Crosstimber Chronicle

Welcome back to our ongoing series! Last time we showed you the female of the species Meridiass Moroni – a suburban invader to Garden Valley, Idaho that, in addition to often being of low character and intelligence, also wishes to cover our mountain valley in the same asphalt, concrete and lawn grass that she came running from to retire or pretend to be a “nature girl,” ironically. She never quite cuts the mustard in that department, now does she?

The husbands; the male transplants from Meridian, usually come here from doing jobs like managing lumber companies or running building supply companies of some sort, maybe from the trucking industry or commercial agriculture or chemical operations of some kind. You know, soulless, corporate jobs that have turned them into sexless, completely replaceable meat sacks covered in cheap shirts and beer fat. They are, to a man, surprisingly much more whiny and passive-aggressive than their wives – possibly from being henpecked into a life of zombie-like submission to the missus. This leaves the “male Karen” or “Kevin,” as we like to call him, with only a few outlets for his male ego and sense of self, such as it is, which is now reduced to fierce baby tantrums in front of strangers when the wife is not around. One of these outlets is being very active and confrontational about anything and everything on the community Facebook pages of Garden Valley – more on that later (with pics!).

Another outlet is being what I like to call a Dash Cam Drama Queer. Oh, the Kevins are very attached to these new-fangled surveillance devices. Their identity becomes one with them, like Lionel with his blanket. They really don’t want the privacy or independence of a rural mountain town after all; they never really did. They liked the safe, controlled concrete matrix of Meridian. The comforting grid of streets ending in cul-de-sacs, the stop lights and speed limit signs, a camera or a friendly police officer on every corner. It was the wife’s dream to move to this piney shithole, not mine, they secretly grumble.

Nothing is predictable here in the country. The weather can turn from snow to ice to mud and back again within an hour, elk roam and graze wherever they please, turkeys trot, dogs bark in the backs of trucks and neighbors stop their cars in the middle of the road to chat. A log truck or a farmer with a wide load of hay or a trailer full of cattle wobbles outside of the lane lines every so often down Banks Lowman. An errant cow halfway in the road backs up traffic for a moment until she moves on to the next patch of grass. No one is in a rush, there is no fire to put out.

All of these back country moments are now caught on The Kevin’s dash camera as he drives down rural roads. Watching these moments, Kevin is seized with fear and fury that life is happening OUTSIDE OFTHE LINES. There is NO GRID to contain the elk or the cow or the neighbor! They just – do things in a natural way. But this is so dangerous! So unpredictable! The swerving farmer in front of him on the road must surely be high on something to to have slowed down or veered toward the middle line for that instant. The Kevin cannot be expected to NOT do anything about this infraction of the farmer now that he is equipped with his dash camera that has filmed it. The hay bales and the cows are no excuse. People have to drive straight. They just HAVE TO DRIVE STRAIGHT GODDAMMIT. Those are the rules. Why can’t the farmer just DRIVE STRAIGHT? He needs his beer and his asphalt driveway to calm him. Maybe this spring he can put more asphalt down to make a parking area. Anything to cover the traditional elk grass. Those elk are very invasive! But first he must confront the farmer at the neighborhood mailbox where they both end up. The Kevin exits his gleaming silver vanity truck and approaches the farmer’s dusty white work truck.

The Kevin had, earlier, roared ahead of the farmer at a turn when he finally got the chance, flinging dirt and gravel at the farmer’s truck and causing the farmer to swerve into the shoulder to avoid The Kevin. But the farmer, being of sound mind and body and not a pussy-whipped Meridiass Moroni, is nonplussed by this. Things happen. He and his load are fine. Life moves on. He figures The Kevin might have ‘had a few’ on the drive home. So when he sees The Kevin approaching, he does not roll down his window to say hello, but gently studies The Kevin in pity and amusement from inside his truck. The Kevin wags his finger at the farmer, mouthing something about the farmer being ‘drunk or on drugs’ to drive in such a way. He has it all on camera, he stutters. His lips are trembling with nervous rage. Sweat drips down his face. The veins on his forehead bulge and throb. The Kevin doesn’t understand why the farmer is just staring at him and smiling calmly. This tsk tsking isn’t working at all. But-but-but it works on him when his wife does it! Now Kevin feels very foolish indeed. He’d better get home to the wife and that beer.

The moment and the farmer recede back into nature. Kevin hates nature. Real nature that is. The stuff on TV is fine. But nothing is too natural in his new Crosstimber Ranch home, thank goodness, and so he rushes there to his big screen and his Lazy Boy, just like when he lived in Meridian. Fancy that.