Saturday, July 13, 2019
VIEWPOINTS
East Oregonian
A5
Getting your goat
E
ach spring, when the city of Pend-
brush. No room for Abby. They would
leton fires up its $25,000 flower
be back to get her in June when the road
munching, goat-driven weedeater,
opened. There were 300 pounds of dry
I think back to when I was a goatherd.
dog food in their cabin. Would I keep her
To be a bit more precise, I once owned a
company? She slept beside my bunk. She
goat.
snored.
Thirteen of us began the winter 32
At dusk a couple of weeks later,
miles off the nearest
two fellows from the val-
plowed road, high in the
ley showed up on snow
machines bearing whiskey
Salmon River Mountains
of central Idaho. Four
and lettuce, precious com-
modities for the snowbound.
were under the age of 5.
“MANDY
We did it up right. When
A friend who had a min-
ing claim nearby decided
DISAPPEARED the whiskey was gone, the
we needed more milk for
boys mounted up and
DURING A MAY city
the smaller citizens, and
tore back out of town. About
showed up before the first
midnight, Beth loaded a
LIGHTNING
snows with a half a ton
dishpan from the party
STORM, JUST
of hay and a milk goat.
house and headed down to
Her name was Mandy,
wash room at the foot of
DISAPPEARED.” the
marked like a mule deer
the hot pool.
with floppy ears. Howdy
Two minutes later she
had an older resident
screamed. We poured out of
goat, Granny, who was
the party house, down to the
about milked out. Granny
pool, to find Abby, red muz-
zled, standing over Gran-
was pleased to have the
ny’s body. Mandy was treading water in
company.
The only other domestic critters in
the pool. The noise and speed of the snow
town were six hens, a pet rat named Ros-
machines had been more than Abby could
coe, a Collie named Snoopy, and a full-
stand.
grown Great Dane named Abby. Abby
We held a town meeting. Should we
became a bit overexcited when dealing
shoot Abby? I said that if she was mine
with quickly moving objects, like humans
I probably would, but she wasn’t and I
on sleds. We had a hill where one could
wouldn’t kill another’s dog. No one else
flop onto a plastic sled and shoosh 50
wanted to play executioner. Should we
yards right into a large hot springs pool.
butcher and eat Granny? No, we had
Abby liked to run alongside the sleds and
plenty of food in the root cellar, particu-
larly with Abby’s owners gone. We would
nip at butt cheeks. She rarely drew blood,
bury Granny in the morning. I didn’t
but I didn’t slide down the hill on my
sleep well with Abby snoring beside my
back.
In early February, Abby’s owners
bunk that night. She had just killed a crit-
loaded up their snow machine and trailer
ter that was my size.
with kids, announced that they’d had
It required pick, shovel, axe, pry bar, a
enough of Paradise and were headed back
bonfire and six hours for Howdy and me
down the mountain to the snow-free sage-
to dig a goat grave beneath 5 feet of snow
and through 4 feet of frozen rock patch.
When we yarded Granny to her resting
place we discovered that she was frozen
stiff in a prone position and would not fit
in the hole, Granny went to goat paradise
as a quadruple amputee. I began locking
Mandy in the barn at night.
A month later, days turned warm
enough to melt the top inch of snow,
which then froze into backcountry side-
walks by midnight. Abby had eaten the
last of our chickens and we voted her
off the mountain. At the next full moon,
Stewart, Laurel and Abby walked 15
miles over the frozen slush, down into the
Salmon River canyon. Laurel walked back
in two weeks later. They had given Abby
to a young couple from Boulder who were
hitching around the country, and were
afraid of cougars. I wondered how hitch-
hiking with a Great Dane was going to go.
Mandy disappeared during a May
lightning storm, just disappeared. I tried
tracking her, watching for cougar or bear
sign, but could not sort between the goat,
deer, and elk tracks. We were back on
powdered milk.
The pass opened on the last day of
June. One of the first rigs to make it over
was Abby’s owner. He rolled up to the
edge of the hot pool, popped the door
on a camper shell and out jumped Abby.
Seems he had stopped to pick up some
hitchhikers and ended up giving them $50
for his own dog. He was a bit hissy until
we told the Granny story.
The very next morning I woke to
a clomping on my porch. Mandy had
returned, looking a bit worse for her vaca-
tion. The hair was rubbed from her lower
legs where she had negotiated deadfall for
a couple of months. Her udder was dry.
Her backstrap was a tick parking lot. She
had lost 20 pounds.
I got out of the goat business on the
J.D. S mith
FROM THE HEADWATERS
OF DRY CREEK
Fourth of July by talking Abby’s owner
into letting Abby ride with him in the cab
and loading Mandy into the camper. He
was to find a herd for her off the moun-
tain, somewhere she wasn’t going to be
the lone member of her species. I never
heard from her again. She didn’t write or
call. However, I have noted in the Pend-
leton weedeaters a few buckskin critters
with wandering eyes that may carry her
DNA.
———
J.D. Smith is an accomplished writer
and jack-of-all-trades. He lives in Athena.
