Arizona Motorcycle Tours -- Tonto Basin

March 1, 2016:  I got my motorcycle all ready to ride for the new season.  Didn't ride at all last year, so it was quite a job (for my mechanics)...  Two new tires needed "breaking in," and I am not working for a couple of days, so I hit the road in the Arizona spring sunshine. Yes, it is SPRING here, the deciduous trees in my yard are already leafing out!  The temperature was in the 70s and 80s, so it was a beautiful day for a ride.

I spent most of the day getting the bike ready, but with weather this good I could easily tolerate riding into the evening hours (it did get a little chilly in the mountains around Globe though); I got on the way at about 3:15 pm.  I headed east out of Phoenix on Shea Blvd, and picked up State Route 87 at Fountain Hills.  That's always a busy route, and it takes more than an hour to just ride those few miles.  I should have just followed the SR51 and Loop 202 out to Mesa, and it would have been a few more miles but definitely less time.  Once on SR87 (we call it the "Beeline" highway), I headed north and uphill.

I followed SR87 (a beautiful four-lane) north to SR188, took that SE past Roosevelt Lake to Globe, then rode home via US60 and the local Phoenix freeways.  I arrived home about 9:30 pm, but I made many stops for photos - the riding was probably only about 4 hours (243 miles).

The Route

I made stops also for drinks and snacks - I would normally carry these in a magnetic tank bag, but I could not find that today.  I must have packed it in a box when I cleaned the garage last spring -- but I cannot now remember where I put it.

My first stop was beside the road for photos of Four Peaks and the Superstition Mountains.  Four Peaks is one of three mountains (or ranges) that dominate the Tonto Basin. On the west, there's Four Peaks, Mount Ord and the Mazatzals.  On the eastern side there are the Sierra Anchas.  These mountains all figure prominently in Arizona's modern history -- as well as physically on this region's landscape.

[Mazatzal is pronounced Mat-a-zal with short a's.  I doubt that's the way Apaches pronounced it, but those pronunciations were very difficult for occidental tongues. So we settled for Matazal.]

Four Peaks

The Mazatzals drew their name from Four Peaks itself, but we don't call Four Peaks "Mazatzal," we call it Four Peaks!  But the Indians called that mountain Mazatzal.  It is a descriptive name meaning "the spaces between."  They described the mountain as the one with the "spaces between" the four peaks.  The Mazatzals stretch away to the north from there, all the way to the area to the west of Payson, Arizona -- and the SR87 highway runs right up through them, passing to the west of Four Peaks and around the west and north sides of Mount Ord, into the Tonto Basin and then north to Payson.  The highway from Fountain Hills to Payson runs through the Mazatzal Mountains Wilderness Area; then from Payson, the highway climbs up onto the Mogollon Rim and across the plateau lands to the north of the Rim to Winslow and the Dinetah.  This is spectacular country -- but many residents of my home city do little more than race through it on the way to the cool Mogollon Rim.  But these mountains and the Tonto Basin have many attractive qualities for a motorcycle rider!

The Superstition Mountains of AZ.

Lost Dutchman goldmine at left center horizon

Until just a few years ago, the highway ran through a canyon along Sycamore Creek, just north of Sunflower, until it climbed out the north end of that canyon and up the Slate Creek Divide on the north side of Mt Ord.  That pass is how the highway reaches the Tonto Basin -- but the highway now traverses the mountainside to the east and out of sight of that very pretty creek and canyon.  I miss that road, it was always one of my favorite sections of SR87.  In the summertime, it was the first "cool" you'd find on the road from Scottsdale to Payson - the highway entered that narrow canyon and followed the creek through shady, leafy tall trees.  It was 20-30 degrees cooler than the sunny road you'd been driving -- and a twisty, turning ride.

Between Four Peaks and Sunflower, don't neglect to notice the boulder-strewn terrain.  It's as close as a person can get to Four Peaks.  That mountain used to be much taller -- but in ancient times it blew up, much like Mount Saint Helens.  All of those boulders and jumbled rocks that lie astride SR87 south of Sunflower used to be the top of Four Peaks -- this is where they landed after the explosion.  So it truly is "as close as you can get" to Four Peaks -- even if you drive up the shoulders of that mountain, which you CAN do, you can't really get any "closer."

