Wake up calls.

Big traumas certainly serve as wake-up calls.  The question is, however, if a person has just awakened too late.

I firmly believe that people are capable of reinventing themselves.  Often people don't know to do that until some external force compels it.  At that point, they're left with the choice of reformation or continuing on in their former path's.  Reformation is hard, but people do it.

Take, as an example, Georgy Malenkov.

Malenkov graduated school in 1917, just before the Russian Revolution, and he served in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. He became a commissar in 1920.  He rose steadily in the Communist party, surviving Stalin's purges, and was the head of its nuclear missile program when that era arrived.  He became a member of the Central Committee, the real ruling body in the USSR.  He suffered a downfall, however, when he tried to stage a coup against Khrushchev, and was accordingly expelled from his positions.

Khrushchev was decidedly an opponent of the Church.  Malenkov had never been adherent in his adult life.  But upon his release from position, he converted to Russian Orthodoxy and became a lector, which in the Russian Orthodox Church is a minor order of clergy.

Dramatic change.

It probably wouldn't have come about, however, but for his fall from grace from Soviet leadership.  A coup attempt against Khrushchev fell, he fell, and he fell into the Church,.  It's almost like what Shane MacGowan noted in A Rainy Night In Soho.

We watched our friends grow up together

And we saw them as they fell

Some of them fell into Heaven

Some of them fell into Hell

The lucky ones choose to fall into Heaven, the obstinate ones choose to fall into Hell.

Save for the fact that some people find the alarm bell going off a bit too late.

Some additional observations on the Hamas v. Israel War

1.  "Was this an American intelligence failure?"

Why does the press keep asking this really stupid question?  Hamas didn't attack the U.S.  Why would U.S. intelligence be obligated to pick up an intended attack against another country?  If there was an intelligence failure, it was an Israeli one, not an American one.

2.  Second Amendment.

FWIW, Israel, contrary to what some imagine, has relatively strict gun control laws, but a sort of semi moderate license provision.  The U.S. Department of Justice notes:

In Israel guns are strictly regulated yet widely available to law-abiding citizens who hold gun permits; gun control and tough punishment have made it difficult for criminals to acquire guns.

Abstract

There is no clear right to carry a gun in Israel. Nothing similar to the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution exists. In theory, the policy is very strict. No one may own or carry a gun without showing a reason to do so. A special permit by the Interior Ministry is then required. The permit must have the approval of the police and includes information about the owner and the gun type. It is easy for a law-abiding citizen (with no criminal record) to get a permit for a handgun. There is no distinction between carrying a gun and possessing it. People who have a permit to own a handgun or other weapon are allowed to carry it with them. The police and the court take seriously the felony of possessing a firearm without a permit, which almost always means that the gun is stolen. People with previous criminal records caught with firearms are generally sentenced to a year or two in prison. The "gun density" in Israel is very high, despite the laws. The strict limitation of gun ownership to law-abiding citizens combined with strict enforcement against those who have guns without a permit apparently works well in Israel to keep the homicide rate low; there are 40-60 murders a year in a population of four and one-half million.

Whatever the U.S. Department of Justice thinks about things, Israel feels compelled to loosen the system up and Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir declared last Sunday; “Today I directed the Firearms Licensing Division to go on an emergency operation in order to allow as many citizens as possible to arm themselves. The plan will take effect within 24 hours.”

It's easy to go all molṑn labé on this, but here's a true instance where something like the 2nd Amendment as originally conceived, or perhaps as conceived of in the pages of the American Rifleman, may have made an actual difference.

If I lived in Israel, I wouldn't go anywhere without a handgun.

3.  What's up, NPR?

Meet the Press, This Week, and Face the Nation all featured this event on their weekend show but as of this morning, NPR's Politics hasn't touched it.

Eh?

That's just weird.  What's up NPR?

4.  And the difference would be what?

Matt Gaetz is supporting funding for Israel in the wake of this crisis, as he should.

There's an imperfect democracy that's fighting for its life against a foreign invasion by forces that claim its land, led by a Jewish Prime Minister.

Israel?

No, Ukraine.

Funding Israel but not Ukraine makes no sense whatsoever, unless of course you have a lot of Jewish constituents in your district and your decision is purely political.

Hmmm. . . 

