Muckracker

Today’s episode is the second part of a two-part episode, and is ironically tied to Donald J Trump and Putin.  As these malevolent forces appear to metastasize, I'm here to say that there is hope!

And, I dedicate this episode to all Trump & Biden supporters.  Few have seen behind the curtain as Michael Cohen, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, and I have.  As someone raised in a GOP family, with GOP neighbors through and through within a GOP town, region, and state, I want to share my take on how you can and should use this sea change to improve your lives.

I hope that you'll join me as I do my best in the telling of this.  It’s a doozy, but I found my way out, and you can too.

Here's a very good interview about how disinfo is spread across social-media platforms.  It helps to understand how and why we as a nation have become so siloed and divided.

Please, also, submit your questions and stories, as a daily opportunity, to move through this and on to creating a better place that rewards unity rather than hate.

Today’s two-part episode is not about Ernie Buker as announced last week. Though next Wednesday will be.

Instead, today’s episode is about a longer arc of my life.  While it is short on down-home charm, it illuminates the situation that our global now finds itself in.

I’ve put off doing this episode for days. I’d prefer to never think about this again, but I feel that it is time to tell what started in 2003 or 1851 or 1888 or 1935 or 1958 depending on how you want to see it.   I’d prefer to never think about this again, but I feel that it is time.  Here we frigging are in 2020 with these same malevolent forces metastasizing globally that haunt us since The Great Depression and before.  And, until we reckin with them, the cycle of poverty and suffering will only continue no matter who we elect to be our champion or sworn enemy.

So, I dedicate this episode to all of the Trump and Biden supporters.  There are terrifying and destructive forces at play.  And, as someone raised in a GOP family, with GOP neighbors through and through within a GOP town, region, and state, I want to share my take on how you can and should use this sea change to improve your lives.  Being at the bottom of the bottom rungs of special and corporate interests can be over.  I hope that you'll join me as I do my best in the telling of this.  It’s a doozy, but if I found my way out, and you can too.

Please, also, submit your questions and stories, as a daily opportunity, to move through this and on to creating a better place that rewards unity rather than hate.

Today’s episode is about Buckshot Burow who homesteaded the Tingle place.  Buckshot was a force of nature unto himself, and that’s probably why his more colorful name stuck and his given name, Raymond, was long forgotten by most.  Driven by a shotgun, moonshine, and the need to prove up on his rocky domain, few stepped foot on his property without an invitation or death wish.

Knowing where to start with Buckshot is as hard as trying to rope a wild horse.  His legacy cast a long shadow, and to this day, I’m still learning more.

For me, I saw beyond the broken-down man that I knew when I found one of his stills in a gully close to our ranch.

What follows after the break is what I pieced together from his daughters, what I found on the homestead that he lost to the Tingles for $17K & a host of self-inflicted ills, and what Emil & my second grandma Gladys told me.

I hope that you'll join me as I do my best in the telling of it.  Please, also, submit your questions and stories, as a daily opportunity, to move through this and on to creating a better place that rewards unity rather than hate.

So how did celebrities and hangers on end up in Montana?  Today’s episode tells that story.  And, it comes from an unlikely place.  

My friend  Carol moved to the Bitterroot from Pasadena at 40 years old after having a heart attack while working on a Columbia Studios movie as a Set Designer.  Her story is as interesting as it is long.

During her days at Columbia Studios, she designed movie sets and did independent jobs with moguls such as Howard Hughes.  In fact, his last home was fully designed by Carol.

I hope that you'll join as I do my best in the telling of it.  Please, also, submit your questions and stories, as a daily opportunity, to move through this and on to creating a better place that rewards unity rather than hate.

Today’s episode is about Bill Schreckengost.  Our very own Schrek.  Yep, I’m pretty sure that one of those Hollywood types that moved in on Victor, MT used Bill as inspiration, and no one will, probably, be able to tell me otherwise.

See, Bill was large and gentle.  Okay, he wasn’t green or had funnel ears, and I don’t remember him wearing a tunic with a belt, but he sometimes stumbled around.  And, his heart was alway in a good place.

And, let me tell you it was an experience to be on a snowmobile with him speeding across a clearcut!  Today’s episode is about one day that they talked me into riding with Shrek, and how that turned out.