Apollo 11 Golden Anniversary: something for everyone
feared that the upcoming 50th anni-
the moon landing possible. On the negative
versary of the first manned moon land-
side, therapists feel the films may encour-
ing might get eclipsed by other celebra-
age teen suicide. (“Seriously, dude — if I
tions (the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the
ever get a haircut like that one, strap me
50th anniversary of the Stone-
to a Saturn rocket and aim me at a
wall Riots, the 10th anniversary
brick wall.”)
of financier Jeffrey Epstein’s lat-
Dance enthusiasts are excited
est girlfriend learning to tie her
that archival material may finally
shoes, etc.), but apparently the
confirm that Neil Armstrong’s hast-
ily scrapped original plans for his
sky is the limit for Apollo 11
first words on the moon were “Put
remembrances.
And why not? This milestone
your right foot in, take your right
offers something for everyone.
foot out, right foot in and you shake
D anny
Those of us with enough gray
it all about.”
T yree
hairs and wrinkles to remem-
On a related note, linguists and
COMMENT
ber the moon landing as “current
survivalists alike are glad that Pres-
ident Kennedy’s 1962 speech gave
events” view the New Frontier
Americans a challenge that was character-
nostalgically, although we now experience
ized as “hard” — not “easy peasy, lemon
some of the era’s buzzwords with a dif-
ferent perspective. Nowadays the eagerly
squeezy.”
awaited “splashdown” has less to do with
Stamp collectors are ecstatic that the
an ocean rendezvous than with the hoped-
United States Postal Service is releas-
ing two commemorative stamps featuring
for results of our latest high-fiber diet.
Youngsters with aspirations of a STEM
iconic images of the Apollo 11 mission.
(science, technology, engineering, and
Next year, the USPS will issue commemo-
rative stamps with iconic images of stamp
math) career relish seeing footage of the
collectors sitting home alone while their
myriad behind-the-scenes folks who made
I
spouses are out on the town.
Conspiracy theorists are keenly inter-
ested in the anniversary. (“Of course, we
actually went to the moon instead of film-
ing it out in the desert. But the average per-
son doesn’t realize that it was all part of a
botched scheme to beam deadly vaccina-
tion rays back down on an unsuspecting
earth!”)
Representatives of a certain fledgling
industry hope to capitalize on the wist-
ful thoughts of peaceniks who reminisce,
“Maybe it cost billions, but for a few brief
days in July of 1969, the world forgot its
differences and pulled together.” (“Ahem
— it might have been cheaper to have
given everyone a lifetime supply of mari-
juana-infused Tang. Just saying.”)
Native American activists, mindful
of how painfully slow our manned space
explorations have been in the past half-cen-
tury (compared to the rapid spread of rail-
roads, highways and communications
infrastructure) look with bemusement on
the anniversary. (“Sure, if Columbus had
spent three days here, then gone home and
50 years later sponsored a Duran Duran
concert ... yeah, I could live with that.”)
More visionary thinkers, on the other
hand, see the Apollo 11 hoopla as a jump-
start for manned missions to Mars and
beyond. Like the Whos in the Dr. Seuss
book, certain segments of mankind want
to announce to the vast universe, “We are
here, we are here, we are here.”
Granted, when the bill for the deficit
spending comes due, they may sing a dif-
ferent tune. (“We are temporarily indis-
posed, we are temporarily indisposed, we
are temporarily indisposed ... and we didn’t
leave a forwarding address!”)
———
Danny Tyree wears many hats (but still
falls back on that lame comb-over). He is
a warehousing and communications spe-
cialist for his hometown farmers coopera-
tive, a church deacon, a comic book col-
lector, a husband (wife Melissa is a college
biology teacher), and a late-in-life father
(6-year-old son Gideon frequently pops
up in the columns.) Danny welcomes email
responses at tyreetyrades@aol.com and
visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s
Tyrades.”
Acosta resigned — the Caligula administration lives on
O
n Monday, Donald Trump dis-
invited the then-British ambas-
sador, Kim Darroch, from an
official administration dinner with the
emir of Qatar, because he was mad
about leaked cables in which Darroch
assessed the president as “insecure” and
“incompetent.”
There was room at the dinner, how-
ever, for Trump’s friend Robert Kraft,
owner of the New England Patriots, who
was charged in a prostitution sting this
year. Kraft was allegedly serviced at a
massage parlor that had once been owned
by Li Yang, known as Cindy, a regular at
Trump’s club Mar-a-Lago. Yang is now
the target of an FBI inquiry into whether
she funneled Chinese money into Trump’s
political operation.
An ordinary president would not want
to remind the world of the Kraft and Yang
scandals at a time when Jeffrey Epstein’s
arrest has hurled Trump’s other shady
associations back into the limelight.
Epstein, indicted on charges of abus-
ing and trafficking underage girls, was a
friend of Trump’s until the two had a fall-
ing out, reportedly over a failed business
deal. The New York Times reported on a
party that Trump threw at Mar-a-Lago
whose only guests were him, Epstein and
around two dozen women “flown in to
provide the entertainment.”
Epstein, of course, was also linked
to the administration in another way.