By the way, even Marjorie Taylor Greene is criticizing Gaetz for leaving the government weakened due to his leading the charge to take out Kevin McCarthy as Speaker.

5. Wouldn't you like to visit?

I've been asked that question by a certain friend of mine for years.  I have never had a desire to visit Israel.  My mother, however, went on a Church sponsored trip there.  A lot of Americans and Canadians who go there do so as they are religious tourists, pilgrims really.

Well, I'm Catholic, obviously, and I have no desire at all to go there.

I'd like to see Rome, but not to the degree that I'm sufficiently motivated to actually go there.

I guess its the lack of an ancestral connection.  Christ brought salvation to everyone and while, as we know "salvation is from the Jews", my ancestors weren't from the region and, while perhaps it speaks ill of me, I don't feel any reason to visit there.

Friday Farming. All agriculture is local, the danger of taking agricultural advice from Reddit, and Meeting Marcus Aurelius on the prairie.

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together,but do so with all your heart.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Longhorn in mixed herd, central Wyoming.  This is from this year. . . a high water year.

From the r/ranching Subreddit on, of course, Reddit:

I just inherited 1200 acres of ranch land. WTF do I do?

My father in law wants to pass on his ranch to me before he passes. He’s in bad health and for some reason decided that I would be the best of everyone to take on his property. I don’t know a god damn thing about cows or hay, having lived in a big city my whole life; but I’m a pretty good mechanic and would fix all of his equipment whenever I visited him, so I guess he likes me and he thinks I’m the best to take things over. The ranch, located in southern Wyoming, hasn’t done anything productive in the past 5 years due to FIL declining health and I have no idea what to do with it. Like the title says, it’s 1200 acres of mostly hilly sagebrush with grassy bottom land surrounded by forest land. I promised him I wouldn’t break up the land or develop it; but how does a city slicker move out to the middle of Wyoming and generate a living income off of the land without knowing a thing about ranching? Can I lease the grazing property out; lease the grass land out? Just looking for any advice or recommendations. Any advice is appreciated.

Let's answer the question first, that being, "how does a city slicker move out to the middle of Wyoming and generate a living income off of the land without knowing a thing about ranching?"

The answer is simple.  You don't.

Here's the reason why:

level 1

DyersvilleStLambert

·1 day ago

With only two sections, in Wyoming, I’m assuming that he wasn't a full time rancher, or that he leased a lot of land to get by. Most working Wyoming ranches are large for a reason.

So, as a starting point, what did he do with it? 1,200 acres sounds like a lot unless you've actually ranched in Wyoming, in which case, it really isn't.

19

level 2

overeducatedhick

·22 hr. ago

And to be fair, two sections in Carbon or Sweetwater Counties is different than the same area in Laramie or Albany Counties. Your mention of sagebrush suggests that you are somewhere west of Laramie. That also suggests that there are some state or federal leases that are connected to the privately owned land. How many adult cattle does (or did) he run on his place?

The truth of the matter is that, in today's operations, your mechanical abilities are among the most important skills to make a farm or ranch work.

15

level 3

DyersvilleStLambert

·18 hr. ago

True. If you are east of Cheyenne, which is really more farm country, it's one thing. Once you start heading west of Cheyenne and into Albany County, it's another. The sagebrush country of Carbon County, something else entirely. Wyoming has quite a bit of varied terrain and conditions.

None of it will support really dense stocking, however, like some other regions of the country will allow. I'd have to assume, like you, that if he was really ranching, he must have had Federal and perhaps state leases, or maybe some private leases.

As a total aside, the line "Somewhere west of Laramie" is part of one of the greatest advertising campaigns of all time, which some credit with starting modern advertising. The 1923 ad for the Jordan Playboy car, which starts off with “Somewhere west of Laramie there's a broncho busting, steer roping girl who knows what I'm talking about".

Replies, from me, and some other guy.

Now, the same thread is full of advice on how this person can just move out and, yee haw, be a rancher.

Bull.

All agriculture is local.  All of it.  A grain farmer in Kansas can't walk right into a bandanna plantation in Africa and expect to make a go of it instantly.  Gardeners all over the country, if they suddenly inherited a wheat farm, would go broke.

And with animal agriculture, this is particularly true.  Ranching in Wyoming may be like ranching in Montana, but it's not like cattle farming in Arkansas.  Frankly, a Northern Plains rancher used to low grass and cold winters would have a lot better chance of being successful in Arkansas, than an Arkansas cattle farmer would of being a rancher here.