SR188 heading into the Basin

Once through the Slate Creek Divide area, the highway descends into the Tonto Basin, through Rye and up again into Payson, about 25 miles or so further.  But my route turned off at SR188 (before I got as far as Rye), and headed back south through the basin to and beyond Roosevelt Lake. 

First, a stop for a bit of water at Jake's Corners.  If you ride a V-Twin, the
de rigueur waypoint is at the saloon -- for me, a more sober-type, it's the general store.  Jake's Corner is a friendly little place, a stop for the locals as well as those visiting.  The Tonto Basin was frontier ranch country, and not much farther than a stone's throw from the scenes of the Pleasant Valley War - in that violent late 19th century debacle, two families, the Grahams and the Tewksburys (and their allies), wiped each other out to the very last man. At the end, the very last Tewksbury shot and killed the very last Graham on Broadway Road in Tempe - and got away with it.  In the 20th century the Basin became a center for outdoors pursuits for those living in the Phoenix area, as well as the few hardy "locals" living there.  Today, it's become a retirement destination for those who shun the busier Valley cities.  Those who live there now say the "old west" lives there with them.  I don't know about that, sounds like real estate sales hype to me -- but it is an area where I am sure things move a bit more simply and slowly.  And the scenery is magnificent.

Roosevelt Lake and the Sierra Anchas

As you head south toward Roosevelt Lake, you'll have the Mazatzals towering to your right and the Sierra Anchas rising beyond the valley on the east.  Both of these rock faces rise several thousand feet above the floor of the basin -- and 7,000 to 8,000 feet or more above sea level.  Ancha means broad and capacious in Spanish -- and these mountains certainly fit that description.  They stretch for many miles beyond the rampart ridgelines that are visible from the Tonto Basin.  They can be easily driven over in passenger cars on a road that begins south of Roosevelt Lake - it traverses the tops and descends through Pleasant Valley and Young, AZ and another 25 miles or so beyond that to the Rim highway (SR260).  This is also a beautiful drive -- but which takes the better part of a day.  In the photo above of Roosevelt Lake and the Sierra Anchas, perhaps you can see the magnificent eagle that is flying over the water at almost exactly the center of the frame?  You don't see that every day!  Today, as I rode along the lake shore, I could see that there was still snow on the upper reaches of Four Peaks on its east side, mostly near the top where it is rocky.  Still cold up there...

SR188 and the back side of Mt Ord (in distance)

The lake is not as full as it once was; it begins in marshy lands as Tonto Creek and its tributaries flow through and into it.  After a few miles, the lake starts to look more like a lake -- but skinny, before it widens out and becomes larger.  It's waters are often calm and smooth -- glassy looking, unless broken by the passing of a boat.  The lake is a very popular fishing spot, with bass, catfish, crappies and chubs "easily" caught.  Unless you are talking about ME; there's nothing so safe as a fish in the water when I am angling!  But... Roosevelt is the farthest reservoir in a string of them, that were created by damming the Salt and (further down the) Verde River to store water for use in the Salt River Valley (Phoenix) and also to accomplish much-needed flood control.  As the highway continues along the shore of the lake, you'll pass by numerous recreation areas -- boat ramps, campgrounds, etc, until at last you come to the Dam.

Waters wherein lie Italian aircraft...

When I see the east side of Roosevelt Dam, and the waters in front of it, I always think of the airplane that sank at the dam back in the early part of the 1900s.  A group of Italians were making their way around the world in seaplanes.  As they progressed across the United States, they had to fly from lake to lake (or river, I suppose).  Roosevelt Lake was one place they landed.  They were met by local dignitaries, taken down that nasty, winding rough and primitive road (the Apache Trail) to Phoenix, where they were wined and dined, before being returned to the waters in front of Roosevelt Dam where they had left their seaplanes "safely" moored.  Alas, one of them had sprung a leak and while they were gone, sank below the surface of the lake and was lost in the quagmire of mud at the dam's base, never to be seen again.  I assume the poor Italians had to continue their journey in what few aircraft they had left.  Apparently, the wreck of that historic airplane is still down there in the mud at the bottom of Roosevelt Lake... somewhere.