I hope that you'll join as I do my best in the telling of it.  Please, also, submit your questions and stories, as a daily opportunity, to move through this and on to creating a better place that rewards unity rather than hate.

Today’s episode is about Vivette Sacks.  Yep, that’s Pete Sacks’ wife.  And let me tell you, Vivette didn’t let much dust ever settle under her feet, and she had her hands in enough pies to keep her busy from sunup to sun down.

It’s hard to pick one story about Vivette.  Like Earl, she was an almost daily fixture in my life.  She came with a plate full or something this or that and she left with a hand full of something else for someone else that she was fixing to see.

Back on the ranch, we were on a party line for most of my childhood.  I can still remember picking up and hearing Vivette’s nasal tones chirping the daily news and goings about she’d picked up at Papa Bays.  And, boy did she know most everything about most everybody in the valley.

Today’s episode is about Pete Sacks.  A rodeo-star, and gentle giant of my childhood, Pete flat out decided that our bad neighbors were going to be taught a lesson or know why.

It all started when Papa bought me my very own horse.  It was a tall lanky two-year old that was halter broke, and not much more.  I hadn’t grown accustomed to the idea of it, and it hadn’t grown accustomed to the idea of us, so we kept it in the lower corral as things settled.

Then, the tragedy of horrible - likely criminal - neighbors struck.  Of which, Pete Sacks took care of the worst of it.

I hope that you'll join me and submit your questions and stories, as a daily opportunity, to move through this and on to creating a better place that rewards unity rather than hate.

If you'd like to support this podcast, your can do so at Patreon, Anchor.fm, and by sharing this link to the episodes far and wide.

Thanks

Today’s episode is about the visits to Earl Wolfe with Papa that I shan’t forget. 

Earl owned a 100 acre sheep ranch that was fronted by The Eastside Highway, that wasn’t really a highway. Where our school bus turned around close to Pete & Vivette Sacks’ place on North Birch Creek Road.

As I think about how much my Papa, Earl & Anne The Wolfe, and Pete & Vivette Sacks cared about and protected one another over the years, I’m reminded how important caring is in the days of COVID.

I hope that you'll join me and submit your questions and stories, as a daily opportunity, to move through this and on to creating a better place that rewards unity rather than hate.

If you'd like to support this podcast, your can do so at Patreon, Anchor.fm, and by sharing this link to the episodes far and wide.

Thanks

Today's episode is about Jack Pfau a dear friend of mine and a local Bitterroot hero, or as Papa would say, “Jackie P-fau.”

This morning as I was prying my eyes open and the doggies yawned and gave me blurry-eyed stares, I caught up.  Remember when someone or thing zapped diplomats' in Cuba causing concussions?  Well, according to GQ, “ In June 2018, the U.S. State Department evacuated nearly a dozen people from Guangzhou, China, where American diplomats and trade representatives reported feeling symptoms eerily similar to those their colleagues had experienced in Cuba.”  Which it seems may have been microwave weapons, causing what is now called the Havana Syndrome.

Figuring out what to do about this one is pretty overwhelming.  It completely changes the game globally.  How countries lead, manage their own citizenry, and navigate International diplomacy and policy.  Not to mention, how it bellies Russia up to the global bar without any other reason.

Given what I know about Jack Pfau, and how that he might look at this, as well as what he gave his life exposing to help others, his story seems particularly needed today.

GQ Article

NBC Interview of Jack Pfau

Info About Jon Tester's Bill

Today's episode is about a local Bitterroot hero named Papa Bay, who, like Emil, paid attention.   He simply loved being a merchant and being the very best merchant that he could possibly be.  He saw his place in the community as a resource, as a service, and as his life’s work.  

His warm, caring, and unending generosity brought people from all over the Valley to spend their hard-earned dollars at his store year after year, decade after decade, and generation after generation.  And, it was his kind attention to all of our lives that kept those in need fed, housed, and in work.  Papa Bay knew who needed what and where to plug them in in so that they could not only survive but thrive.

Kindness is not just given, it must also be received to be given.  The giver receives as much as the receiver, IF the receiver allows the exchange.