Short Story: Brother Quid, Part I

I peek as the final shaft of sunlight cuts through the low clouds over the Strait of Juan de Fuca and scatters on the wave tops. Raindrops are sitting on the window of my battered Ford 150, nosed up to the edge of False Bay. The tide is out; the Bay looks like a mud pie. For the most part, I have my eyes closed and try to meditate. Daylight is almost gone and it is only four o’clock. Ahh, winter in the Northwest.

Inhale…exhale. Inhale…exhale. The events of the day intrude on my ritual. I can’t even get to six or seven complete breaths without recalling the phone call out of nowhere. Brother, Quid, had been granted parole and is on his way to our island “to get reacquainted.” I can guess what he has in mind. He and his girl friend, Melba, the Queen of Clean, had both been jailed for a long series of thefts on the island. She is still there. It is almost funny how they were caught.

Melba, as wide as she was tall, cleaned houses. Quid, a muscular guy, did odd jobs when he could find them. As it turned out, Melba’s cleaning work included stealing choice items from her wealthier, second-home clients’ homes, usually when the clients were “off island,” as being gone to the mainland is called by locals. Quid did his part by selling the stolen items in various ways, far and wide across the state. Their mistake was Melba’s putting a few items into the local, consignment shop one day while Quid was traveling. On a subsequent Saturday, an island resident noticed a nice painting on the wall as she was browsing through the shop, Funk & Junk. “That picture looks a lot like one I used to have,” she commented casually to the clerk, a teenager. The lady took a closer look. It was her picture, which had recently disappeared. The lady knew the sheriff, and the rest is history.

Quid had been a minor challenge to our family off and on for years. He served in the Navy and then twenty-five years in the Louisville fire department. He was often humorous; at the same time he had a mean streak in him and seemed to be a magnet for barroom brawls. His journey through time included a couple of marriages and a continuing series of girl friends. He discovered Melba when he visited me for a small family reunion I organized two years ago. “One woman is too much, and zero isn’t enough,” was a Quid original. It was, however, the mean streak that worried me.

I start my engine and glance in the rear-view mirror. A few sheep munch grass in the empty field across the rutted, unpaved road. I back out and around and head for town and the ferry landing. The boat from the mainland is due in at five. I have to meet it and see him before I head back home for Reno on Thursday.

Copyright © 2013 by Steven C. Brandt 

Big Chief & Lovers Leap at Tahoe

Many places around the world have their own lover’s leap, but few are as dramatic as the one on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe. This legend is about how Big Chief came to be.

Long ago after the lake was formed the Qua people had spread throughout the High Sierra and beyond. One large group of Quas lived winters in the foothills near Auburn, CA and summers on tranquil Carnelian Bay near the center of the North Shore of the great lake in the sky. The Quas fished the lake; and they hunted the forested lands running north towards today’s Mt. Pluto and northwestward to what they called the Big Gorge, today’s Truckee Canyon.

The Carnelian Bay Quas were a happy people largely because of the wisdom and spirit of their chief. According to E.B. Scott in The Saga of Lake Tahoe, the chief was so proficient in his leadership abilities that words could not describe his abilities. So his people gave him the title of “No-Name.” However, like Achilles, Chief No-Name had one vulnerability: He was very, very protective of his one daughter, Cedar Heart.

Cedar Heart was fragile, beautiful, and quite intelligent. She traveled regularly with her father in both summer and winter, so she knew many people in the Tahoe Region. However, Chief No-Name scared away any potential suitors who attempted to connect with Cedar Heart in any way. At the same time the Chief, in his private moments, wanted his daughter to wed and carry on the tribal customs that he had nurtured for many years.

During the extra-warm days early one August at Tahoe, a handsome brave from just beyond the mountains to the east (the Carson Range) entered the picture. He met Cedar Heart by chance on the white-sand beach known today as Sand Harbor. Before the month was out, he had won her love.

When she reported the romance to her father one morning and asked if he would welcome the brave to the tent. The brave was waiting outside. In a heartbeat Chief No-Name flew into an uncharacteristic rage, and he called for the immediate death of the young man. At once there was screaming and yelling and great commotion among the Quas.

