by Kent Ballard
No, I’m not a man of wealth and taste, nor did I hold a general’s rank when the Blitzkrieg raged. That title may have confused me with someone else. But you won’t confuse me with Zach.
When Zach first approached me with the idea of a joint blog, him taking it one week, me taking it the other, I naturally assumed, “Jeeze, he’s far more desperate than I thought…” Then I remembered his recent shoulder surgery and figured he tires easily while hanging upside down like a bat to type. That was understandable enough. If the eyebolts in his ceiling ever work loose, he’d crash face-first into his computer and that would be the tragic loss of a good laptop.
So after some emailing and yakking over the phone, I’ve agreed to take over Just Sayin’ every other week for six months. When that time is up, we’ll figure out if we want to continue this odd marriage or if we want a divorce. (I’m going to hold out for the house and the furniture if it comes to that.)
I’ve known Zach for thirty years. I only met him face to face once, and then for only seven hours at another writer’s house. I remember the food being good and the liquor flowing freely. I quit drinking in 1999, and was amazed to see his photo when he started Just Sayin’ because I always thought he was the Chinese guy at the party. Turns out I’d been wrong all these years. This explains the strange looks I got from the Chinese gentleman when I began a tirade against him and the city of Boston over the Big Dig.
I agree with Zachary on many things. With everything else, I am right and he is wrong. That’s the American Way on the Internet, and I’m a proud supporter of my own beliefs. Years ago, on another forum, I pointed out that he was to the left of Vladimir Lenin. He unkindly reminded me that I had once called for a nuclear first strike on Massachusetts to rid the nation of socialists and ne’er-do-wells. I had in fact made that statement, but of course was simply joking. Multiple hydrogen bombs landing on Boston would only cause the Department of Homeland Security to take away yet more of our civil rights. Hey, if they can do it with a kettle bomb powered by charcoal…
Mr. Klein and I live not only in different worlds, but in different centuries. He lives the easy city life, where you can flip open your cell phone and get a pizza or chop suey dinner delivered to your front door. The city plows the snow off his streets. He has limitless luxuries like a four-minute police response should he call them, a fire department, hell, even paved streets. I used to have such things myself, for I lived in Indianapolis for twenty-three years. I hated it.
I was born and raised on a small farm one county east of Indy. I got a job in Indianapolis, met a girl, got married, and soon was tripping over kids toys in my yard. Turns out I had married the wrong girl so a divorce followed ten years later. I kept the house, the major appliances, and got joint custody of the kids. I am one of the very few men you will ever meet who actually won a divorce. (The judge thought she was awful too. He was right.) I then set out on a quest to get to know the rest of the ladies in Indianapolis in the Biblical sense, and was about halfway through the project when I found a quiet, meek, shy beauty and fell head over heels in love. Twenty-eight years later we are still together, and living with me has had its effect on her. She can cuss, clean fish, shoot her 9mm with deadly accuracy, and fears no living thing.
When our kids were grown and gone, it was during our peak earning years. I wanted out of the city, and she was happy to follow me. It took three solid years of searching, but we found our new home.
I can’t tell you which town I live in, because the nearest thing that would pass for a town is fourteen miles away. My home is in far west-central Indiana, in the middle of what is known as a “geologic anomaly.” The great mile-high sheets of frozen ocean paused here during the last Ice Age and carved out some extremely weird topography. Then it covered itself with forest. I own 71 acres of that land, my home being in the middle of it. My driveway is a half-mile long, going back into what appears to be the Black Forest. Beyond that is my dead-end road. Beyond that, and you have the most wretched mud-and-dust roads imaginable to the nearest blacktop. A very peculiar location, as I have the telephone number of one county, the mailing address of a second, and my home is actually in a third.
It keeps the riff-raff away. I value my privacy. We supposedly have a sheriff’s department around here somewhere, but they’re never seen this far into the boonies. My insurance company charges me the maximum rate for fire insurance, because in the event of a fire—as my agent explained—there will be nothing left except for the basement. The deep forest starts twenty yards to my south and east, about twelve yards to my north, and all the storms, lightning and snow come from the west. You could literally become hopelessly lost and never set foot off my property. I know. I did that for a couple of years.
