidered and beat a hasty retreat. Dad complained to Mother after hearing about the incident, “You probably scared him so that he’ll never come back.” Dad finished the siding immediately after this visit. The hung blanket acting as a door was soon replaced by a plank door suitable as a deterrent to unannounced visitors of the animal kingdom.

Toilet facilities were out back. Bathing was out front, first in the creek and later in a fifteen-gallon galvanized tub. Since the creek was icy cold, even in summertime, the interval between baths was only somewhat less than that between full solar eclipses. The galvanized tub was a fine advance over the creek, but heating water on the cast iron cook stove was tedious. As a result, bathing was usually reserved for Saturday nights. We vied for first bath. The water became soapy and scummy as successive people used it. Two kids could be washed at once, so the selected twosome went first. The left over kid got second washing. By the time three kids were done, fresh water was ready for the parents who bathed and toweled under cover of darkness.

Though it was not spacious, the cabin served our needs. No one is known to have frozen to death there. Dim light radiated from a couple of bulbs dangling at the ends of cords, defying the Uniform Building Code. Curtains divided the space into quadrants.

Later this cabin was used for storage and a kid hangout. It was here five sobbing kids read to each other the closing pages of Where the Red Fern Grows. Now it is merely a memory, a ghost at the end of the sidewalk. The First Cabin is the picture that comes to mind when I sing one of our family folk classics, “Little Green Valley.”

 

I see a candlelight

Down in the LittleGreenValley

Where morning glory vines

Are twinin’ ‘round the door.

 

Oh, how I wish I were back again,

Down in the LittleGreenValley,

That’s where my homesick heart

Would trouble me no more.

What Pay Freeze?

 

What Pay Freeze?

Over 17 Months, Raises Averaged 4.13%

Of these 35 employees, 26 got raises, ranging from 1.5% to 12%, in a 17 month period. 26/35, or 74% of employees, got pay raises averaging 4.13%. Of those that got raises, the average was 5.4%. This data set of 35 is more randomly selected, and thus more indicative of the entire list of 14,000 employees, than the data set below of 59, wherein 19/23 that didn’t appear on the first list, got raises, 83%. Raises ranged from $355 to $14,327.

Below is a larger data set with 59 employees. It includes the set above and adds some randomly selected Department of Administration employees and 13 Department of Administration employees who got bonuses on top of their raises. They are the last 13 in the table. Besides raises, bonuses ranged from $510 to $3,600. The largest raise was 17.2%.