Simultaneously the couple fled the camp together and headed on foot into the forest toward Mt. Pluto to the north. The Chief and his main men quickly followed in hot pursuit. Cedar Heart and her lover-to-be cut through the saddle between Mts. Pluto and Watson in an attempt to circle down hill to the bottom of the Big Gorge. There they hoped to hurry along the Truckee River to Squaw Valley…and up the valley to the Sierra Crest. At that point they would cross over the top, follow the established trail down to the American River, and travel on west to the green valleys of central California where they could be united forever.

E.B. Scott reports that the Great Spirit, “moved by the plight of the terrified couple, instantly started a tremendous storm that swept the forest.” Thunder roared and rain poured thought the treetops. Huge clouds blocked the sun and darkened everything, and the faint trails here and there became obscure. The couple became disoriented. At the same time, the Chief and his warriors were closing the gap.

Suddenly, Cedar Heart and her brave found themselves out in the open on the upper edge of the Big Gorge. For hundreds of feet below them there were sheer cliffs with sharp, wet granite rocks protruding at all angles. And at the very bottom was the winding river they so wanted to reach and cross.

Chief No-Name came howling out of the trees with his spear in hand; his warriors fanned out left to right. There was no chance for the couple to escape. They embraced, locked their arms around each other’s wet bodies, looked west, and leapt into space, tumbling together, slowly at first, into the yawning gorge that even today opens to the sky.

The Chief ran to the edge, not believing what he had seen, aghast at what he had done. There was no sign of Cedar Heart on the dark rocks below. He was seized with grief and despair. His life was over.

Kneeling on the slanted, flat surface from which the couple had departed, he beat his hands into the granite until they bled. The rain continued to slash into him as minutes turned to hours. His warriors blended back into the forest, fearful of their own lives.

The Chief looked to the heavens to implore the Great Spirit for help, but only more rain and thunder came in return. Chief No-Name seemed frozen in place, his face contorted as he slowly looked down, then up, then down into the abyss again.

At long last he started to rise, but the Great Spirit had wedded him to the grayish-brown rock high above the gorge. The Chief let out a long wale of anguish and stared once more into the great, storm-cloud-filled sphere above him. Then, ever so gradually, he sank into the cool granite until only the profile of his face—regal forehead, determined nose, strict mouth—remained, looking into the heavens, as it does still today.

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The author is indebted to E.B. Scott for his details on the Truckee Canyon and Lover's Leap in his wonderful book, The Saga of Lake Tahoe.

Copyright (c) 2013 Steven C. Brandt

Carnelian Bay on Dwellable

Add Banter to Your Daily Routine

My first encounter with banter was while playing high school baseball. There are lulls during a game, and team members tended to fill them with meaningless chatter that kept life in the contest. My next experience with banter was as a laborer on a construction gang engaged in tearing down an old dime store in Fountain Square, in Indianapolis. All day long there were exchanges between the guys who came in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Someone always had a comment to make, and there would always be a reply from a guy close by. No quip went unanswered. And so the days moved along.

I don’t recall much banter, per se, in college except for that which occurred as everyone was standing around the fraternity house living room awaiting the sound of the dinner chime. The conversation was all in good humor except for a rare, serious matter like an upcoming football contest or a dance.

I stumbled across the Mt. Olympus of banter roughly 25 years ago when I moved to the San Juan Islands in the Great Northwest. There I sat at the feet of the masters for a number of years, the guys who hung out at the Shipyard Cove Marina in Friday Harbor. They were banter pros. Six days a week they met for coffee around 8:30 A.M. in the Harbormaster's office. By 10 A.M. everything was resolved that was going to be. Some would leave or drift out onto the docks. A few would “go to work,” which meant home. The coffee was known for its punch; the conversation for its variety; any conclusions for their lack of real value; and the zinger comment of the day—if there was one—for its potential repeatability at another session.

Normally, during the sessions, one of the participants would end up on the receiving end of one or more barbed comments. Newer guys were particularly vulnerable. Some couldn’t take it and stopped attending. Others just rolled with the punches until the punchers gave up or a new target appeared on his own in the doorway. No invitations to attend were ever issued, but a few people were subtly eased out, purely with banter pressure. I remember one fellow who wore pink pants, no socks, and brought a dog in with him. The guy had a big boat and a mouth to match. He didn’t last long. His exit visa was stamped the day he revealed a mechanic had told him that he had oval shafts and needed to buy new, round ones for his boat. And he bought them! ($10K.) Pinky could never live it down. The oval shaft story gets aired occasionally to this day at the Cove.