We love it here. This is the kind of land you see in picture books and winter holiday greeting cards. It will also probably kill me someday when I grow too old to care for the land properly. When I want to hunt, I go out the back door. When I want to fish, I go out the front. I couldn’t do that in any city.
I’m the Police Chief, Fire Marshal, Mayor, and Chief Engineer here. I can pee off my front porch and shoot out my back door. We skinny-dip in our largest pond. The only loud sounds here are the ones I make. It’s very different from Boston. There is no pizza delivery, no Chinese delivery, no sirens, no door-to-door unconstitutional searches by paramilitary SWAT teams. Indiana is the only state in the Union which has a law on the books allowing you to shoot a uniformed police officer if he breaks into your home. (And a very strange court case behind that.) In the winter when the power goes out we simply step back 150 years and carry on. Our ancestors made out pretty well with kerosene lamps and wood burning stoves. We can too. And I defy anyone on the planet to show me a more serene, peaceful, and meditative spot than my little four-inch deep creek that bubbles through the forest at my extreme northern boundary. If I could bottle that sound, Prozac would go bankrupt.
I registered to vote during the first year 18 year-olds got suffrage, 1971. I was and am a registered Independent, though very few Independents run for anything nowadays. I consider myself a Libertarian and often wonder why Zach and I have not strangled each other over these many years. It’s because he’s a great guy and I’m not too bad a soul either. We are both well educated, stay well informed, both listen carefully to other points of view, and both see in shades of gray—not black and white. And when he comes away with some ridiculous, half-wit idea of how this world should work, it ain’t my fault.
I hope you’ll find me acceptable for this while. At one time or another I have argued with everyone I know and yet if I have an enemy, I’m not aware of it. All I ask of you is a chance. You may grow to like me too if you’re not careful.
I look forward to your posts.
Thanks, Don. I’ll try my best to keep you feeling that way.
Welcome, Kent! I’ve enjoyed reading your guest columns in the past and am looking forward to reading more of them in the next few months. Though you and Zach may have different views and lifestyles, I think your writing styles are very complimentary. So keep the good words flowing. Your audience awaits…….
Thanks for the kind words, Sherri. I just hope they’re not waiting with pitchforks and torches. You can think of me as a slim volume some youngster slipped inside his larger textbook at school. If the kid is interested in flight, it’ll be a book about airplanes inside his philosophy text. If he’s interested in cars, it’ll be “Road and Track” inside his chemistry book. If he’s a loose cannon, it’ll be a Spider Man comic inside his math book. I’m probably in the last category. But everyone needs a break now and then. I’ll write serious columns for you too, but hope to have some fun along the way as well.
Having known both Zach and Kent for those same thirty years, I heartily endorse this experiment. In his less sober days, Kent’s yarns were spun as tight as he was.
His misadventures, imaginings and delusions remain. The man can tell a story.
More often than not, his truth is truly stranger than fiction.
Sadly, and contrary to popular myth, you won’t find any of that brilliant madness retained anywhere on the intertubes. Perhaps somewhere on floppy discs or reposed on some ancient obsolete hard drive, but nowhere accessible. I consider this a great loss to society.
This should be fun.
Well, Unpaid Bill, you’ve seen it happen before. When Zach loses his way he will gently pull into a safe spot along the road and consult his iPhone map. Me, I go roaring off the tracks at eighty miles an hour up in the mountains somewhere, usually over a bridge, my locomotive pulling three-quarters of a mile worth of explosives and dangerous chemicals as freight. So stick around, old bud. And if you want to hitch a ride, Zach is the safest driver but when I wreck they have to clear out three counties. Switch getting rides with both of us and you’ll never be bored.
Hi Kent… Aren’t you the guy with the nudist colony idea? If not, I still like you. Thank you for a great intro. I live in the desert where a Naval Base plays taps each morning at 8 a.m. followed by a scratchy recording of Oh Say Can You See, etc. If the wind is blowing my way I hear it clearly as I approach home from my early walk. It too is very strange, because it looks like we live on the moon here… I’ll look forward to your posts.
Yes, Kathleen, I kicked around the idea of starting a nudist colony here but have yet to scrape up enough money for antiaircraft guns to protect my guests from drones with cameras. I almost had a deal worked out to buy some 1980’s Soviet radar-guided missiles but the State Department and the FAA took a dim view of that so I’m back to square one. We still skinny dip in the pond and go under the water or trees when low aircraft come by, but that’s not practical for hundreds of paying guests.