Theodore Roosevelt Dam - 1911

I took a few moments to detour on the Apache Trail to the back side of the Dam -- the afternoon light was very nice and I wanted some photos.  The dam was raised a few years back -- and refaced with concrete.  The old stone masonry is all covered up now.  I remember that it was leaking to some extent - and the dam was not high enough to contain the highest extent of flood waters that more recent estimates showed were possible.  It no longer has the "rugged" stone appearance it had as I first knew it, as a result.  It's still pretty though, in its own "dammy" way.  It's setting couldn't be much more spectacular.  When the dam was dedicated, President Roosevelt came here in a motorcar from Phoenix, first making a stop in front of the old Indian School (at Central and Indian School Rd in Phoenix) to exhort the Indian children being schooled there to grow up "good little citizens" in every "white" way.  So I think those old, fat, white men deserved every bump and jolt they got on the old Apache Trail that day.  It's still just about as rough today, if you want to give it a try.

At about this point on my ride, I ran out of daylight and it got a little cold.  Not bad, but just a bit.  I was wearing my summer mesh jacket and a t-shirt under it - so I felt it just a little.  I found though that if I hunkered down a tad behind my fairing and windscreen, the heat from that big motor radiated up just enough to keep me tolerable.  Of course, by this point my neck (and butt) were strained a bit too -- so it was hard to stay crunched down in that warmer place -- I'd have to stretch up after just a few moments.  So from there on, my routine was up, then down, up then down, plus squirm left and right frequent-a-mente.  I stopped at Walmart in Globe (for a sweatshirt), filled the tank, then rode on to Superior for supper at Los Hermanos.  I am a creature of habits -- and one of my habits is Los Hermanos in Superior.   It's a hole-in-the-wall family-run place - the food is Sonoran and simple, but always good. The staff was friendly, and they had good, hot coffee (two cups).  Which is why I am still writing at half-past midnight with no yawning at all.

Los Hermanos for St Patty's Day!

From there, it was a bit warmer, and I ran down US60 to Phoenix in a hell-bent-for-leather hurry.  Nobody passed me on that stretch.  When I got into Mesa, I veered around the north side on the new Loop freeway, and followed that across Phoenix to SR51 and home.  I got so petrified that I stopped once more, got off and stretched "things" out for a few minutes.  That "refreshed" me enough to come the rest of the way home.  I think for riding more comfortably, I need to ingest many more bananas and milkshakes and let those find a place to "ride."

Keep it between the fence posts!  ~Road Bob

Sonoran Desert "Naturatat"

Phoenix Mountain Preserve Trail

Hiking along the trail tonight, I saw this pretty little Cholla, getting his foothold on life on the rocky mountain slope.  These desert plants are what I grew up with, and are as familiar to me as Spanish Moss is to someone in Louisiana!   I started taking photos of the familiar ones, and next thing you know, I'm thinking BLOG!

Cholla - the fuzzy kind.  Looks friendly but it ain't.

Ocotillo

Palo Verde

Greasewood, or Creosote

Desert Sage

This is what we call the "jumping cactus."  Doesn't REALLY jump, but if your finger or some other part gets close to it, thorns jab into you from all directions and you can try to pull it off -- but you won't be able to.  And they hurt like hell.  There's another kind of cholla that's not quite as pretty.

Prickly Pear

The Barrel and the Saguaro

Barrel Cactus

Another Pretty Hedgehog

The Other Kind of Cholla

This is the lovely Ocotillo.  They usually bloom at the tops with pretty orange flowers in the springtime.










This is a Palo Verde Tree.  There are two kinds of this one also -- the Green, like this one, and the Blue, which isn't as leafy.

Mesquite Tree

The Greasewood bush is what gives off the lovely Sonoran Desert fragrance after a rain. My friend Charlie Merritt told me this plant has cancer-curing abilities, but it would be a bitter pill to swallow. It doesn't taste very good. But curing cancer might be worth having your tongue turned inside out.





I am allergic to this plant (Sage) especially when it is blooming.  I've got a couple of these here in the yard that my Mom planted.






The Prickly Pear would be familiar to any resident of the American West, either in the north or the south.  It grows a red or purple fruit that makes great jelly, if you want to go to the trouble.