Last name	First Name	Annual pay May 2010	Annual pay Nov 2011	Increase	Percent increase	Job/Dept	Bonus pay 2011 (Situational Pay)
Aaby	Darrell	$               38,230.00	$            39,794.00	$   1,564.00	4.09%	BCI/Lab	unknown
Aafedt	Randy	$               62,566.00	$            70,073.00	$   7,507.00	12.00%	ECM/Tran	unknown
Aagenes	Madeline	$               28,641.00	$            29,074.00	$     433.00	1.51%	LPT/DPHHS	unknown
Aageson	Christopher	$               60,236.00	$            60,245.00	$         9.00	0.01%	PS/Gov	unknown
Aakre	James	$               45,656.00	$            50,449.00	$   4,793.00	10.50%	CTSM/Tran	unknown
Aamold	Albert	$               62,004.00	$            65,408.00	$   3,404.00	5.49%	Pilot/DNRC	unknown
Aamold	Celia	$               23,628.00	$            23,983.00	$     355.00	1.50%	NA/DPHHS	unknown
Aarstad	Richard	$               38,313.00	$            39,649.00	$   1,336.00	3.49%	A/Hist	unknown
Aasal	Robert	$               22,339.00	$            22,339.00	$            -	0.00%	CSA/DPHHS	unknown
Aasheim	Ronald	$               74,963.00	$            83,948.00	$   8,985.00	11.99%	OM/FWP	unknown
Babcock	Teresa	$               25,355.00	$            25,727.00	$     372.00	1.47%	AT/DPHHS	unknown
Baber	Tammy	$               24,086.00	$            26,413.00	$   2,327.00	9.66%	TXTech/Rev	unknown
Babinez	Shellie	$               50,668.00	$            55,652.00	$   4,984.00	9.84%	HPOff/Justice	unknown
Bach	Edward	$               40,955.00	$            43,209.00	$   2,254.00	5.50%	Maint/Tran	unknown
Bachini	Jody	$               60,195.00	$            62,312.00	$   2,117.00	3.52%	CivEngS/Tran	unknown
Backeberg	Cynthia	$               46,841.00	$            50,347.00	$   3,506.00	7.48%	TaxEx/Rev	unknown
Backes	Kenneth	$               39,416.00	$            41,588.00	$   2,172.00	5.51%	ConTech/FWP	unknown
Backstrom	James	$               36,150.00	$            36,152.00	$         2.00	0.01%	Maint/Tran	unknown
Bacon	Roger	$               34,257.00	$            34,257.00	$            -	0.00%	PurAg/Admin	unknown
Bacon	Dean	$               32,614.00	$            32,618.00	$         4.00	0.01%	Ranch/Corr	unknown
Baer	Brian	$               39,332.00	$            39,919.00	$     587.00	1.49%	MVSafety/Tran	unknown
Baerlocher	Lee	$               71,822.00	$            77,214.00	$   5,392.00	7.51%	ProMgr/Tran	unknown
Caddell	Tatjana	$             173,056.00	$          179,103.00	$   6,047.00	3.49%	Psych/DPHHS	unknown
Cade	L.	$               37,190.00	$            39,982.00	$   2,792.00	7.51%	CivEngTech/Tran	unknown
Cadwallader	Mark	$               66,372.00	$            70,015.00	$   3,643.00	5.49%	Lawyer/Labor	unknown
Cadwell	Lori	$               23,836.00	$            24,199.00	$     363.00	1.52%	AcctCl/FWP	unknown
Cain	Jamie	$               38,334.00	$            38,332.00	$        (2.00)	-0.01%	Acct/Admin	unknown
Cain	Cyra	$               69,617.00	$            73,441.00	$   3,824.00	5.49%	Atmospher/DEQ	unknown
Cain	Alan	$               39,041.00	$            41,184.00	$   2,143.00	5.49%	MaintIV/Tran	unknown
Cairns	Valerie	$               62,816.00	$            65,126.00	$   2,310.00	3.68%	Ad/Public Def	unknown
Caissey	Joshua	$               21,486.00	$            21,493.00	$         7.00	0.03%	PsychAide/DPHHS	unknown
Calabrese	Julian	$               53,372.00	$            54,176.00	$     804.00	1.51%	EnSciSpc/DEQ	unknown
Calcaterra	Daniel	$               39,041.00	$            39,037.00	$        (4.00)	-0.01%	Painter/Corr	unknown
Calder	Brenda	$               32,760.00	$            33,901.00	$   1,141.00	3.48%	SocServSpc/DPHHS	unknown
Ellings	Larry	$               40,996.00	$            44,069.00	$   3,073.00	7.50%	Livestock	unknown
Petrosky	Lori	$               46,051.00	$            47,672.00	$   1,621.00	3.52%	Labor	unknown
Conwell	Jennifer	$               46,862.00	$            46,860.00	$        (2.00)	0.00%	EconOppSpc/Labor	unknown
Ducello	Marla	$               46,862.00	$            50,376.00	$   3,514.00	7.50%	AdminSpc/Labor	unknown
Tilleman	Travis	$               46,841.00	$            47,549.00	$     708.00	1.51%	EconOppSpc/Labor	unknown
Gianoulias	William	$               97,780.00	$          105,111.00	$   7,331.00	7.50%	Lawyer/Admin	unknown
Fitzsimmons	Robert	$             100,880.00	$          100,880.00	$            -	0.00%	Financial Examiner/Admin	unknown
Olson	Martin	$               88,795.00	$            99,449.00	$ 10,654.00	12.00%	Admin	unknown
Clark	Richard	$             111,612.00	$          111,622.00	$       10.00	0.01%	OtherProf/Admin	unknown
O’Connell	Thomas	$               83,283.00	$            97,610.00	$ 14,327.00	17.20%	OpMgr/Admin	unknown
Noland	Steve	$               88,171.00	$            97,436.00	$   9,265.00	10.51%	CISM/Admin	unknown
Staudohar	Paul	$               81,681.00	$            89,040.00	$   7,359.00	9.01%	Financial Examiner/Admin	$                                 3,600.00
Duffy	Michael	$               48,547.00	$            49,274.00	$     727.00	1.50%	Financial Examiner/Admin	$                                 1,560.00
Peltomaa	Tamara	$               50,315.00	$            58,870.00	$   8,555.00	17.00%	Financial Examiner/Admin	$                                 1,480.00
Hayhurst	Eric	$               40,560.00	$            46,550.00	$   5,990.00	14.77%	Financial Examiner/Admin	$                                    840.00
Hayhurst	Sean	$               33,529.00	$            40,532.00	$   7,003.00	20.89%	Financial Examiner/Admin	$                                 1,240.00
Andrews	Yolanda	$               38,001.00	$            38,000.00	$        (1.00)	0.00%	Financial Examiner/Admin	$                                 1,080.00
Gleich	Cynthia	$               74,006.00	$            76,006.00	$   2,000.00	2.70%	Financial Examiner/Admin	$                                 2,000.00
Ross	John	$               71,552.00	$            74,059.00	$   2,507.00	3.50%	FOSM/Admin	$                                 1,520.00
Roach	Rita	$               68,494.00	$            71,925.00	$   3,431.00	5.01%	Financial Examiner/Admin	$                                    720.00
Kuntz	Joseph	$               44,844.00	$            52,625.00	$   7,781.00	17.35%	Financial Examiner/Admin	$                                    680.00
Christianson	Richard	$               48,609.00	$            53,407.00	$   4,798.00	9.87%	Financial Examiner/Admin	$                                    760.00
Greyn	Carra	$               40,518.00	$            48,009.00	$   7,491.00	18.49%	Financial Examiner/Admin	$                                    510.00
Wertz	Kimberly	$               38,001.00	$            38,000.00	$        (1.00)	0.00%	Financial Examiner/Admin	$                                    960.00

