The Turf Tiger tractor got a name yesterday. I could tell you about it, or wax hysterical about what is happening in that strange city inside its concrete straightjacket seventy miles to the northwest.

I mentioned that one of my buddies had been on the road for the last week, and is looking now at the crisis from a larger perspective than we have. You know I like to take individual leaves from the tree of the Republic as exemplars of something larger.

In the case of Washington, that might be the execution of a disturbed citizen in front of her child, or the man who committed self-immolation on the National Mall, or the battle of the WW II veterans to enter their memorial.

Yesterday’s surreal story was the closing of the Gulf of Florida to sport fishing; this morning it is the eviction of people from the homes they own on Lake Meade because they are leased from the Park Service.

You know my appreciation for the absurd is vast and playful. But I have missed my pal’s prescient take on the situation. He is looking at the forest, and not the leaves on the trees.

His view is that we are on the edge of something absolutely profound, and deeply troubling. It is much darker than I had considered, and the resolution of this particular crisis could come at a cost that is unimaginable for an old apparatchik like myself.

It takes a step back to see the enormity of what is going on. We have not had a real budget for years. Everyone has become inured to that blatant violation of the Constitutional process.

The reason we do not have a budget is intentional. The Continuing Resolution means that the traditional eleven appropriations bills do not have to be debated and voted upon by the two chambers. In the old world, differences were hammered out in a conference committee. Or at least they used to be.

We are shambling on with the Continuing Resolution because the people who allegedly are running this circus like it that way: spending levels are frozen at the 2010 level, which was, as you recall, pretty lavish.

We have become inured to the assault on the basic agreement between the governed and the governing- this latest crisis takes it to an entirely new level.

Could the President just declare that everyone in the Government is an “essential worker” and then rule without a budget? I don’t know.

Before, the assault on the Bill of Rights jumped around. Political Correctness imposed nullification on free speech in the First Amendment; the concerted attack on the Second will resume with the next horror; the militarization of DHS and local police undermines the Third; the essential revocation of the Fourth by NSA and secret courts; trial by media destroying the Fifth…you know the litany. The list culminates with the precious Tenth, long buried, that says if we did not explicitly grant power to the Feds, it is retained by the several states, or to you and me.

Now the Fourteenth is cited as the grounds by which the President might rule by decree if the House does not agree to a “clean bill,” which is anything but that.

Could this be happening? Could we be on the edge of that real hope-and-change thing? I hope I am wrong. But I think it is entirely possible that there is no going back to representative government the way we knew it. Just think how far we have come in such a short time.

Oh well. That is too much to handle this morning. It was too much to handle yesterday, too, so I wandered down to the barn to see if the trickle-charger had worked on the battery to the tractor. It looked like it had, and I jumped up into the saddle and did the pre-flight check list.

Parking break. Set. Operating levers at disengaged. Check. Feet clear; mower disengaged. Check. Fuel settings to “Choke” and “Fast.” Ignition…ON.

The Tiger roared to life in the middle of the barn. I checked that the charger was stowed away and there was no impediment to forward motion, and unshipped the control levers and brought them together in front of my chest. A gentle forward motion engaged the wheels and the Turf tiger edged forward.

I goosed it and emerged from the barn and pulled back slightly on the left controller and pushed slightly forward on the right. The two motions swung the orange machine gracefully around the JG’s hulking Explorer that was resting in front of the garage.

Clear of obstructions, I pushed full forward on both levers and headed up the hill toward the country road.

Hell, I needed to return the bowl the Russians had filled with garden fresh purple peppers! Two birds with one stone! I swung to the right and around the Panzer and shut the machine down so I could limp into the farmhouse, retrieve the white pottery bowl and limp back to the tractor.

As I stepped down from the porch, I thought about what the legendary country singer Tammy Wynette said about her tumultuous marriage to the equally legendary crooner George Jones. I put the bowl on the orange mower deck and climbed gingerly into the seat, dialing back the choke a bit and firing the beast up with a puff of blue smoke.

Tammy said she woke up one time at one in the morning to find her husband gone. She got into her Caddie and drove to the nearest bar, which was ten miles away. When she pulled into the parking lot, she saw the family rider-mower right by the entrance. George had driven that mower right down a main highway to get there at about five miles and hour. She said that when she walked into the bar, George looked up and said, ‘Well, fellas, here she is now. My little wife, I told you she’d come after me.’”

I maneuvered the Tiger out and peered into the mirror to check for oncoming traffic. There was none that I could see, and I did the fore-and-aft move with the levers and roared out onto the road. I found I could keep it pretty well centered with a little tug on the left control arm.

Top speed? I dunno. Maybe ten miles an hour? How long would it take to get to the Ruby Tuesdays in town at that speed? I roared down the road and pushed left forward and right back to zoom into the gravel driveway and bounce over the ruts toward where the Russians were sitting in plastic chairs next to the truck patch.

“Hey!” I said, shutting down the tractor. “I figured out what to name the Turf Tiger!”

Mattski looked at me phlegmatically. “Why do you have to anthropomorphize everything?” he said.

“I just do. Meet George,” I said, gesturing at the orange beast. “Perfect country vehicle for going out for drinks.”

Mattski nodded, as if that made perfect sense. Natasha poured a glass of Old House chardonnay and handed it to me. “Now for the real news. Yesterday, Sasha fell from the tree.”

“Damn,” I said. “Finally some real news.”

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303