And somebody from a city, stepping into land on advice from people who don't realize that 1,200 acres doesn't cut it here as a ranch, and who have never endured our winters.

Forget it.

This property will be leased to a neighbor, or sold.

And let us discuss the injustice of things.

From when I was small, I've always wanted to ranch.  It's hard to explain these things, but I always wanted to.  It's probably one of the two "I want to be when I grow up" things in my personality.  The other one was being a soldier, which I've done.  Regarding that, by the time I was approaching graduating from high school (I graduated when I was 17 years old, not all that uncommon at the time) that was waning, but that desire was expressed by six years I spent in the National Guard.

And I have been a stockman as an adult, but I was never able to make it my full time occupation.

I came pretty close twice, once before being married, and once after, but events transpired and. . . off to the office I go.

There's a difference between being in the Regular Army (which I was for training) and being in the reserves. And there's a difference between being a part-time stockman and a full time one.  Moreover, as I'm in one of the professions, I've entered that weird part of my life, which seems to be the case for at least people in my profession, when the kids have grown up and have their own lives, and your spouse has her own job, and most of the people you meet on a daily basis are in your profession, where your private aspirations just die as other people murder them.

You don't need a stock working horse. . . you can borrow one.  Wouldn't you like to sell that old one ton stick shift and buy a nice 1/2 ton sport auto, or maybe a Jeep pickup?  You don't need to work cattle this weekend, you can get that big project done at work.

Which is why, I think, that I see so many old members of my profession carrying on into their 70s and 80s. Their actual personality died thirty years ago.  Just the shell is left.  

And in the weird way of the world, here we are.  Some urban dude who has little interest in ranching inherits a small (and it is) parcel, but one that has entertaining possibilities, and isn't really that interested, whereas some rural dude spends his whole life, more or less, in suit and tie.

M'eh.

My wife always says things work the way they do for a reason.  We're placed in one place, under one set of circumstances, because God wants us there for some reason.  We should accordingly accept it, and be happy with it and that we can do what we do, even if we don't realize whatever the good is that we're supposed to be doing by our placement. I try to accept that, but I'll confess, stuff like this frustrates me.

The glory of being a trial lawyer.

The dirty little secret. . . there isn't any.

One of the nice things about being in a farm community as a working travelers is that their Sunday morning Masses usually start really early, as in 7:00 a.m. in this case.

At least not like portrayed in the movies, and certainly not like the silly "whaling for justice" type of stuff that the plaintiff's bar likes to shovel out.

Recently I tried a case out of town. I've tried so many in the past three decades I no longer have any idea how many I've tried, and if I stopped to try to count them, I know that I'd be inaccurate.  When you apply for a judicial appointment, which I've done several times, unsuccessfully (obviously), you are required to count them up, and I'm sure my numbers weren't the same any time I did that, even though I made an effort to be correct.

I do know that the year COVID restrictions on the courts lifted, I tried three that year.  That may not sound like a lot, but for a civil litigator it is.  I know quite a few civil litigators who have tried less than that over decades' long careers.  One law school colleague of mine who does the same work, has never, in so far as I know, tried a case.  An ABA review I once read of lawyers who had long civil careers and then retired (which seems to be a rarity) remarked that one of the subjects was proud of her "six" trials.

Six.

Hah.

There are a lot of reason there are not very many civil trials and even fewer serious civil trials, but one reason is that trials are hard stressful work.

But I'll get to that.

This past year, dating back a year ago or so, has not been a good one for me on a personal level.  I had surgery in the fall and missed the hunting season.  It was colon surgery, and I've never completely recovered, which is to say that my digestive track has not returned to normal, and it isn't going to.  During that process, it was revealed by a scan that I had a major thyroid nodule.  Followup on that showed it to almost certainly be cancerous, so during the trial, was looking forward to a second surgery, a partial thyroidectomy, and if really lucky I won't have to take medicine for the rest of my life.  There is, however, a good chance that I will have to. 

Having  the trial to accomplish meant that I didn't have to think about it, however.

In terms of good news, it turned out to be benign. Strange, but benign.  It's basically a result of an old injury, one I don't ever recall sustaining.

Current wound status.