 

What pay freeze?

 

From the MEA-MFT website:

Montana state employees voluntarily agreed to a two-year pay freeze in 2009 to help balance the state budget when the Great Recession hitMontana.

 

“They carried their weight, and they continued to provide quality services with no pay increase for the past two years,” said Quint Nyman, executive director of the Montana Public Employees Association, speaking at the May 25 news conference. “Demanding that they do it again while state revenues continue to increase daily is not reasonable.”

 

Nyman continued, “Funding this pay plan agreement was never the issue – the money was always there. The legislative majority said they didn’t want to give state employees a modest increase because private sector employees weren’t getting raises. But that’s just not true. According to the Dept. of Labor Statistics, private sector employees are seeing pay increases — both nationally and inMontana.”

 

Timm Twardoski, executive director of AFSCME, said, “The legislative majority has failed each and every state employee.  They have proven they have no respect for the important work state employees do every day for the people and economy ofMontana. It’s unimaginable to ask anyone to take a pay freeze for five calendar years with no explanation.”

 

“We’re not done with the state pay plan yet,” said Feaver. “We’re fighting for our state employee members, who got a raw deal from the Republican-dominated legislature.”

http://www.mea-mft.org/Articles/state_pay_plan_ulp_dec_15_hearing_on_our_appeal.aspx

How Big is Italy’s Problem?

How Big isItaly’s Problem?

 

$650 billion euros would get them by “for a few years.” That’s $877 billion dollars.

Italyhas 60 million people. (A proportional bailout for theUSwould be $4.4 trillion.)

$14,616 per person, $58,500 per “family” would solveItaly’s problem for a few years, meaning politicians would not have to lay off any government workers, freeze pay and benefits, redesign public worker pensions, or reduce social benefits to levels of a few years ago.

 

CouldGermanyhelp?

They have 82 million people.

Each “family” could send $42,780 toItaly’s public unions and welfare beneficiaries.

No wonderGermanydesists.

They have not the money either.

 

 

 

“Politicians [ inEurope] don’t want to tackle the hard and dangerous work- witness the unionized public workers taking to the streets to protect their sinecures- of budget control.” (George Melloan, WSJ Nov. 30, 2011, A Political Solution for the Euro?)

What is Communism?

What is Communism?

Click the title to download the Power Point presentation.

The download could take over a minute. It is 16 MB.

What Causes Poverty?

What Causes Poverty?

 

I ask people, “What causes poverty?”

 

Today I asked a state employee.

 

She said, “Lack of money.”

 

I said, “Explain yourself.”

She said, “I had more stuff when I was on food stamps. I was on every government program. My rent was $200 each month because I was on the Section 8 program. Power was paid by the Low Income Energy Assistance Program. I had food stamps and WIC, (Women, Infant, and Children.) Medicaid. Everything was taken care of. I had a boyfriend and a baby. I earned $500 each month working 2-4 hours a day cleaning rooms at minimum wage. It was easy. I didn’t have to worry about anything.