The president’s labor secretary, Alex
Acosta, was the U.S. attorney who over-
saw a secret, obscenely lenient deal that
let Epstein escape federal charges for sex
crimes over a decade ago. On Friday, two
days after a tendentious, self-serving news
conference defending his handling of the
Epstein case, Acosta finally resigned.
Even with Acosta gone, however,
Epstein remains a living reminder of the
depraved milieu from which the president
sprang, and of the corruption and misog-
yny that continue to swirl around him.
Sorensen resigned after his ex-wife came
Yet Trump has been only intermittently
forward with stories of his violence toward
interested in distancing himself from
her.
that milieu. More often he has sought,
Elliott Broidy, a major Trump fund-
raiser who became the Republican
whether through strategy or instinct, to
National Committee deputy
normalize it.
finance chairman, resigned last
This weekend, Trump National
year amid news that he’d paid
Doral, the president’s other Flor-
ida golf club, planned to host a
$1.6 million as hush money to
fundraiser allowing golfers to bid
a former Playboy model, Shera
on strippers to serve as their cad-
Bechard, who said she’d had an
dies. Though the event was can-
abortion after he got her pregnant.
celed when it attracted too much
(In a lawsuit, Bechard said Broidy
attention, it’s at once astounding
had been violent.) Casino mogul
M ichelle
and not surprising at all that it was
Steve Wynn, who Trump installed
G olDberG
approved in the first place.
as the RNC’s finance chairman,
COMMENT
In truth, a stripper auction is
resigned amid accusations that
tame by the standard of gross
he’d pressured his employees for
Trump stories, since at least the women
sex. He remains a major Republican donor.
were willing. Your eyes would glaze over
In 2017, Trump tapped the former chief
if I tried to list every Trump associate
executive of AccuWeather, Barry Myers,
implicated in the beating or sexual coer-
to head the National Oceanic and Atmo-
cion of women. Still, it’s worth review-
spheric Administration. Then The Wash-
ington Post discovered a report from a
ing a few lowlights, because it’s astonish-
ing how quickly the most lurid misdeeds
Department of Labor investigation into
fade from memory, supplanted by new
Myers’ company which found a culture of
degradations.
“widespread sexual harassment” that was
Acosta, you’ll remember, got his job
“severe and pervasive.” The Senate hasn’t
because Trump’s previous pick, Andrew
yet voted on Myers’ nomination, but the
Puzder, withdrew following the revelation
administration hasn’t withdrawn it.
that his ex-wife, pseudonymous and in dis-
And just this week, a senior military
guise, had appeared on an Oprah episode
officer came forward to accuse Gen. John
about “High Class Battered Women.” (She
Hyten, Trump’s nominee to be the next
later retracted her accusations.)
vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief
of derailing her career when she turned
strategist, was once charged with domestic
down his sexual advances. “My life was
violence, battery and dissuading a witness.
ruined by this,” she told The Associated
(The case was dropped when his former
Press. (The Air Force reportedly cleared
wife failed to appear in court.) After Bill
him of misconduct.)
Shine, a former co-president of Fox News,
Trump will sometimes jettison men
was forced from his job for his involve-
accused of abuse when they become a
ment in Fox’s sprawling sexual harassment
public relations liability. But his first
scandals, Trump hired him.
instinct is empathy, a sentiment he seems
White House staff secretary Rob Por-
otherwise unfamiliar with. In May, he
ter resigned last year after it was revealed
urged Roy Moore, the theocratic Alabama
that both of his ex-wives had accused him
Senate candidate accused of preying on
of abuse. White House speechwriter David
teenage girls, not to run again because he
would lose, but added, “I have nothing
against Roy Moore, and unlike many other
Republican leaders, wanted him to win.”
The president has expressed no sympathy
for victims in the Epstein case but has said
he felt bad for Acosta.
Trump seems to understand, at least on
a limbic level, that the effect of this caval-
cade of scandal isn’t cumulative. Instead,
each one eclipses the last, creating a sense
of weary cynicism that makes shock
impossible to sustain.
It was just three weeks ago that E. Jean
Carroll, a well-known writer, accused
Trump of what amounted to a violent rape
in the mid-1990s, and two friends of hers
confirmed that she’d told them about it at
the time. In response, Trump essentially
said she was too unattractive to rape —
“No. 1, she’s not my type” — and claimed
that he’d never met her. That was a prov-
able lie; there’s a photograph of them
together before the alleged attack. It didn’t
matter. The story drifted from the head-
lines within a few days.
Since Epstein’s arrest, many people
have wondered how he was able to get
away with his alleged crimes for so long,
given all that’s publicly known about him.
But we also know that the president boasts
about sexually assaulting women, that
over a dozen have accused him of vari-
ous sorts of sexual misconduct, and one of
them has accused him of rape. We know
it, and we know we can’t do anything
about it, so we live with it and grow numb.
Maybe someday justice will come and a
new generation will wonder how we toler-
ated behavior that was always right out in
the open.
———
Michelle Goldberg is an American blog-
ger and author. She is a senior correspon-
dent for The American Prospect and a col-
umnist for The Daily Beast, Slate, and The
New York Times. She is a former senior
writer for The Nation magazine.