Hopefully the recovery time isn't really long, but it varies quite a bit for people.  

I ended up never taking a day off from the second surgery, not even the day of the surgery, which was a mistake, I'll note.

Anyhow, for about a year running now, my life has been nothing but work.  As noted, I missed the hunting season and what little I got in prior to surgery was marred by being incredibly tired.  I'm not sure what was up with that (perhaps the thyroid), but I was.  I couldn't go for big game after that least I rip my stitches out.  

I did get out for waterfowl quite a bit late in the season, mostly on Sunday's after Mass.  I'd work on Sundays but for the Commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, which I take seriously, although occasionally I find myself working on that day too.

That's mostly a reflection of my personality.

The trial in question had been from a pre COVID case and it finally rolled around to to.  Just before it did, my opponent let me know that his young female partner was leaving, and she did before the trial commenced.  I was stunned, really, as she was bailing out of a really good firm and she's a really good lawyer.  She was leaving private practice to go in house.  

No more trials for her.

Then my younger female partner let me know she was leaving. She stuck with me through the trial.

Finding a lawyer you can comfortably try cases with isn't easy.  Frankly, maybe one in ten lawyers who do trial work are really talented at it and of those, maybe only 10% anyone one person meshes with well enough to have that role.  But here she definitely did.  Her leaving is a big loss to me, just as my opponent's younger counsel leaving was a big loss to him.  I don't know, really, if I'll be able to replace her.

For some time I've frankly wondered how she does it, as she's married with young children.  When I was first practicing law, the female litigators I'd meet, and they were few, tended to be childless, often by choice.  Quite a few women started to come into the law about the time that I did, and by and large if they were married and started to have children, they dropped out of practice.  It was just too much of a burden.

This recalls the old phrase, supposedly written by Jean Little, a Canadian author:

A man can work from sun to sun, But a woman's work is never done.

There's a lot of truth to that, quite frankly.

For some reason, even in our "modern" age, the traditional division of labor in which women are burdened with raising children while they're young and keeping the household has never gone away, even when the woman of the house is a professional and its first breadwinner.  Perhaps its simply genetic, although we're not supposed to say that.  About the only relief I see them getting is from willing grandparents, really, and that too, oddly enough, is a very traditional role for grandparents.

Anyhow, juggling a household and having a professional job that requires long hours and travel. . . that's brutal.  I don't blame these women a bit for seeking something else out.

One more example of how our modern "you live to serve this ship" lifestyle makes no sense and makes nobody happy.

You always go to the location of the trial early.

On Sunday, I looked out of my hotel window and saw this:

Horses by an old homestead, still being farmed.

Sigh.

The only thing I got out to do was to go to Mass.

I like everyone to have their own vehicles at a trial.  It gives everyone some independence.  If I control things, and at my age I do, everyone drives themselves.  

This, I'll note, isn't the case with some lawyers, although it is with all the ones I know.  Those people must be the really extraverted ones who just think everyone needs lots of sharing time all the time, and therefore they make the whole team prisoners to their automobile.

Hotels have evolved quite a bit in the past thirty years.  Thirty years ago I'd look for a hotel with a restaurant and then catch breakfast.  Now, most hotels that I stay at are "business hotels" which means that they have a light kitchen with the bare minimum. As breakfast is an afterthought with me anyhow, I’m good to go with that.

I’m not good to go with these monstrosities:

I hate Keurig machines and their stupid one cup at a time system.  I always have.  I never drink just one cup of coffee bu several, and I don't want to screw around making endless little cups. To make matters worse, it's invariably the case that the person who stocks the rooms leaves you hardly any real coffee, but lots of stuff like Ceylonese Green Herbal Tea or something. 

Blech.

We always go down and get a bunch of real coffee for the stupid Keurig machine.

One thing about trials is you get to wear your cool dress shoes that otherwise would look odd in our modern era.

These are saddle oxfords.  Saddle oxfords made from buffalo hide, I might add.  

I've never worn out, I might note, a pair of dress shoes.  I have my black low quarters from basic training still.  When I was first practicing, I bought a pair of wingtips made in Ireland, just like the dress shoes my father had when I was young. They've been resoled once, but they're still in good shape.

Indeed, I only have five pairs of dress shoes, one being the aforementioned Army low quarters I very rarely wear.  I'm never going to need to buy another pair.