The Barrel and the Saguaro are two of the more common cacti around here.  The state bird of Arizona is the Cactus Wren -- and it makes its home in that hole on the side of the Saguaro Cactus.  No critter will bother it there...








Here's another view of the Barrel Cactus.  They bloom also and are very pretty when they do. There is another type of Barrel that is more golden, like the Cholla or the Hedgehog. But it's a "Nursery" cactus -- you don't see them "wild" around here.








Like the golden fuzzy Cholla, the Hedgehog is another pretty one. This one has a little Sage bush for a desierto companero!











This is the uglier of the Cholla Cactus relatives.  This one has no "pretty" to go with the nasty pricks.









Lastly, here is a lovely Mesquite Tree. These are good for some nice desert shade on a hot day, and we use the wood for smoky flavor for your grilled chicken or steak.  Makes great barbecue!

Bob does jury duty

I was called for jury duty this week.  It was a civil lawsuit trial that arose from injuries suffered in a traffic collision. The case turned out to be interesting to me because of the connection to what I do every day – which if you don't know is to teach safer driving.

The situation involved a woman who was injured as a passenger in her boyfriend’s vehicle.  The other vehicle had changed lanes suddenly in front of them, and then braked to make a right turn into a parking lot.  That driver had seen a McDonald’s and decided she wanted some ice cream.  She stated she never saw the other vehicle (at 10:50 pm on a well-lit street in a major business area), which then rear-ended her as she made the turn.  We conclude from that, that she didn’t look before she changed lanes. The injured woman sued the driver of that car for her medical bill (about $5,800.00) and they wanted some additional amount for “pain and suffering” as well.  She hadn’t gone for medical care for about two days after the accident – and then only on the advice of her attorney.  She had also filed suit against her boyfriend and apparently, there was some kind of cash settlement between them for his part.  They are still together and you have to wonder about that.

I am blogging about this because I think it was a fairly common type of case – all through the testimony my thought was that it wasn’t clear-cut, one way or the other.  What caused the wreck was the sudden move by the first car into the lane in front of the second vehicle (a small truck), her immediate and sudden braking (from 47 mph she said), down to the turning position in a very short distance), and the failure of the pick-up driver to anticipate that and successfully avoid the crash. As it was, the impact was so slight as to have caused negligible damage to either vehicle.  The driver of the vehicle that braked and caused the crash made statements that were not truthful, and changed her account of the event three times over the intervening months; this indicated to us that she was feeling guilt and trying her best to put the best "spin" on it that she could; this did not help her defense.

It was the collective thought of the jury that the medical bills were padded extensively by the chiropractor’s office, and that the treatment likely went on way beyond what was actually necessary (at their instigation as well).  The “treatment” for “back, neck and shoulder pain” in what couldn’t have been more than a 5 mph - 10 mph collision (and probably was less than that, based on the lack of any significant damage) - went on for 32 weeks.  The charges included approximately $600 for cold packs – one every visit at some $30 a piece – plus some additional ones for use at home.  We doubted the woman herself would have continued that long without advice from the chiropractor – and certainly not if she had thought she would eventually have to pay for the treatments herself (she was a person who likely lives at the poverty level, a house-cleaner, and she was back at work the next day). 

They told her that she “would have trouble down the road if she didn’t finish all the treatment" they were advising.  Really?  Two-thirds of a year of treatments for a fender-bender that caused so little damage we couldn’t even see most of it? The only visible damage was on the struck vehicle – a split or crack in the plastic bumper where it flexed on impact, and a small white paint scuff on the bumper where that vehicle was struck. There was no visible damage at all on the pick-up truck that we could attribute to the crash. We felt that the chiropractor and the attorney who referred the victim to the chiropractor were expecting a big payday – simply because they thought they could.

As the jury, we worried about the victim and what would happen to her financially if she didn’t collect something (even though we were told not to) – but we also did not want to help perpetuate the “accident injury lawyer – chiropractor subculture” that most assuredly exists; we can see their advertisements on late night television every day.  We might have been wrong, but we deduced she was involved in this at the advice of these other people, that she wouldn't have pursued it herself.