The nicknames earned by certain gang members provide a clue to the nature of the gatherings. The names included Little Bill, Sawchuck, Kurmudge (short for curmudgeon), Silent Norm, Headwind, Big Bill, and Swede.

Year in, year out, the banter has continued, and may it ever do so.

How Congress Cheats Americans

It is dis-heartening to read the details of what is actually included in the tepid "Fiscal Cliff" legislation just passed by Congress. Obama gave the legislation his kiss of approval: "millionaires and billionaires will finally pay their fair share." But his spin is a smoke screen. The fact is the legislation raises everyones' taxes except for a long list of favored industries, corporations, and individuals. The long list adds up to about $40 billion in tax gifts that have nothing to do with avoiding the much ballyhooed fiscal cliff. The gifts from the lawmakers go, for a short list of examples, to racetrack owners, Hollywood producers, the windpower industry (think GE and Siemens corporations), some big banks, Whirlpool, StarKist, and other recipients. The hidden gifts were quietly stuffed into the cliff legislation by senators and representatives at the very last moment. The gifts are called "pork." The pork is a payoff to members for the members votes in favor of legislation in process. Being a pork producer is a big help in getting the funds to be re-elected. Taxpayers pay the bills for the pork, of course.

Only the 535 members of the U.S. Congress have authority to spend taxpayer money. Neither the President nor the Supreme Court can do this. There are 435 members in the House of Representatives and 100 in the Senate. Some of them routinely divert U.S. money to their own ends, just as they did as the clock ticked down on the fiscal cliff. The members call the semi-secret system “earmarks.” 

(Following is the essence of an article written by this author in 2009. It is still the way things work in Congress.)

$17 Billion for 11,000 Earmarks in Fiscal Year 2008 Alone

 Earmarks are tiny pieces of legislation buried out of sight in big pieces of legislation. When the big piece of legislation is passed, the little pieces go along for the ride with little review, debate, or notice, and taxpayers pay the bill. The little pieces can direct that federal funds be used for a specific project (see examples below), or the little pieces can direct that certain favored locations or companies or organizations get federal money from various government agencies beholding to Congress for support.

How Congress Cheats. Two Examples.

 #1. During the first week in October 2008, Congress debated the historic $700 billion financial rescue package. The world economy hung waiting for the result. The House of Representatives had already rejected a (Wall Street) bailout bill once. The Senate, hoping to get the House to relent, added $110 billion to the bill in “sweeteners,” and sent the bill back to the House.

One of the sweeteners (an earmark) gave rum makers, Bacardi and Captain Morgan, nearly $192 million in taxpayer money for marketing subsidies and production incentives. But the House would not delay the $700 billion bailout for such a minor item; it is unlikely more than a few of the 435 members even knew of the rum and (several other) earmarks buried in the bailout bill by fellow members. So the $700 billion bill passed, closer to $800 billion in cost to taxpayers. That’s how the system works.

Example #2. Early in the Iraq war, the Senate worked to pass a bill allocating $80 billion to pay for the war. The debate went on until late in the day, and the senators were tired. About 40 minutes before the bill was to be voted upon, members of the elite Appropriations Committee attached a set of miscellaneous (non-war) provisions to the bill. They said that the measures (sweeteners, once again) were needed to guarantee the approval for the bill. At the last minute, the war bill was passed by the Senate, including these special items sponsored by various senators:

• $10 million extra for a science research station at the South Pole.

(Sponsored by Senator Bond of Missouri.)

• $5 million for a communications system for Louisville, KY. (Senator Bunning of Kentucky.)

• An amendment prohibiting DHL from carrying American military cargo because DHL was German-owned. Several senators sponsored this bill after they were heavily lobbied by Federal Express and UPS.

• $3.3 million to repair a leaky dam in VT. (Senator Leahy of VT.)

This is the routine in Washington D.C. According to the watchdog group, Citizens Against Government Waste, earmarks have risen from fewer than 2,000 a year in the mid-1990s to over 11,000 projects costing $17.2 billion in fiscal year 2008. The group’s definition: A pork project is a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures.

