Bureaucracy

Today I went to the courthouse to talk to someone at the State Veteran’s Affairs Office. Once that was done I registered to vote. And finally I went in to the DMV Office to renew my Drivers License.

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? I didn’t need to take any test on driving or even an eye test. I just had to give them $23.00 and they gave me a temp license, the real one to be mailed to me later. This was the point where things took a turn for the worst, or at least the weird.

Between the license I got on entering the state back in 1994 and now I had had cataract surgery on what was essentially my bad eye. After the surgery the visual acuity in that eye had gone from 20/80 to 20/30. This is not an unusual occurrence as cataract surgery is just replacing your clouded lens with a nice clear plastic one. So quite often your vision improves. Mine did.

In any case I asked the logical question of what do I have to do to get the corrective lens requirement removed from my license. The response to the quire was somewhat disproportionate to the question. I suppose I must be the first person to ever ask. The obvious answer would be: "We will give you another eye test and if you pass it we will take the restriction off the license. This was not what they finally came up with. It took them 15 minutes and 3 phone calls to decided that I will have to go back to the doctor who did the surgery and get him to write a letter stating what surgery he did, when and where he did it and what my vision was after it was done. They also required a statement that I no longer needed to wear glasses of any kind.

I told them that the cataract surgery was done in Seattle and I didn’t remember the name of the doctor who did it, and I pointed out that I still have to wear reading glasses as my near vision is still pretty bad. They didn’t care, they had their rules (that I think they had made up on the spot) and they were sticking to them.

About this time I realized that my blood pressure was about to boil over so I turned around and walked away. The young man that I had been trying to deal with would not accept my leaving as he was not finished showing me who was boss. After yelling at me to stop he sprinted to the end of the counter and ran to catch up with me. This is not a very difficult task, catching up with me, as I use a cane and don’t hobble very fast. Once I realized he was coming after me I stopped and he put his hand on my shoulder and turned me around. I think at this point he realized that I was in some distress and that he had screwed up.

I told him that I had a bad heart and was leaving to forestall another heart attack and that by putting his hands on me he had committed assault. He turned white (quite a feat considering he was African American) and decided to back up a few steps. I told him I was within my rights to take my cane and beat him with it, and that I would do so but for the fact that I would fall over without it to lean on. I then suggested that he get back behind his counter and I left.

I guess I will just hope I don’t get stopped by any policeman who notices that I’m not wearing glasses.

Uncle Dave

Roadkill

Among the places I have lived was Brown County, Indiana. It’s the only place in Indiana with forested hills and beautiful foliage in the fall. Oh Yah! They have a ton of deer too.

Indiana, like most states regulates when and how you are allowed to kill these deer. They have a bow season, a black powder season, a rifle/shotgun season and the really big one… the motor vehicle season. The first three seasons happen from late September to February and bring out what seems to be thousands of game wardens whose primary job is to make sure that no one is trying to kill a deer with the wrong weapon at the wrong time. This would be a most thankless job as the laws governing the taking of deer are based on anything but logic.

The situation is that there are probably a couple hundred thousand deer in the state and nowhere near enough food for them to eat. So while the game warden is arresting some guy for killing a deer with a slingshot during pitchfork season there are deer out devouring farmer’s corn crops and many are still dying of malnutrition.

This brings me to the fourth deer season, the one that does not require any intervention by the much-overworked game wardens. This would be the motor vehicle season, also known as the car season. It goes from January to December and takes about twice as many deer as all the other seasons combined.

Now to the point!

One fine spring evening, it was a Friday I think, I was heading back into Brown County from Bloomington when I spotted a deer running out of the woods to my right. He was about to run across a road full of traffic. I saw him but the guy in front of me didn’t. He proceeded to take out his own right front fender and one large male deer. He pulled over immediately and I pulled in right behind him. I checked on the traffic and then the driver and found him shaken but not injured. We both went back to inspect the deer. I won’t go into his injures in great detail but suffice it to say he would never walk again. He was obviously in great distress and as I was about to retrieve my pistol from the car to end his suffering he let out his last breath and went wherever deer go when they die. This put the young man who hit him in great distress and I sat him down on the tailgate of my station wagon until he got his wits back about him.

I should explain here that I was at that time a Reserve Deputy Sheriff and had actually had a class on how to handle this sort of thing. I talked to the driver a bit. Seems he was a grad student at the university in Bloomington who was heading home to Toledo, Ohio for the weekend. We checked out his car, making sure it could be driven and I gave him instructions on how to report the accident at the Sheriff’s office. This was for insurance purposes, as Indiana does not consider culling the heard a crime.

I got him to help me load the deer into the back of my wagon gave him my contact info for his insurance company then I took the battered Bambi home.

My wife and I were eating "Roadkill" for the next six months. It was really good "Roadkill."


Uncle Dave

Skates

My Last 2 years in the Navy I got a little to "comfortable" to really be in the military. I was a first class petty officer (E6) in charge of a work center that took care of aircraft simulators In San Diego. In the process of trying to find a couple of very elusive bugs in the equipment I went on mid-shift for a week. We found and fixed the little devils just after I got to work Thursday night and the following mostly unrelated conversation took place on Friday morning…

It’s 0800 and I’m sitting at my desk in the trailer we used as a work center office. I’m sucking thick brown liquid from a big mug. The Admin Chief who is my immediate superior walks in and congratulates me on fixing the bugs. I tell him I was just watching, the techs did the work. He brings up another subject.

Chief: "You know you’re currently the senior man on mid shift and I was wondering if you saw or heard anything unusual last night?"

Me: "Such as?"

Chief: "Well the fire watch from the front of the building reported that he heard what sounded like people roller skating in the back hall all night last night."

Me: "Were there any marks on the floor when you inspected it this morning, because I thought the cleanup crew did a great job of waxing and buffing this morning?"

Chief: "No No! The floor looked fine, I’m just investigating what the fire watch reported."

Me: "Yes, I understand, we are after all, a military organization and we can’t be having military people having indiscriminate fun, after midnight, around here."

Chief: "No, I guess not. Well let me know if you hear anything about it."

At this point I lean back in my chair and put my feet up on the corner of my desk. Those would be the feet with the roller skates on them.

Me: "I’ll keep my eyes open, chief."

The chief looks at the roller skates, then at me and walks out of the trailer slowly shaking his head.

I went back to my coffee and paperwork.

Uncle Dave