We also worried about the "65% at fault" driver – who was most definitely and predominantly at fault, but who we felt was being taken advantage of by the sharks. She is a young service woman and will not be wealthy any time soon, either. The good news for her is that she was in fact insured for these damages.  I am certain that this experience will be a long-term learning experience for her, as the possibilities have been weighing on her peace of mind for a long time; her stress was visible.  The accident happened almost three years ago.

In the end, we found that the lane-changing/braking vehicle was 65% responsible for the collision, and the vehicle in which the victim was riding was 35% at fault. We awarded roughly 50% of the chiropractor’s medical bill ($2,500) and nothing more (about $70-$80 per visit). Our deliberations took about one hour to arrive at that consensus, and I felt that the jury’s work was accurate and just.

Veterans Day, 2015

It is Veterans Day. Each year on this day, as well as on the more "general" Memorial Day in May, I reflect on the sacrifices of those who fought our wars.  I see all the flag-waving, jingoism, and national fervor of the blinded and the unwashed. What good has that ever done us?  Any of us, except maybe the arms-dealers?  I wish we would all stop to think for a moment about the real fruit of mindless, drum-beating, arrogant patriotism.

I don't know of any common, everyday soldier or sailor who ever wanted to go to war, except the crazy ones. Yet, as a nation we beat the drum and wave the flag every time there is a disagreement of some sort with other nations.  I know that in some cases, we had no choice but to fight; I am thinking about WWII in particular.  There is also something very righteous about opposing tyrants and fighting for the rights and lives of others.

But the United States, in the face of our claim to be a peace-loving people, has gone to war perhaps more times than any empire in the history of the world. I think it could be proven that we are, or have been, the most warlike people ever to live on the Earth - in written-historical times anyway; thought-provoking books attempting to make that point have been published. We remain today more than ready to coerce other nations to do our will by force.

This year, I tallied up the human cost of our ferocity, as best I could.  I included both our casualties (just deaths) and those of the nations we have fought, as accurately as I could discern it. In the major wars we have fought -- the ones we typically think of when the subject is discussed, beginning with the American Civil War, the United States (and it's allies where that was a factor) have lost approximately 1,354,700 military personnel killed fighting "for their country and freedom."  If you add in those of other nations whom we opposed, the total numbers are well-over 43,480,000 killed. 

Forty-three and a half million human lives. These figures do not include the many millions of civilians killed in these same conflicts -- collateral damage, as it were - often innocent people who just got in the way.  I was not even able to begin to estimate the total numbers who have been wounded. Often those wounds never heal. 

These are just the major conflicts we have been involved in, 1861 to the present.  Think about how many wars we fought even before that. Think about all the other wars that the US was not a party to. Some of those U.S. wars were unnecessary, unwarranted, immoral.  

These numbers are a fraction of the real total -- and they are only the ones we have a connection to, where our people were committed. Among those lost, is it not possible that the person who had the talent and brains to formulate a cure for cancer, or some other human misery or problem was among them?  Human beings are such idiots, generally speaking, and I don't see that the problem is being improved upon.

My thought has often been that when old men start wars, it ought to be those same old men who should go fight them - and die.  Pretty soon, maybe the willingness to start wars would diminish, maybe even disappear; we could breed it out of our gene pool.

I have become a conscientious objector, a newly-minted pacifist. This is kind of odd for someone who was a rather active "hawk" and very military-minded in his younger days. But it is true that many of us are softened by our life-experiences, and by reflection on what the meaning of life truly is. 

I met and talked with Barry Goldwater a couple of times, once when I was a student at university and we had lunch with him -- and I was surprised by how conciliatory and mellowed he had become since his presidential run and senate service, years before. His attitude and words were very plainly "live and let live" on many topics the politicians and citizenry are willing to rip our nation apart about today.  So I am not alone -- I have such illustrious company as the most conservative American conservative of his time.

Be that as it may, I think Gandhi was very plainly right. I also think humankind is a thick and stupid race. I don't think we should play those games anymore. If you believe your God really exists, you have to know there will be a reckoning for our hardened hearts on that last "gettin' up morning." [Matthew 7:3].

This essay is dedicated to my son, who has done more than his share in the service of this country and may suffer from the experience the remainder of his life.

Remembering Ron Delong

Rolland E. Delong

Ron Delong, who passed away last week, was one of the school owners I met when I became a defensive driving class monitor back in 1992.  As a program monitor, many of the school people considered me the enemy; government “administrators” have a well-deserved reputation for being idiots and not having a clue what makes business “work.”  I’m sure Ron felt that way too. 