I love the desert. Again, you can find a great deal of privacy there. I might have moved to one if it wasn’t for all those flying saucer movies I watched as a kid. Giant ants, too. I’d have to add a flame thrower to my gun collection and my lovely wife would never understand. Strangely, we have a Naval base in Indiana, too, towards the southern end of the state and nowhere near Lake Michigan or the Ohio River. I think they do strange things there. Someday I might share a funny story I know about them. In the meantime, thanks for reading and keep your flame thrower well pressurized. You never know…
Excellent, Kent… I will do that! Funny… Thank you for your hilarious response. I know exactly why you and Zach work well together. Cheers!
I like you already.
Dear Anonymous:
I like you too. But let’s be careful about this. You know how people talk…
Okay, Zack, I’ll give this guy a shot. I hope though that he isn’t a far-rightwinger because they are getting way too much media time already as you can tell by any talk show station in America. Worse, they are gaining an extremely dangerous acceptance among what were previously, I thought, average people. Most of their views, if you listen closely, seem to be taken directly from an old John Birch society playbook. Those views, as unbelievable as it seems, are now mainstream. I long for the days of Archie Bunker. Even though he (or maybe the writers) believed in most of the same things these people do, he was also a diehard union man, and supported Social Security and Medicare. These folks do not.
To give one of them exposure is a mistake. I hope this isn’t.
As far as free speech…Okay, but we don’t have to help promote reactionary views. The Germans made that mistake in the 20’s.
Hiya, Jed. Zach and I also agreed to answer comments about our own columns, so you’re stuck with me again. You may be interested to know I’m a lifetime member of the United Auto Workers, campaigned against Indiana’s “right to work law,” have written several times about unequal pay in the workplace for women, and refuse to vote for anyone I even *think* might try to take a woman’s control of her body away from her. I’ve seen America go wildly fascist since 9/11, think Waco was an AFT-FBI power-play gone tragically mad, and you couldn’t drag me into an airport with a bulldozer, let alone though a Department of Homeland Insecurity checkpoint. Madison and Jefferson would never have allowed such things. I alone can’t stop them but that does not mean I have to accept them. YouTube has several films describing how the average citizen can politely and legally tell the DHS to go to hell if you’re ever stopped at an unconstitutional roadblock by them. You might want to watch them and study them as I have.
I think Edward Snowden will be remembered someday in our history books as a courageous patriot, that Eric Holder and George W. Bush should be arrested and tried for high crimes and misdemeanors against the citizens of the United States, that the NSA needs its budget cut by at least 75% and a civilian oversight committee should be formed to make certain all their taps into our phones and electronic communications are severed immediately and permanently. I’d try Obama too, but he has the power of the Presidency and his color to hide behind whenever criticized. So we’ll wait for his term to end in its inevitable utter failure and disgrace and THEN arrest him. If the GOP had been able to run Colin Powell in 2008 we’d have more honest leadership, twenty times more intelligent leadership, and a black president to boot–if that actually means anything to anybody. And if it does, they’re carrying a heavy load of racial baggage that does not encumber me.
Remember they days when people would ask aloud, “Do you think America will ever have a black president, or maybe even a woman or Hispanic president?” When I could catch my breath from laughing I’d tell them America will have an albino midget president if we last long enough. Because somewhere out there walk men and women who could restore our faith in that office and serve us well. The DNC and RNC seem determined not to nominate any of them, so I think we need more than two strong political parties. Libertarians and Progressives would be a good start. I’ve never voted a straight party ticket in my life and I’m sure that, with concentration and effort, others could do the same.
Liberal talk radio has been tried repeatedly and failed repeatedly because they can’t keep audience numbers high enough for the stations to sell commercial time profitably. I guarantee you that if you could find a way to get people to listen to a car horn honking in enough numbers over the radio, stations would come begging you for a franchise and happily pay whatever you asked. It’s that simple. There are more ways to vote than just one, Jed.
