Idaho (and now PA) Opinion Pieces, Letters of Public Interest and other aimful musings.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Idaho Burning Woman Auguries
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Unreasonable flag restrictions
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It’s remarkable that representatives of Hailey’s Copper Ranch Homeowners’ Association would demand that Robin Perfect remove the American flag decorating her front porch, as it is a strong symbol of support for her son Sgt. Edward Nalder, recently deployed overseas to the war in
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Especially significant is the fact that this is happening in the same small town where we already have a soldier missing in action, U.S. Army Specialist Bowe Bergdahl.
Traditionally for decades, all flags and statues have been exempt from most homeowner association bylaws. However, in recent years these new little forms of government have become increasingly more powerful, so much so, that some have been testing new waters.
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Certainly, there are positive aspects to having close-knit community oversights; however, to maintain unwavering attitudes about allowing simple family support for our troops, in the form of small American flags, especially around Veterans Day; is strong evidence of a homeowner association becoming too damn big for their britches.
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Perhaps, for this Veterans Day, the Woodside Homeowners’ association should consider ‘a Perfect olive branch’ by offering in place of these pesky individual flags, to build a giant community American flag, over where the old Ironwood gym was supposed to be refurbished, along with signage commemorating Sgt. Nalder, as well as any other local soldier-warriors currently deployed in our terrible wars.
Monday, October 18, 2010
A new method of courtship bugling?
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I was helping a work crew in a mid-valley garage recently, where we were shifting some mechanical equipment around. The job was going well, when suddenly from outdoors we heard an unusual screech from one of the lifting machines. We went outside to see what the problem was and soon realized that it wasn’t the lift-gate at all, but rather an elk bugling from the adjacent woodlands and quite loud too.
Some friends pulled up for a short visit, and we mentioned the trumpeting elk. They shut down their idling engine, listened for some moments and soon heard the hearkening music; accentuated by aspens quaking in the foreground. We shared pleasant smiles and they shortly went on their way. A bit later, we needed to pick up more equipment, so we began to head out. Within a minute we heard the lively elk bugling again and I suggested to the friend riding in the advantageous shotgun position that he make preparations to shoot a photo.
As the bull elk continued calling, we cautiously pulled closer. Soon we were within thirty yards of the large mammal and our friend appeared ready with the phone-camera clutched in his wrist. However, as we braked to a quiet halt, I saw that I was mistaken: Our friend was not preparing to shoot a picture or video of the lively elk, but was rather involved with an intensive text message. At first I thought that he was jesting; surely it’s not every day you get treated to a majestic elk bugling in such close proximity.
The other two of us, softly cried to him and said, “Okay the joke is up, and you can take some photos of the elk now.” However, he continued with his rigorous personal text messaging. Then we wondered if perhaps we had it backwards. We knew that the friend riding shotgun is an outdoorsy type and perhaps for him fantastic elk bugling is a common occurrence. Still, the episode baffled the other two of us: We hoped the reason he ignored our pleas to capture the simple photo in the enchanted forest was that he was performing a little bugling of his own. If this is the case, we hope that his amour responded in kind to his new-age ritualistic test message. Maybe, for a first date they can share an unbridled nature walk together. If he times it right, he can impress her with our bugling elk.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
An unexpected bungee jump
After Lana cleaned up from tipping over the birdbath, I turned my attention back to the underground antenna project that part of our science class was working on. There was an improved incentive too; as a large mining concern had expressed interest in helping to fund the venture. After a few hours of medium progress, I stepped outdoors for some fresh air and saw that Lana’s pink Porsche was gone. I had told her that she could stay over, but would have to use the guest room, as I needed some splendid isolation to focus properly.
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Lana probably took this the wrong way, in light of the recent conversation we had about our old feelings racing back toward each other. However, as always, work came first for me, and this newfangled communications project was promising. While outside, I noticed that the porch light wasn’t actually burned out, but that somebody had unscrewed it and tucked it into an old robin’s nest. That was odd enough, but then in the reflection of the obsidian mirror sundial, I saw some items scattered about, presumably from Lana’s satchel, when she took her
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I meditated for a moment and tried to conjure up some remote viewing powers. What I could see didn’t look good, so I rushed the pantechnivan over to Amy’s. Lana’s pink Porsche was parked by Amy’s driveway at the end of a long set of skid marks. Through the upstairs bay window, the action appeared chaotic; however I could only see one shadow. Insistently, I rang the bell, and pounded on the front door, but to no avail. I circled the perimeter to find every door locked tight. Meanwhile, the clamor from upstairs continued unabated.