He was prone to jumping to conclusions before he understood something – the Court would pass a new rule about something, and while many of the school owners would just sit back and grumble privately, Ron Delong would be on the phone that day.  “What are you doing, what does this mean, are you going to do this, that or the other… Are you crazy?"  Then, usually, once he understood what the results would be, he’d calm down and if not make peace with it, he’d figure out what to do, how to make it work. But those first few moments when "the volcano" went off were always very exciting!

The other day when I heard his son say that Ron lived life at 100 mph (both literally and figuratively), I thought of those first encounters with him and his “temper.”  Ron’s son was talking about the way he lived – his joy for living and his lifestyle – but all of those other things went right along with that. It was still the same way as the years went by – but as those passed, I became friends with Ron probably more than with any other school staff. 

He treated me like a brother.  I stayed in his home when I went to Kingman to monitor, or to visit the school office. We ate meals together (the first time I ever had the pleasure of eating at The Gourmet Room at the Riverside was with Ron).  He taught me a lot of what I know about shooting and marksmanship.  We went to Laughlin together and hung out at the Riverside together (he liked a card game).  Ron was friends with Don Laughlin – and told stories of teaching private defensive driving classes for him in the penthouse offices on the top of the hotel.

Ron was a long time law enforcement officer, from a family of law enforcement officers – many generations worth.  Many of his stories were about those times of course – and his job as a drug crimes investigator for the Arizona Department of Public Safety.  Ron had put many criminals behind bars in his career and he often worried that some of them held grudges about that – he was very careful of his safety as he went about his "retired" life, and he was never far from a weapon with which to protect himself if the need arose - and I had to get used to finding weapons in the strangest places around his home.  He thought some of those bad guys might “look him up” sometime.  This is one of the outcomes of a career in law enforcement I think a lot of folks don’t think about.


Ron apparently went about his Highway Patrol duties with a fair amount of zest.  I recently read a book about the Highway Patrol written by Paul Palmer, a retired Patrolman and originally a dispatcher.  One of Palmer's recollections of Ron was that when he checked in for duty, you knew you were going to have an "interesting shift."


I believe it was Ron’s grandfather (and grandmother) who had once arrested John Dillinger – and took him home for supper.  Ron had a photo of Dillinger, taken on the “porch” with his grandfather – and his grandmother peering through the screen door from behind them.  I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen the photo.  The story about John Dillinger was one of his favorites.

One of my own favorites had to do with something that Ron got into trouble with – in a defensive driving class.  I was monitoring his class, and he and I had been yucking it up and having some fun all day.  But I was sitting in the back, watching and listening, and Ron was moving around the classroom and talking to the students.  And without saying much, he handed a small package (about the size of a package of seeds) to a male student – a rather noisy and troublesome male student.  The package contained “Rattlesnake Eggs.”  If you’ve never seen them, they are a practical joke item that consists of a small bowed wire "frame" with a rubber band across the open end (like a sling-shot), and on the rubber band suspended between the arms of the frame, a metal washer.  You wind the washer up on the rubber band, and slip the assembled device into the paper package, so the washer is held tight and immobile within the confines of the envelope.  On the outside, the packaging advises the holder to be careful, the package contains rattlesnake eggs, and not to let the package get too warm (the implication is that the eggs might hatch).  When the unsuspecting person opens the envelope, the washer is released and spins inside the paper package, buzzing loudly as it unwinds and scaring bejeesus out of the victim.

In this case, either the student (the intended victim) had seen it before and didn’t want to be victimized again, or perhaps he was just indifferent or not-curious enough to look inside, so he handed the package unopened to a little old lady sitting beside him.  And she opened the rattlesnake eggs.  She almost wet herself, and pandemonium ensued.  Later, in my best sanctimonious official puffed-up bureaucratic voice, I advised Ron (probably through tears of laughter) that it was not a good idea to bring rattlesnake eggs to a defensive driving classroom.  We were both lucky she didn’t die of a heart attack right there.  Unintended consequences can be devastating.