And no, I don’t listen to Rush. I did for some time twenty years ago when he used more humor in his broadcast but he became full of himself. I’d rather listen to that car horn honk nowadays. Rush’s problem is that he cannot see shades of gray. When a person becomes unwilling or unable to seek out the common ground with others, then haggle and negotiate about their differences civilly later, then you know, beyond doubt, you’re talking to yourself. The other person cannot see, hear, or learn. They know it all already and nothing that you say or do will ever shake their faith. You’d be better off going somewhere to watch paint dry on a 2×4. And keep in mind it’s not good policy to pick up that 2×4 and whack them over the head with it when they tell you they “have an open mind.” You’d just crack an otherwise useful board hitting something made out of solid cement.
So I do hope you’ll give me that shot. You might be surprised at what I think and believe because there is no way for you to know that yet. Three columns so far haven’t told you what I think. If you want to be fair, read on. If you want to hate me, hell, stick around for that too. I’ll give you some real reasons to hate me sooner or later.
Fair enough. Although I do have to say there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Powell and Obama. Remember this man lied straight-faced to the American public about WMD’s. I’m not too bright but even I knew that was baloney. Because of that testimony he contributed greatly to the almost 1,000,000 Iraqi men, women and children who were casualties. Not to mention our own losses in lives, health and money. Also that war was a prelude to what we are doing in that part of the world now, and without that war most of what we are involved in today would not have come to pass. Therefore, I believe that Colin Powell has as much innocent blood on his hands as any American that has ever lived.
As far as third parties go, it’s a nice dream. But the possibility that any real change can come about through the US electoral process died a long time ago.
I wish you luck with your blogs and will follow them.
Hey, Kent, how’d you talk Zach into this? Boy, what fun you can have driving him nuts when he’s still fighting back from that surgery. One thing about you guys that’s just alike, though, is that you both put up with me. And that ain’t bad. I love you both and don’t know how I’ll handle the fights you’ll have. Separate you, I guess, and make one of you play in the house and the other out in the yard. That worked with my boys. So congratulations to you both and both of you stay out of the woods. You might get lost.
I know I would. I never go into a strange woods without a compass. I’m serious. I’ve found trusting your sense of direction on a rainy day or any night is just asking for disaster. If I was a monarch butterfly or a Canada goose, I’d wind up in Ireland. I can’t tell you the number of guys I’ve gone camping with while fishing, hunting, or just vacationing who would brag endlessly about their phenomenal senses of direction. When we later organized search parties for them, I always volunteered. And took my compass.
Zach talked me into this, not the other way around. Sure, I was easily swayed, but nevertheless it was his idea. Our private emails went like this for a while–
ME: What if I..?
ZACH: Don’t worry about it.
ME: But what if..?
ZACH: Don’t worry about it.
ME: Okay, but someday I might…
ZACH: Don’t worry about it.
So I quit whining and signed on. It’s not like either one of us will actually surprise the other. It’s my hope that between us the readers will find a nugget of two of humor, interest, or previously unknown information among all the dirt and rocks we shovel out.
Can the apocalypse be far behind? Are we being led down the path to wrack and ruin? Should we be afraid…very afraid? Beats me. All I know is what I read in the papers, or on this here laptop, and this blog has all the earmarks of being head and shoulders above 99% of the treacle that passes itself off as intellectual property these days. I welcome Kent and his brilliance.
Kent and his WHAT? Any time I get a brilliant idea that only means two things. 1., I’ve forgotten to take my meds for a few days, and 2., I’m about to go off on a misadventure that will cause bodily harm to myself.
I have so many guardian angels they’ve formed a union and asked for better working conditions and overtime pay.
Dave, I simply ALLOW people to think I’m crazy and brilliant. The only thing that lets me to get away with this is most people can’t tell the difference between to two. Half the time I can’t either. I’m crafty enough to let them think that, but if they could see photos of the spectacular wreckage of my solo flight (at age nine) off a barn roof on a bicycle with plywood wings it’d burst their illusion pretty quickly. And I was doing so good too…for about the first six feet.
Don’t let brilliant people fool you. They all check for monsters under their beds at night before sleeping. The major difference between me and them is I have a flashlight AND a heavy caliber handgun. What those really brilliant people would do if they ever actually found a monster remains a mystery to me.
I did actually find a monster once under my bed. I figured I was scarier than it was so I just decided to leave him be. As far as I know he’s still there, although when he comes out to eat, and what he eats, beats the hell out of me. I still have all my digits, so I know it ain’t me he’s dining on.
Update – I found out my mom hid a mirror under my bed back then. It was still the ugliest critter I ever saw.