I do need to shine them.

Parking lot view.

One thing about doing a trial in farm country is that it always causes me to think how lucky some people are that they get to farm as a career.

I don't think they appreciate that.

I never think that about trying a case in a big city.  I've tried cases twice in Denver and wasn't envious of a soul associated with Denver. The poor judge looked like he'd been rode hard and put away wet in the second one. Denver itself, out on the street, was like a Middle Easter Dysentery Ward in the 30s.  The jurors had jobs I wouldn't have wanted.  

Grim.

In farm country you see, however, people living the way that people are supposed to live.

Restaurant view.  The field below is one I've hunted geese in.

I constantly hear people in agriculture complain about it, and by that I don't mean the weather or something, but about being in agriculture itself.  Maybe complaining is just something people do.  Pascal noted:

If a soldier or labourer complain of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing.

I'm not sure what Pascal was aiming at there, but I think it might have been that people just complain.  I also think, however, that a lot of people who were born into agriculture have no idea what other work is like, including working as a professional.   

I turned 60 recently as well, which of course is a sort of milestone for many people, although I really didn't pay that much attention to it at the time.  It really started to set in, however, when I attended a mule action by video. Everything was too expensive, and I didn't buy anything, but leading up to it, I got a fair amount of opposition from my spouse.  Most of it was of the nature of "you don't have time".

I don't have time, which is because I work a work schedule at the office, in this civil litigator line of country, that's very heavy.  I work a schedule that's heavier than a lot of lawyers in their 20s and 30s.  I have nobody, I guess, but myself to blame for that, sort of.  Part of it too has to do with the circumstances during which I came up in the law, and part of it has to do with my own character.

When I was young, before I was a lawyer, I wanted to work outdoors.

It's never really stopped being in a least the back of my mind.  The net effect of that is that from the exterior I'm one of the rare trial lawyers who tries a lot of cases.  I'm cited to other lawyers that way, and because of the work that comes through my door, it's pretty obvious that my reputation as a trial lawyer is impossible to escape.  But part of the reason that I can't escape it is that those immediately around me, including those closest to me, see me that way and can't imagine a world in which I'm not yoked to the plow in this fashion.

Elijah set out, and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat, as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen; he was following the twelfth. Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak on him.

Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Please, let me kiss my father and mother good-bye, and I will follow you.” Elijah answered, “Go back! What have I done to you?”

Elisha left him and, taking the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them; he used the plowing equipment for fuel to boil their flesh, and gave it to the people to eat. Then he left and followed Elijah to serve him.

1 Kings, Chapter 19.

I've always thought Elisha's actions baffling.  But they are not.  He was wanting to set out with Elijah, who had just anointed him his successor.  When he left the oxen and spoke to Elijah, Elijah seemed annoyed and told him to go back.

Yoke's were expensive, and so were oxen.  By burning his wooden yokes, there was no going back.

If this seems harsh, consider the similar lines from Luke in the New Testament:

As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”

And to another he said, “Follow me.” But he replied, “[Lord,] let me go first and bury my father.” But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead.* But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

And another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.”  Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.” 

In modern American life we imagine we can always go back and most of us live our lives that way.  Had Elisha decided, well, I'll plow the field and bring in the crops and take up being a prophet later, he wouldn't have become a prophet.  Those setting a hand to the plow, and looking back, don't plow a straight row.

And so back to the main.

There's really no glory in trial work, in spite of what people like to imagine.  It's hard work.  If you win, your clients view the victory as theirs.  If you lose, it's your fault.  Everyone wins some and loses some, and moreover, wins some they should lose and lose some they should win.  It's so stressful that most civil litigators, truth be known, and this includes both plaintiffs and defendants lawyers, won't try a case.  Those who will tend to be a tiny minority, and we try lots of cases, because we will.  You get used to a lot of the things about it, but like the way Jock Lewes is portrayed in SAS, Rogue Heroes (stay tuned for a review shortly), some of that is suppression of anxiety rather than its elimination, although anxiety does indeed decrease with time.  People who run around claiming they love everything about a trial tend to be weirdos or liars, more often the latter than the former.

And, for what its worth, I've tried a minor case since this one.

Some random musings. Old Age, Worn Out Horses, Secrets.

The freeze

What happened to Mitch McConnell yesterday and to me 35 years ago.