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Returning to the van, I macgyvered what was there, affixing a rope ladder to the house from a bungee-cord web. As an early season frost set in, I clambered up the makeshift ladder, trying to gain a grasp on the gutter. It was too slick though and I slipped off the edge. The bungee cord caught me and there I was, stuck dangling from my ankle, bouncing in Amy’s courtyard. Right then a police car screamed in and shined his bubblegum lights all over the place. Then through the loudspeaker, a sturdy voice demanded, “Freeze up right there Max Rudolph! This is your sheriff, Wilt Fleming!”
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About the author: Although the speed limit has been reduced to 15 or 20 in many Hailey neighborhoods, the last time
Friday, September 24, 2010
Lana’s
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Although I’ve long been infatuated with Lana, something about her had been bothering me; ever since the 4th of July when she and I explored the subterranean tunnels that web beneath Hailey’s
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By having no shadow, I mean that as we hugged, I only saw one small silhouette on the north ground between the two of us. Granted the parade ends at the same time the sun is near zenith, but still; right when I noticed this strangeness, Lana made an excuse to dash inside The Mint, where the design of the lively dance hall makes it difficult to distinguish individual shadows. That evening too, as we walked out Quigley, it was too dark to say for sure, but every time a skyrocket went off, I noticed the same fleeting phenomena. Thinking back on it now, Lana chose a path, so we wouldn’t walk past any mercury vapor streetlamps. She seemed utterly determined to not reveal anything to me about her darkness.
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What was I to make of this? Actually I hadn’t thought much about it since the holiday, and even less recently, now that sweet Amy had become a larger part of my life. Still though, there was something irresistible about Lana, and if she wasn’t way down in
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Since it was a school night, and I still needed to conduct some tests on the antenna in my home lab, Amy and I parted ways at McClain’s. After a few hours in the lab, I felt as though I was making some progress on the underground project, when suddenly both cockatiels started squawking up a storm. I laid down my earphones and heard a squeak at the front door. When I tried to flip the porch light on, it was burned out. By the light of the waning moon, I saw an unfamiliar car in my driveway – an expensive looking pink Porsche with shaded windows. To show I was unafraid, I thrust open the front door with great force and knocked the perpetrator to the end of the porch and head over heels into the birdbath. Lo and behold, it was Lana! And she was dressed to the tees there to surprise me. Now all soaked, I tried to yank her out of the birdbath, but it was unstable, and when I grabbed her wrist, we both came crashing down onto my obsidian mirror sundial. Lana said, “You’re all wet, Max Rudolph and about as clumsy as Maxwell Smart!” The water was warm in the nice evening as we lay together, catching our breaths with the cockatiels cooing in the background. It was amazing how fast my old feelings started rushing back again in Lana’s alluring presence, and suddenly I suspended my earlier criticisms, making myself blind to those silly questions about her elusive shadow.
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About the author: Jim Banholzer once visited the Enola Gay warplane at the Smithsonian Institution, where he noticed that the lighting of the museum was such that no shadow was cast beneath the Bombay doors from where our first nuclear bomb exited.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Measuring Amy’s mood
It was great to be back at school instructing, and the first day was an emotional one for many of the parents, dropping their children off and snapping Polaroid’s for posterity. Some of my science class students had participated in the
After class, I walked down the quiet hall, carrying one of the multi-pronged antennas out to the van, when Amy suddenly whipped around the corner and one of my metal tentacles snagged on her golden hair. It took a few minutes for me to untangle her; and while brushing against Amy, I remembered the sensual flying dream we had experienced. Then as she looked at me with an unsettled gaze, I realized that I had absent-mindedly forgotten to tell her about the soaring dream! I guess it was so vivid, that I subconsciously assumed she already knew about it. But now with reality back on the radar, I folded the transmitter up, grabbed Amy’s hand in the hallway, and started to recollect the dramatic dream, demonstrating how we steered in the sky by using each others wrists as joysticks.
Amy smiled a few times, as I went on with the tale. At the part, where she showed me how to control our altitude through breathing; she said it felt like a fantasy straight out of
While cruising north, the new speed limit of 45, gave me some constructive time to plan how to make things right again with Amy. The antenna bouncing around in the back, reminded me of various other unseen communication channels. Then it dawned on me that I should travel up to Hollie Jewelers to find Amy a pendulum so she can read my true intentions. As I walked into the jewelry store its high vibration reminded me of a holistic healing center or perhaps a church. While Leanne laid out a small array of pendulums on the counter, I immediately saw which one was Amy’s. It was the sage-green one; earthy, with tiny specks of star-shine glittering from its outer edge cuts. Leanne, kindly allowed me test the pendulum, and when I asked if it was right for Amy, it spun wildly in an affirmative direction.
