(Three of the five engines successfully resurrected at Refuge Farm this weekend. Not shown is the ’59 Rambler and the ’04 Turf Tiger).

Never got to generate a story yesterday, Gentle Readers, though there was certainly enough on which to comment. One of them was really depressing. They took a classmate off the ventilator up in Michigan. She is expected to pass quickly.

That makes two pals in two weeks. I understand from some older friends that the pace of loss accelerates in this decade of life, then takes a bit of a break until we hit our eighties when the funerals start to get back-to-back. That is the way of things, I guess. Death, Taxes and the Weather.

All of in the national Capital Region have been glued to our radios, gasping in relief at the news from Traffic & Weather on the 8s that the hurricane was going to ruin the weekend of the citizens of Bermuda, and not us.

It was raining again, though, and I was concerned about the towering pine trees staying upright in the soaked soil if the wind came up, so I walked around the farmhouse on pins and needles, glancing apprehensively out the window if I saw the foliage begin to dance around.

I had an invitation to attend the Michigan-Maryland game, and accepted enthusiastically until I discovered that kick-off was set of 8:00 PM. I am normally in bed at that hour, so I regretfully backed out. That was before the news of the storm, which in turn caused the game to be rescheduled for a noon kick-off. I found that it was being carried on The Big Ten Network, on satellite channel 610.

I had no idea there were more than six hundred channels.

Puttering in the morning, I got my writer-junkie thing partly fulfilled exchanging impassioned notes on the events of the day- you know what they are- but I am growing reluctant to fully vent my feelings to the larger internet.

Self-censorship is an insidious reflection of the certainty that attracting attention can prompt a weaponized government to swoop down. I saw an interesting article by a former Attorney General about what happened to the Department of Justice lately, and of course the IRS, the most intrusive Federal organization, except perhaps for the Environmental Protection Agency.

You have heard about the Johnson Family’s little stock pond in Wyoming? Their little eight-acre spread is parched, and they keep a few head of cattle, which naturally need water. They secured the necessary permits from the State & Local folks and partially damned a little creek on their property. The got a nice little pond that the cattle and wildlife enjoyed, creating a little haven for them.

Then the Corps of Engineers and the EPA Region 8 gang showed up, claiming the Johnson’s were in violation of the new Waters of the United States Rule. Note that is isn’t a law; it is a bit of regulation thought up completely within the Agency and without approval of anyone.

(Johnson pond, permits granted by the County and State of Wyoming. Not the EPA, which levied significant fines, and could cost the Johnson family their home. Photo James Young, Deseret News).

We can comment on the proposed rules, of course, that is policy. But there is nothing in the policy that says they have to actually listen, and they don’t.

The Johnson’s are facing $16 million in fines from the EPA, and counting.

I will hang onto my vote and the other modest means of redress that the government allows us to retain. Not the way I thought we would enter our golden years. All that time on the ramparts against the forces of tyranny, and while we were gone, they moved into the family house and took over.

On the upside, I sat down on the big red couch as Michigan dominated Maryland, which was the centerpiece of my day, the part between the Alpha of Morning and the Omega of the cocktail hour.

I got the football bug again after the Utah game last week, which was a display similar to some triumphant Saturday in the early 1970s. This encounter started slow, and I got that familiar knot of anxiety in my stomach, thinking that my adopted home-town favorite Terrapins were going to rise up and smack the Wolverines on the snout.

It did not happen that way. The Wolves went into the half with a two field-goal lead, and I went out into the rain with my spelunker’s light attached to a spandex band around my head to shine a light into the inky engine compartments and start taking the cars apart.

The Syclone and the Explorer were both dead as door-nails- a circuit is out on the garage that once powered the trickle-chargers. I had to pull both batteries out, but the vehicles were enclosed by piles of crap left over from my parent’s estate and junk from the condo I sold back in Arlington.

I managed to fish them both out, back the Panzer up to the garage and load the batteries in the back to take to town. Then back to the television, where the Wolverines dominated the second half, shutting out the Terps.

I felt a little ambivalent, but happy that fortunes may have changed in Ann Arbor with the arrival of Jim Harbaugh as coach, a guy they are calling “Bo, model 2.0.”

I drove into town and bought tonic, D-cell batteries and wood for the fireplace. And then hit the NAPA store for replacement batteries. When I go back to the farm, another band of showers washed through, and I replaced the batteries on the truck and my son’s Explorer. Both started. The SUV has only been dead for a couple months, but the truck hasn’t turned over in a year or more.

I was on a roll. I backed them both out of the garage and let them run long enough to get up to full operating temperature. Then I lined them up in back of the Panzer, started the Rambler and jumped on the tractor.

They all ran, a modern miracle. That means I may be able to cut the pastures next week, since it is supposed to be sunny and things should dry out.

With the truck and the Explorer pulled out of the garage, I can get back to cleaning out some of the crap from Mom and Dad’s house, which came down here three years ago.

Then I think things settle down a bit. I hope, so, anyway. I think we will get through it, at least we will until we don’t.

Copyright 2025 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303