During my years at the Court I was not permitted to teach defensive driving classes.  When I retired, having seen hundreds of different approaches to teaching the topic, it was Ron’s approach to it more than any other that I emulated in getting back into the classroom with defensive driving students.  Most defensive driving instructors teach a review of “traffic laws” – and really do very little with the nuts and bolts of defensive driving itself.  Ron taught practical defensive driving.  His class was built around a framework of the different types of wrecks he’d seen in his career – and exactly how a person could avoid getting involved in them.  It was real world and I believe his class was one of the best I’ve seen in that regard.  His students could go out the door with a better ability to stay safe on the roads if they listened and learned from him.  I learned from his example, and I still teach my classes using that same approach.

Ron Delong is one of my best memories of my years working with the Defensive Driving Program.  He was honest and as straightforward as you can get.  He was a good friend, the type of person that does anything for you if he can help, whether you’re talking about the community at large or on a personal level.  Ron Delong made a difference in his world. He truly did live life at 100 mph – or faster.   I loved him, I will miss him; he is gone too soon.  I was fortunate to know him. He was my friend.

Commentary on Current Events

- Donald Trump is an ass.

- By and large, the Republican field is filled with ignorant idiots. I read today that Trump is leading the field of GOP hopefuls. How frightening.

- The Democratic field doesn't impress me either.  I don't see any candidate I would vote for, in either group.  The way I see it, the Republic is lost.  See my thoughts on Greece, below.  I think we may be in the same sinking boat and for at least some of the same reasons.

- Bill Cosby and his lawyer just need to go away. He admits he obtained drugs to give to women so he could have sex with them.  And his lawyer says there’s nothing illegal about that.  The word scumbag comes to mind.

- I regret to say so, but Sandra Bland created the circumstances for her arrest herself.  When a cop stops you, you comply with their requests whether you know the reasons why or not, you don’t run your mouth from beginning to end and when they tell you to get out of your car, you get out of your car. You comply. You do not ever physically resist a police officer. If you are wronged or mistreated in the course of a traffic stop, or other encounter with a law enforcement officer, the place to take up those grievances is after the fact, with the officer's supervisors, with local government, or in the justice system, period; out there beside the road is not the place, because it puts you in grave danger. 

That said, why was it necessary for her to put out her cigarette, and why was it necessary to make her get out of her vehicle? Up to that point, her comments had just been frank.  I watched the posted video of the stop. It looks like this officer showed poor judgment in his actions during this incident – his commands to her were in large part unnecessary under the circumstances. Whatever happened to all the “Andy Taylor” kind of cops we used to see?  Why was she still sitting in jail three days after an arrest which was questionable in the first place (?); was it really necessary or was it just putting her "in her place." Anyway, I still wonder why this young woman thought she needed to hang herself. 

When are we going to step back from viewing our own people, our own neighbors, our own children, as the enemy? That said, I just don’t see that the circumstances of that mishandled traffic stop should cause a person, any person, to think that they needed to end it all.  There’s something about this whole incident that we just don’t understand. Either this young woman was not as mentally healthy as everyone is claiming, or something else happened that is as yet hidden.

- Susan Smith murdered her two little boys twenty-some years ago by rolling her car into a lake with them strapped in their car seats.  Can you imagine the terror these two babies felt when their own mother was killing them, trapped and drowning in the dark? Now she tells us (from prison) that she’s not the “monster” we all think she is.  Sorry, but yes, yes she is.  She still doesn’t grasp the horrendous reality of what she did.  She is the worst kind of human garbage.

- Is there anyone in the world that believes that Iran will honor ANY commitments it makes on nuclear weapons programs, or anything else?  I think the comparisons between John Kerry and by extension, Obama, and Neville Chamberlain prior to WWII could very well be valid.

- The Greek economy is a disaster, and from what I see, the Greeks don't want to change any of the circumstances that led them to the brink of that abyss.  Why should the other countries of the EU continually be asked to bail them out, when they will do nothing to help themselves?  I think much of their difficulty is of their own manufacture -- and there will come a time when they have to fix it.  As they don't seem to want to "own" the problem, I don't see that happening anytime soon. 