I left Hollie Jewelers with a secure feeling of joy in my heart. The gift-wrapped pendulum would be a unique way to open the door for Amy to accept my apology. I even remembered to charge my cell phone this time, and as I drove the 45 mph back down valley, I called and asked if she could meet me again over at McClain’s Pizza, where I would surprise her with the dynamic gift.
About the author:
Monday, August 30, 2010
Speed limit reductions have certain benefits
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Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Pink rabbits & phantasmagoric flying dreams
(Part one)
It was interesting to hear last week about Amy’s uplifting dream of us flying together over Hailey’s 4th of July Fireworks, because I had a similarly powerful dream regarding sweet Amy back at our old Petit Lake family cabin. I haven’t been up to Petit for ten years, but recently went on Google Maps and flew around the woodsy neighborhood a bit. Something, I’ve always admired about my father, Rainier Rudolph; is that whenever he bought a house, it was always adjacent to some woods, giving us young rapscallions a healthy place to scamper around to release our energy.
In the dream, I awoke on Saturday daybreak and went outside, barefoot in red pajamas to collect an Idaho Statesman from our snowy driveway. In reality, we lived on the sleepy dead end, but in the dream, cars could now connect into the forest. In fact, it was a bustling thoroughfare now; for some elaborate racecars were speeding into the hilly woods up to
To be continued…
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Pink Rabbits & Phantasmagoric Flying Dreams - Part two
(Continued from last week)
It was as if the strange woman had cast a spell upon her obscure name, rendering it impossible to recollect, although, I do remember her long singular name had four “i’s” in it. She released us and we trotted a little further down the wet and rocky
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Suddenly, as I spun around in the wet mud, I realized that I was able to fly again. I grabbed a hold of Amy and we flew feet-first with our bare toes sticking out straight ahead of us. Remarkably, the fact that we were able to fly felt quite natural, as it usually does with such triumphant flying dreams. This incubated a thought that I would like to twist our bodies to face forward and fly like Superman and Superwoman to show the Petit-Lakeians what their prodigal son had learned, while gone ten years on vast Indiana Jones adventures. They will love this! -I thought in a powerful inner celebration, and they will talk about it for decades! The plan was for Amy and me to float slow-motion past the children’s clamor and their holiday cauldron, while giving them the broadest smiles we could possibly manage. However, when we tried to spin about, to fly face-first like Superheroes, something went off kilter with our inner gyroscopes. A queer anti-gravity force led us to a higher altitude, and unexpectedly we were soaring in fast motion clouds, directly behind four space pilots and four astronauts. Those high-flyers were all relying on spacesuits and other backup technologies, so we laughed at them, as we took wing on mind-power alone! It all felt quite fearless, but for some reason, Amy and I were unable to switch our inner gears back down to earth, no matter how hard we tried. Then finally Amy showed me the secret – that is, we could regulate our altitude by taking deep breaths, just like with scuba diving in
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Abruptly awakening to present day reality, I lay there motionless for several minutes, lightly buzzing about the powerful flying dream. Then, as the dreamscape partially melted, it occurred to me that those uncanny houses in the woods were never actually there, but rather had been places imagn’d from childhood dreams. Vivid places I occasionally revisited over the decades, where many events had taken shape and form – enough to record a small history deep in my subconscious. These made me wonder if this all was merely in my mind, or are our minds potentially more powerful than what our instructors taught, in earlier schools of thought? When we dream, do we somehow mysteriously connect to otherworldly dimensions, where ongoing ethereal events persist in parallel fashions?
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Then I realized that I had been sleeping on a sofa with a cushion that Amy had specially embroidered for me. She emblazoned it with some cute animals, most notably some pink rabbits dancing on the pillow, which had been pressing softly against my dreamy head…
About the author: Once in the middle of an incredibly lucid dream
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Compound Whippersnappers
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Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Further map puzzles plus two lovebirds
After the children emerged from the depths of
I knew these maps well, but even after studying them into the wee hours many nights, I still had a hard time fathoming how the ancient ones were the most accurate; especially when considering that the ground here expanded with a new lava flow, a mere 27 years ago. How in the world could the oldest maps in the group, hundreds of years old, have known about this future event and been delineated with such fine matching detail? Could it have something to do with the ancient arch and what local indigenous people sometimes whisper about? After all, there are transformative wormholes in the universe; so why not one here in our stunning Picabo desert, next to the future airport?