 

Now I make $13 an hour and have to pay $600 each month in rent, utilities, (she still probably qualifies for food stamps because now she has more than one child and her $2,200 monthly income is below 185% of the federal poverty line for a household of 3), $130 a month in internet so I can go to college, (I wonder what kind of internet that is- mine is $48). Why work when if you don’t everything is taken care of? Everything!”

My sister is on all the programs. She’s taking advantage of the system. She went to a culinary arts school inOregon, a Cordon Bleu school, and ran up $90,000 in debt. She has a 60” TV and the monster sound system. She and her friends frequently go to IHOP and Denny’s. I go out to eat maybe twice a month. She works part-time for spending money, but otherwise everything is taken care of.

I don’t know why she is like that- we were raised in the same household. Maybe it’s being from a different generation- she’s three years younger. She got the idea of entitlement somehow.

People taking all the benefits have nice new cars. It makes me sick the way they spend their big check at tax time.”

 

I asked a school administrator, “What causes poverty?”

He said, “It’s not money. It’s a mindset, a culture, though you can be temporarily short on money.”

I asked a business manager, “What causes poverty.”

 

He described growing up with a father who was a tradesman and worked sporadically.

“My parents did not know how to get out of that pit. It (poverty), is partly due to the economy. There is a need for jobs. It (poverty), is also a choice. People I interview for jobs say, ‘I only want to work Tuesday through Friday and I need to get off at 1:00 on Friday.’ Or they say,’ I just have to come to these interviews so I can get benefits.’ I think it’s easier to accept assistance than take an entry level job.”

Food Insecurity questioned

I recently completed an article titled, Hunger in America: The Myth.

Some of its salients points are:

• Free school lunch kids waste 46% more food than regular price kids. How can poor kids be hungrier?
• School lunch waste is about 30%. Where’s the hunger?
• School lunch provides all the calories a kid needs; then poor kids go home and eat the food stamp pop, candy bars, take-and-bake pizza and donuts.
• A family of 6 can get $24,300 per year in food stamps, free school food and food bank food. A non-recipient family of 6 usually spends $11,500 per year on food.
• The poor are adding weight faster than the non-poor.
• Arguments as to why the poor make bad choices with food stamps do not stand scrutiny.
• The food stamp program this year costs $77 billion. Mr. Obama wants to add $9 billion to that. A healthy food list reform could cut spending in half; no recipient would go hungry and the nation’s deficit would be substantially reduced.
• At least 57% of food stamp spending is for foods high in high fructose corn syrup, cholesterol, fat and sodium. Food stamps buy unhealthy food.
• The USDA and the Obama Administration are aggressively expanding food stamps and free school lunch.
•  The USDA rebuffedNew York City’s request to drop soda pop from permissible food stamp purchases.

Its conclusion is: One should imbibe alarms about pervasive hunger skeptically.

The Wudge Report: Snippets and Headlines from the Wall Street Journal

Benefits Run Out for Spain’s Jobless

Spanish unemployment benefits of $2,000 per month for workers with two children only last 24 months, compared to three to five years in some European countries.

Euro Zone Economic Data Point to Gloomy Year-End

0.2% is the lastest quarterly growth reported for the euro zone. Third quarter activity is expected to slow.

For Ordinary Greeeks, Bailout Adds Up to Years of Hardship

“Andreas Papandreou…the father of modern Greek socialism.”

“Ms. Visvardis says, ‘I’m not one to blame the troika”, referring to the committee of EU bailout inspectors widely seen here as the principal architects of austerity. ‘We’re to blame.’”

Mr. Papadopoulos says, “We’ll live poor but we’ll have our freedom and we’ll decide what to do.”

Comment: The Greeks are like the Boy Scout, who spent all of his $40 spending money on the first day of the trip, then pouted when he didn’t have any money later. Greeks spent their money! Now they are mad it’s gone. They borrowed money. Now they’re mad the lenders want it back.

Chinese Drop Tax After Riots

Photo caption: Armed paramilitary police patrol  a busy street of Zhili township, part of the city of Huzhou in China’s Zhejiang province on Friday.

“Workshop managers were being charged between $48 and $96 for each machine used.” Called the sewing-machine tax.

How Harrisburg Borrowed Itself Into Bankruptcy

Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, is drowning in debt. Projects of dubious value. The city even borrowed money to buy a money-losing minor league baseball team. It spent some $39 million on a National Civil War Museum that opened in 2001. It has struggled for years to attract crowds.

Notable and Quotable excerpts Michael Caine’s autobiography about communism, free love and redistribution. LOL.