Ah, the bad old days, when the redoubtable and toxically masculine men of the new United States of America would bundle their wimmens, children, and livestock into, in front of, and behind, a Conestoga wagon along with a few possessions and necessities and–heedless of the danger–head off into “Indian Territory,” also known as “The West.”
The effort began with great seriousness in 1803, after Congress ratified the Louisiana Purchase, a treaty with France which approximately doubled the size of the then-United States. At that point, going “West” meant passing to the other side of the Mississippi River, making it into the general vicinity of what is now Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and–of course–Louisiana.
But ever since 1776 Independence, determined citizens had pushed the boundaries of their new country westward. I live only a couple of miles from Highway 40, also known as the “National Road.” Today it’s a major highway traversing the United States from New Castle, Delaware to Silver Summit, Utah. But that highway was built on top of one created by an 1806 Act of Congress, enabling the first federally-funded highway construction project. In its first iteration and when completed, it connected Cumberland, Maryland with Vandalia Illinois. And it was the route taken by many pioneers heading “West,” at a time when getting there meant going only as far, and not much beyond, what’s now Ohio.
Not far down the road from me is the “S Bridge.” (Pace Google Maps, which always gets it wrong, it’s not the “South Bridge,” it’s the “Ess Bridge.”) I still can’t get my head quite around why the early settlers build “S” bridges across meandering waterways (not an engineer), but here’s the explanation:
An S bridge is a bridge whose alignment follows a reverse curve, shaped roughly like a shallow letter S in plan, used in early 19th-century road construction in the United States. They were generally used for crossing small, curving streams with uneven banks.
I guess that, in my instance, the “small curving stream with uneven banks” would be Buffalo Creek. The very one that the small waters on my own property feed into, leading me to say (somewhat grandiosely and not quite accurately) that–from my little corner of the world–run the “Headwaters of the Mississippi.”
I got to thinking about this subject when–as you do–I read about something completely unrelated. Rather a funny little piece referring to a New York Times opinion column. It seems that an author (Belle Boggs; she sounds like a lovely person, with a lovely family) was traumatized by the incursion of a bat in to and (more importantly) out of her bedroom, and that she went rather overboard in response.
This is a screenshot of the Twitter post I first saw:
Whew. I can’t get behind the NYT paywall, so I did a bit of investigation via a friend to see if the recapitulation in the Twitter post was close to the truth.
It is.
Now, I’ve been there. I live in the country. Occasionally, there are scary circumstances involving wild and feral animals, or even stray domesticated dogs. I’ve never thought that giving into my own inner panic agent in such circumstances was all that helpful, either to me, to my livestock, or my human dependents. And I’ve survived (and so have they), thus far. And frankly, WRT my own experiences, I’ve always found the information provided by my neighbors and the folks who actually live out where I do far superior to the less-enlightened interventions of the very distant governmental bureaucrats, representatives of the CDC, or anyone who isn’t actually in the arena at the problematic time.
Bats are everywhere.
On balance, they’re very beneficial. I’ve built a couple of “bat houses” on my property, and–very rarely–I spot them going in and out. Overall, they’re a force for good.
A few of my family members have been subject to unwelcome bat incursions in their homes. One of them was my stepdaughter. When the bat incursed, she phoned the experts. “Are you bitten or have you had any contact with the bat?” they inquired. “No,” she replied. “OK,” they said. “Put on gloves. Restrain the bat. Grab it and throw it outside.”
“Will do,” she responded.
Fortunately her Dad, the late Mr. Right, was visiting her at the time. And that’s exactly what he did. And life went on, without any other sort of governmental intervention.
From my own experience with such things, I suspect that the “experts” formulate their response largely based on their perception of the relative sanity and the reasonableness of the person they’re dealing with.
If they think such a person is a hysterical loon, they respond accordingly with pacifying measures. If they think such a person is a rational animal, they de-escalate and go forward. It’s not that hard.
Nuff said. I hope.
Yes, as Belle Boggs worries in her column, bats can carry rabies. As can many other wild animals.
Rabies–a truly awful disease–is transmitted via saliva or mucosa. It doesn’t travel through the air.
I have a bit of a history with rabies. My father was bitten by a wild dog in West Africa in the early 1960s and went through the series of injections that were, at that time, far more gruesome than those of today. One of my indelible childhood memories is of sitting at the lunch table around that same time, in the British Cameroons, and of my beloved father remarking that he’d seen a child die of rabies, and that if a child of his was bitten by a rabid dog, he would immediately shoot said child rather than watch him or her go through the inevitable death throes that resulted. Those are the sorts of things you don’t forget, if you are such a child. The memories you come through. The memories you live with. The risks you assume.