Congress: Eats Pork while Driving Us All Off Cliff

Today Congress passed a “fiscal cliff” deal and in the next few days it will (finally) pass a bill with some aid for the Hurricane Sandy victims in N.Y. and N.J. Hidden in both bills are payoffs to members of Congress in exchange for their support. For example, there is money in the bills for Hollywood, some miscellaneous museums in states far from Hurricane Sandy’s impact, and a BIG chunk of money for some large banks and corporations who are “tickling the backs” of D.C. politicians. Here is how it works and we, the taxpayers, get screwed in the process. 

A pork (or “earmark”) project is a line-item in an appropriations bill. The pork part designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures. There were over 11,000 pork projects in fiscal year 2008; they cost taxpayers $17.2 billion. (The contents below were originally written by the author in 2008-9.)

Why Do Many Members of Congress Use & Abuse Earmarks? There are four apparent reasons:

 A. To Get Re-elected. When a member of congress can siphon money from the other 49 states to fund projects in his or her own home district or state, he or she curries favor with the local voters and contributors. The results include votes for the incumbents as well as hard-$ campaign contributions from both voters and corporations that benefit from the infusion of federal money into the local situation. Here are few examples of typical pork projects:

— U.S. House member Ralph Regula earmarked $130 million for the Mary Rugla (his wife) Library in Canton, Ohio. The director of the library is Martha Rugula, the Rugulas' daughter.

— Congressman Charles Rangel swung a $2 million earmark to create a public service career center in his New York district. The name on the center: Rangel’s own, of course; it’s a nice billboard.

— And there was a $3 million pork project called “The First Tee” added to the 2008 Defense Appropriations Act. It provides for learning facilities and programs to teach young people the game of golf. This is an interesting addition to a defense bill; more than likely some golf- industry lobbyists persuaded (i.e. paid) one or more members of Congress to insert this earmark.

Here are two additional examples of some of the most egregious earmarks in recent times, both the handiwork of two of the recognized kings of pork: former Senator Ted Stevens (convicted of seven felonies in November 2008, for taking gifts from lobbyists) and U.S. House member Don Young (“Mr. Concrete”). Both are or were from Alaska. These “public servants” arranged for the now-famous “bridges to nowhere” to be included in federal highway bills.

— A $120 million down-payment for a Ketchikan bridge as big as the Golden Gate Bridge. The new bridge would connect a town with 7,000 people to an island with about 50 residents and the area’s airport, which offers six flights a day. This bridge would replace a five-minute ferry crossing. Pure pork.

– A $200 million down-payment for an Anchorage bridge that would span an inlet for nearly two miles to connect the city to a port that has but one regular tenant and virtually no homes or businesses. Pure pork.

Both of these beauties, actually passed by Congress, will or are being paid for by American taxpayers via the tax they pay on each gallon of gasoline they buy. And these projects are on the books now, at a time when high-volume roads and bridges across the USA are crumbling.

B. To Trade (buy and sell) Votes. Members of congress have to vote on expenditures of taxpayer money and other subjects throughout the year. There is a constant ebb and flow of influence and search for votes to favor or kill sponsored legislation. It is natural that the search degenerates, at times, for some members, into “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” Translated, this means “I will vote for your pet deal…if you include my earmark in your package.” Or vice versa.

Earmarks are used as “internal bribery in order to get members to vote for legislation they wouldn’t ordinarily give two minutes to,” commented House member David Obey of WI, of the House Appropriations Committee.

The acknowledged vote broker for the U.S. House is member John Murtha of PA. According to the New York Times, he arranges things on “both sides of the aisle,” i.e., for Democrats and Republicans, and he often is able to influence swing votes in tight situations.

Murtha was re-elected in a close election on November 4th of 2008 for his seventeenth term (34th year) in the district around Johnstown, PA. He is the absolute master of defense bills pork. In 2007, he obtained $162 million in favors for his district, for 26 different beneficiaries.

According to the Washington D.C. publication, Roll Call, every one of the 26 beneficiaries—many of them in the defense industry—made contributions to Murtha’s campaign kitty, for a total of $413,250.