- Is flying the stars and bars flag of the Confederacy really the problem in the USA?  Or is it that we as a people suffer from pervasive and systemic racism?  I hear comments from people frequently about how “those people” are taking “our” jobs, how they’re getting things they somehow don’t deserve, and so on.  “Those people” are us, and if you don't see it that way, it is a major failure on your part.

Diverting our attention from these very real problems into making it an argument about confederate symbolism is wrong, especially since that symbolism is about more than racism.  Let’s take it a step further, shall we?  We need to take George Washington off of our money, demolish the Washington Monument, etc.  He was a racist who owned slaves.  Let’s tear down Mount Vernon, since slaves worked that estate. Likewise Thomas Jefferson and Monticello, and many others of our founding fathers and the things they built.  Even Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, had demonstrably racist views and ideas.

Do we need to purge ourselves of all of these icons and memories?  The Confederate flag represents so much more than the racism of the old south.  I don't know about you, but when I see the stars and bars, what it means to me is southern pride - and southern defiance, which are very valued American traits. What the Civil War was really fought over was the question of who we are as a nation; are we a single entity, or are we an "at will" loose affiliation of sovereign autonomous states?  Slavery was simply the foremost issue and catalyst that brought that question to the point of armed resistance and conflict.  More than any other single event, that resistance and its outcome shaped our country into what it has become -- for both good and bad.  I am not generally in support of these revisionist purges. We NEED to remember.

What we need to do instead, is to recognize our past mistakes. 

What we really need to do instead is confront racist actions and attitudes everywhere we see them, for the stupidity they are, no matter who or which group they are directed against, no matter who is behind them. 

What we really need to do is try to figure out why so many of us think guns and killing people is the answer to every trouble, as happened in that church in South Carolina, where nine innocent people were executed, as happened in Lafayette, LA, in Oregon, and as continues to happen almost daily across this entire country (as well as around the world).

What we need to do is figure out how, exactly, we are breeding so much mental illness (and hatred) in the populace of our nation.  

What we need to do is remember to treat ALL others as we want to be treated, and recognize that all of us deserve the basic human rights that Americans say we cherish.

And we need to remember exactly who we are (all of us) and what we've done.

If we don’t do these things, who will?

Happy Birthday, USA!

This is one of my favorite 4th of July stories.  The recounting of the story is by Jason Earle, writing for the Huffington Post on July 4, 2012.


I sit here in Princeton, New Jersey -- my hometown -- a small city, rich in history dating back to the Revolution, history especially relevant to this holiday weekend. Perhaps that's what's prompted me to sit down and write this post.


The Fourth of July is a "feel good" holiday. Most of us are going to find ourselves beach-bound or at picnics with friends and loved ones, eating and drinking to pleasant excess, enjoying fireworks, while trying to avoid bug bites and sunburn. It's a holiday which few people can take issue with. On a deeper level, to me it carries powerful meaning because of the freedoms that were delivered through our liberation from a tyrannical England, some 236 years ago. A few of the freedoms that still remain somewhat intact allow inspired people with creative ideas to pursue them for the betterment of those who they serve, while also creating a more abundant life for themselves, and those immediately around them. This is something I absolutely cherish. It's truly American.


While I suspect that our Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves seeing what we have done with these very liberties and principles in the years that have followed, I will reluctantly hold back from making this into a political commentary. There's something far more interesting to follow, so bear with me, please.


Thomas Jefferson and John Adams became fast friends during the First Continental Congress but the political elections, which made them both presidents, illuminated their very different political views, creating a rift that would last most of their lives. A mutual friend engineered a reconciliation between the two, culminating in a rich and heartwarming relationship, documented in 12 years of letters between them, which historians say must be read to be fully appreciated. As two of the few surviving signers of the Declaration of Independence, they were finally able to see that they had far more in common than any differences they had once perceived.


Amazingly, on July 4th, 1826 -- the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence -- these two luminaries died... within hours of each other. This alone leaves me spinning.


What's more, Adams' last words, as he drifted in and out of consciousness on his final day, were, "Jefferson...survives." Jefferson had passed away hours earlier. In his last moments, Jefferson awakes to ask his aides in his final utterance, "Is it the Fourth?"


Indeed it is, Mr. Jefferson. Today is the Fourth of July. We owe you and Mr. Adams tremendous thanks. Happy Independence Day!


Follow Jason Earle on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jasonearle