But, crimenutely. If the bat flies in–and out–of your house without direct contact, the chances you’ve been infected with rabies are nonexistent.
And taking your experience and extrapolating it into an instance of your political obsession with Trump Derangement Syndrome seems to me the height of idiocy. Or political calculation.
That’s bad enough. And yet, when you’re so determined to make a political point that you’d subsume the transmission of important medical and safety information behind your own obsession that you can’t help beginning your post with the following:
One night a few weeks ago I went to bed early, bothered by the oppressive heat and dismayed by that week’s political news — President Biden’s lackluster ABC News interview and Donald Trump’s claim earlier that day that he knew “nothing” about Project 2025 . I was tired, too, from explaining the recent daily news broadcasts to my two daughters — one 6 and the other one 10 — including what the phrases “hush money” and “porn star” meant…
is even worse.
Lordy. What is the problem? Can you simply not let go of “Orange Man Bad” syndrome?
What ten year old–other than yours–without encouragement from adults, asks about “Project 2025?
What six year old–other than yours–without adult encouragement, is obsessed with questions about “hush money” and “porn star” nonsense on the Internet? Do not such children deserve an adult in their lives who does not get rattled at, or have to explain, such idiocy?
Well?
Hard to believe, methinks, that this woman wasn’t determined to start an argument, even under the most ridiculous circumstances.
Be that as it may, here’s a post from more than six years ago on Ricochet. It’s where my musings ended up. I should think “Sarah” is rolling over in her grave.
Here’s to the pioneer spirit. And to its resurgence, and to a new commitment to self-sufficiency, among the young:
Eons ago, when Mr. Right’s and my love was young, as the saying goes, we had very little money. And about the only entertainment we could afford, when we weren’t off hiking and camping, or cross-country skiing, could be found on the television. We watched a lot of TV with the kids (with whom I was still doing a bit of the awkward new-step-parent tango, still with mixed results from time to time). But we all loved such venerable chestnuts as The A-Team, The Fall Guy, V, and Battlestar Galactica (80’s versions, all).
A few years later, my stepdaughter and I found ourselves enjoying the adventures of Sarah Sturdyskirt, Jenny’s name for the eponymous heroine of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, the “trials and tribulations of a female doctor in a small wild west town.” A transplant from Boston, Michaela Quinn was unflappable, even to the acquisition of three of her friend’s children, gifted to her by the friend who died from a snake bite fairly early in the series. No matter the circumstances, Dr. Quinn dealt with them all graciously, gracefully, kindly, efficiently, effectively, and in a timely manner. She was a one-woman Total Quality Management program! She was great. Eventually, she captured the attention and the heart of Hunky Guy (forget his name), they got married, and the series was never quite as good from that point on. If I recall correctly.
Anyhoo, I was thinking of Sarah Sturdyskirt when I woke up shivering in the dark this morning.
We don’t have any electric power. We haven’t had for almost three days, and it may be another five or six before we get it back. It seems that a 60 mph wind (something that my sister in the Isle of Skye experiences several times a week, week-in, week-out) is more than FirstEnergy can be expected to cope with.
And when we have no electric, we have no water. And some, but not whole-house, heat. (This is the year that I’m going to make sure we hook up the back-up generator which has been sitting out back for years, never mind why. Yes, I can!)
So, I’m out here living the nineteenth century dream, which fortunately for me isn’t something that fazes the ladies of the family all that much, whether it’s me contemplating with equanimity the idea of selling our Pittsburgh house and moving into a tent in a field, digging a hole, and Mr. She and I together building a house with our bare hands; or Jenny navigating for a bunch of young men with no idea where they were, through a snowy mountain pass in Colorado, because she was the only member of the party who’d thought to bring a compass and a map (and a change of socks); or our seven year old granddaughter pitching a tent for herself and her mother, and then helping the rest of the crew sort themselves out and pitch their own tents while her mother made dinner for everyone. A little hard work or privation, fortunately, doesn’t “fash” us that much.
Mr. Right, who has some medical needs that aren’t best served by the absence of power, heat and water, is ensconced in a hotel a few miles up the road. So he’s well provided for, and I have access to a nice hot shower, and they do a really nice little breakfast with Belgian waffles you make yourself. Delicious.
Other than than, though. I’m on my own.
Have a good evening everyone, and count your blessings! I’m off to break the ice on the livestock trough, chuck some hay out for the sheep, and carry up a few buckets of water from the creek to flush the loo.
Have you had a “Sarah Sturdyskirt” episode in your life (not sex-specific, it’s a way of life, not a sex or an orientation)? When have you overcome the odds in the backwoods or even at home?