C. To Attract Campaign Money from “Special Interests.” U.S. House member, Jeff Flake, said in June in a Washington Post interview that: “One good defense earmark can yield tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions,” a practice Flake is actually fighting. Well known Senator, Joseph Liberman, a Connecticut independent, for example, secured more than $5.5 million in earmarks for his home state powerhouse, the United Technologies corporation. It responded to Liberman with $189,000 in donations.

Members of Congress have even found a new way to hide their activities from scrutiny. They can steer federal money to pet projects and favored organizations by making vague requests and “recommendations” to government agencies in committee reports and spending bills. These are appropriately called “soft earmarks,” as contrasted to hard earmarks. According to the New York Times on April 7, 2008: “How much money is requested or suggested for a specific project? It is difficult to say, since price tags are not included in soft earmarks. Who is the sponsor? Unclear, unless the lawmaker later acknowledges it. What is the purpose of the spending? This is typically not provided.”

Here are some of the little ideas members of Congress planted last year in a major spending bill having to do with U.S. foreign operations: 

— A shortwave radio station in Madagascar.

— A program to save hawks in Haiti.

— A program to fight agriculture pests in Maryland.

— An international fertilizer center in Alabama to assist overseas farmers.

There are lobbyists and contributors fingerprints all over each of these little jewels (just like on the current Fiscal Cliff and Sandy bills) for which American taxpayers will have to pay. The Congressional Research Service estimates there was $3 billion in soft earmarks in just one 2007 spending bill alone, and there were 13 such annual appropriations bills before Congress in 2007. “With soft earmarks, everything is done in secret.” So says Keith Ashdown, of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

D. To Play God. Dispensing favors to constituents, admirers, contributors, and “worthy” organizations most likely provides a heady feeling for the congressional favor-giver. One Presidential candidate called earmarks the “Beltway drug.” Doling earmarks out certainly must be more fun than doing the hard work of health care, national security, tax reform, debt reduction, boosting the economy, and so on, presumably the main work for the people for which members of congress were elected by the people.

In many respects, some members of Congress routinely play Monopoly with the tax money sent to Washington by American taxpayers, year in, year out. And according to Robert Reich, the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997, the game is breeding “an economy raised on pork.” He said this in 2005; the current economic quagmire may be the result of such a diet. (And now look at our situation as we start 2013.)

Author's Notes: Not all members of Congress participate in earmarks, and not all earmarks are necessarily "bad." But the idea and process of quasi-secret earmarks is both contagious and poisonous to a society with a government theoretically based on transparency and accountability.

FYI: The term "pork" originated in the 1800s when a pork barrel often was used to store food, e.g., salted pork. The notion behind the term's derogatory use in politics, starting in the 1800s, was that office seekers sometimes provided voters with "food" of some kind in return for votes.

Boxing the Compass off Friday Harbor

As punctual as the tide, each New Years Day at high noon the ancient mariners of San Juan Island take their boats out into the sea and box the compass. Rain or shine, and it’s usually the former, ten to twenty boats swing around to point precisely North as noon approaches. On a signal from the designated leader over the VHF—noon is declared and the boats blast their horns. Those aboard each vessel, power or sail, then ceremoniously take a sip of champagne or other liquid refreshment.

Together, the captains now each swing their boats to starboard until they are pointing due East. When everyone appears to be in alignment, once again the horns sound and sipping commences. Normally there is a bright line along the eastern horizon above the island and beneath a darker overcast. (See picture at top.)

By now a certain rhythm is established, although if it’s quite windy, some skippers have difficulty keeping their boats steady on a point of the compass. South is usually the toughest direction since the wind tends to barrel into the San Juan Channel from the South through Cattle Pass. But as soon as everyone is close to South, the horns and sipping are repeated.

Finally, the boats move to point West for the final stop in welcoming the New Year. By this time, most crewmembers are in good spirits—most captains, too! And it’s time for the parade.

For the finale in the boxing ritual, the boats randomly move into a casual single file to complete a trip around Brown Island and down the middle of Friday Harbor itself. Typically there is a dearth of viewers on the streets of the town at this time of day. But this matters not to the mariners. What is important to them is now the New Year has been properly greeted and welcomed…and it’s time to head back to Shipyard Cove and the on-shore party in the harbormaster’s office.