Meanwhile, I had more pressing earthly needs to attend to. As Amy and I caravanned separately back to the
At this juncture, I unlatched the birdcage to let the two Sheila’s become better acquainted, while swapping out the bottom lining for some fresh newspaper. Soon, the birds made it clear that the second Sheila was not another female and that they would make a good mating couple.
As I ambled over to the map table to grab a large magnifying glass, I noticed that the real Sheila’s song was less discordant than usual, which made me believe that it would be a nice change, to listen to her fulfilled melody enhance the library background. Then, as I set down to study the esoteric map
About the Author:
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Team efforts and seed ideas
After the first two braves shimmied through
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Meanwhile, Amy and I climbed back up the ridge and over the dually van to discuss what to do about its flat tire. I was hesitant to hoist it up on a jack, since it was bulging with the extra weight of heavy silver; when Amy observed that since it was only one of four rear tires, we could still operate the pantechnicon by shredding the rest of the ruined tire clean off. Seeing no better tool than the spear point, which first caused the flat, we used it to slice the remaining rubber remnants away. Next, I shot a Polaroid of the spear points’ black mirror face, and posted it to my adventurous Max Rudolph facebook page. Then we used the same weapon to burrow a hole in the hard earth to return the artifact where it belonged; hopefully burying it deep enough so nobody else would experience a flat tire there for another five hundred years.
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The afternoon was turning late, when we received communication that the first group had discovered the Salinger & mysterious map parchments Lana and I had hid in the lava tube last year - and they would soon be returning with it. They also reported that the strange luminous humming was continuous throughout the cave depths and they couldn’t pinpoint the exact source from where it stemmed. As Amy and I waited along with the remaining schoolchildren, we studied the vast landing where our community’s wise elders had rallied together as a cohesive team and slated the new airport to be. Here we marveled over some of its pros and cons. Then we popped the question to the children, what they thought if we were to work out a unique deal with the authorities, whereby our class could have a supporting role with the new airport. “What do you mean, like a de-icing / car wash for airplanes or something? – quizzed one of the kids.
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What the children didn’t know was, since last year after coming into possession of the enlightening maps that our crew was about to extract from the cave, I had worked out a legal claim over the forty untaken acres. Standing under the ancient wooden arch gave a better perspective, as from the light there; we could see that the lava terrain of our new land clearly held a darker color then the surrounding sun-parched earth did. I remembered hearing that during the Borah earthquake of ‘83 that there were some heavy rumblings in the
About the author:
Twice when
Friday, June 11, 2010
Max’s map irregularities – Chapter 17
I slept a bit uneasy after setting off the car alarm, right when the time seemed perfect for Amy and me to share our first sweet kiss by the romantic sage grouse lek setting. The next morning we awoke to a warm sun at the
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We pulled through an ancient wooden arch, to a clearing in the tall sage, and came to a loud popping halt. A sharp obsidian spear point sticking out of the gravel had punctured one of the dually van’s rear tires; but at least it was at the same spot where we wanted to park. We would deal with the flat later, for now we were at today’s destination. And although we were within 50 feet of the cave, it took several minutes before any of the students noticed the jagged mouth opening. Behind the schoolchildren, I squeezed Amy’s hand tight as we clambered down past a juvenile owl pecking at a pile of brown rattlesnake eggs in the hot rocks. After cautiously passing the guardians, we felt a cool breeze emerging from the tiny lava stone entrance. This desert quietude held a dissimilar vibe than the
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Two of our tech students set up an elaborate portable antenna they had invented, and spiked it into the rough terrain above the cave. This newfangled device would enable us better communications throughout the cavern and not only that, but it also had a recording mechanism attached. Then, the same young braves volunteered to spelunk headfirst into the darkness. Meanwhile, since Amy had been observing our schoolchildren through rosy Holden Caulfield filtered glasses lately, I wondered how she would react when she discovered that Lana and I had previously stashed a mile within the lava tube, a rare copy of Salinger’s Ocean Full of Bowling Balls. Although this great unpublished work is not supposed to be released until fifty years after Salinger’s death; the preceding year I had visited Princeton’s tightly controlled Firestone Library where the only public copy available is kept; and then through several fortnights of burning the midnight ethanol; I rigorously committed the fine work to memory; before meticulously hand scribing a second copy. This uncommon duplicate now laid in a wooden box eight furlongs deep within the climate-preserving walls of
About the author: After mostly conquering his claustrophobia, Jim Banholzer has shyly spurlunkered in several
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