My farmer neighbor Lavell Smythe was on another one of his tirades the other day, yakking about the "decrepit state of the country" and our apparently nonstop spiral into "anarchy" and "greed."
His words, not mine.And I'm getting a little tired of it, quite frankly, because when he gets in a funk like that he never really wants to have an actual discussion. Lavell says he hates Rush Limbaugh and that crowd, but he's got a one-way talk-radio brain on him anyway sometimes, especially when he's in a bad mood.
Under these circumstances, he invariably likes to come to my house around dusk and sit on the deck if it's a nice day, which it was until he showed up.
I swallowed the bitter pill and answered the door, mostly because I'd just been watching the Philadelphia summit on voluntarism where everybody from Nancy Reagan to Socks the White House cat has been harping on community service.
Never accuse me of not volunteering because, believe me, listening to Lavell is some pretty heavy-duty community service com-pa-ra-ble at times to being an unpaid intern in a nuthouse or an Earth Day zealot picking through dirty cans at the recycling center because, hey, nobody else wants to do it, do they?
"Something's rotten in America," he said, pulling up a deck chair after helping himself to a drink from the refrigerator. "Just look at Timothy McVeigh! Why do they even have a trial for the guy? They ought to just take him out to the woods and shoot him between the eyes with a large-caliber deer rifle and then run him through a wood-chipper just to be sure. Sure, it'd cost maybe 50 bucks, but that's cheaper than this circus they've got going over in Denver."
"Lavell," I replied. "Shut up. This is the United States of America. Innocent until proven guilty, you cad."
He ignored me and tipped back his drink.
"These goons down in the Lone Star State, that Republic of Texas crap? Well, it's a check-kiting scam that finally got out of hand and now they want to say they don't have to pay their bills like everybody else!"
"Look, the government is handling it in the most sensitive way it can. Incidents like these are the price we pay for liberty."
"Bring in a tank battalion and blow the place away!" he shouted.
I wanted to call him a knee-jerk fascist, but I caught myself, remembering my new-found commitment to community service.
"What else is on your mind, compadre?" I cooed.
"I'm peeved about how free-market economies subjugate the needs and desires of individuals to the profit-driven demands of corporate behemoths!"
"What?"
"You remember that satellite dish I paid $700 for last fall so I could watch the NBA playoffs all the way through?"
"Sure, and a fine dish it is. You get three versions of ESPN."
"Yeah, but because of an exclusive-market deal KJZZ has with the NBA, they black out the Jazz games on TNT so we can't see them in this area!"
"So what? Whip out the antennae, tune in KJZZ and watch it there. Hot Rod Hundley's a better play-by-play man than any of those overpaid network cheesebags."
"We don't get KJZZ where I live in the shadow of the mountain!"
"You mean, right there at your farm a mere 36 miles from the mouth of Parleys Canyon you're unable to tune in playoff games featuring Utah's only big-time sports franchise despite the fact it's being broadcast by two separate networks?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you," he said.
I was almost too stunned to speak.
"Lavell, you may be right."
"About anarchy? About greed? About McVeigh and the Texas freaks?"
"Well, I dunno," I said. "But SOMETHING'S definitely rotten in America."
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On Line
Deseret News staff writer Karl Cates may be reached by e-mail at Karl@desnews.com