ROBERT REICH

An insightful article by Robert Reich, who experienced something similar.

While I'm sure that I'm beating a dead horse on this, this is yet again evidence that we do come with a wear out date, and we ought to accordingly be careful.  So should society.  A huge amount of our societal deposit of power is in the truly ancient.

Mind you, I don't agree with Reich on much of McConnell's record being repugnant.  He did a great job, in my view, with the Supreme Court.  That's one of the things that Reich now doubt feels is skunking up the room.  And by this point, McConnell's presence may truly be necessary as a brake on what would occur if Donald Trump regains the White House, as McConnell seems to be able to control Senate Republicans, which in part has kept the Senate from becoming the circus that the House of Representatives currently is.

McConnell is 81.

Our senior Senator is 71.  Our junior Senator is 68.  Our Congressman is 60.

The world is enduring a really hot summer this year.  This is hard to ignore.

Sixteen young Montanans have sued their state for embracing fossil fuels in the face of climate change.  Nothing like that has happened in Wyoming.  I don't know what the average Wyomingite under 30 feels about this issue, or believes about it, but I'll bet it's not the same for Wyomingites who are 60 and over.  We probably worry about it, if we do, in the context of our children and their children.  Of course, if you are our youngest member of Congress, which isn't to say young, you have no children to worry about.

It used to be wars that caused this sort of observation.  Old men started them, it was claimed, and young men fought them.  Now it seems that really old men start them and young men and women, given that we've grown more barbarous in recent decades and included women in this horror, fight them.  The "old men" of the 1940s mostly weren't all that old, in comparison to what we have now.  Anyhow, I really wonder what approach to many things we'd be taking if people who were at least under 50 years of age were at the wheel.

Would that this was so.

On a somewhat related item, I've really been noticing recently that collapses that should be obvious to those close to collapsing aren't, at least to some extent.  I guess if people have relied upon somebody for a long time, they'll just ride that horse until it collapses, and then they're surprised.  Even the warnings that the metaphorical horse gives, as it stumbles or becomes blurry eyed, don't mean much.  The horse is just whipped into carrying on.  When it rolls over and dies, the rider is surprised.

I've been noticing recently that certain people turn everything very much to themselves.

Maybe everyone does to some degree.  People are told a story, and they want to show it's relevant to them as well, so they tell something related.

That's not really what I mean.

Rather, because for most of us our own frustrations and sufferings are the ones we really understand, it's hard for some not to use those as an absolute yardstick.

Indeed, I've witnessed recently somebody who fits into the category above, they're heavily burdened and collapsing, and they're pretty much trying to get some support.  However, when they seek to get it, they instead get tales, mostly repeats, of the other persons' frustrating, but not really epic, work life.  While it would be a poor comparison, it would be like a person going into the emergency room and telling the receptionist that they have a gunshot wound, only to get a really detailed reply like "I know, let me tell you about how slow the lunch line is here".

In this case, the suffering soul is pretty much the plow mule for the household, and the mule is on its last legs.  It's pretty obvious, but it must not actually be within the household, or they're so used to it, it goes unobserved.  But the signs are sure there.  The collapse is coming, and I don't know how to stop it.  Only the people driving the mule probably can, and they don't seem to believe it's going to happen.

Of course, it's really hard to appreciate that giants fall.  Some big tree grows in the forest, and It's always there.  It gets old, starts to die, and then one day a windstorm comes by and knocks it over.  People are surprised until they look at the photos of it when it was in its vigor.

Some people are horrible about keeping secrets.

I don't mean that they can't keep them, I mean that they love secretes too much.

There are things in the world that need to be kept secret.  Some occupations have secret keeping as a feature of their nature, such as doctors, priests, and lawyers.

But other people just adore secrets. They make secret information solely for the sake of making it secret.

My long-suffering spouse is one of these people.  She loves secrets.

I was reminded of this recently as I have a medical procedure coming up.  It's not a secret, why would it be?  But she was keeping it a secret from her family. That's really nifty, of course, for me as I don't keep stuff like this secret at all, and I don't have any concept why a person would do that.  Of course, it caught up with me when I was texting to my father-in-law, as he was at a cattle sale.  I mentioned it as I thought he knew.  My mother-in-law was calling in an instant, to my wife.

Why was this a secret?

I don't know, but that was bullshit, and I have repeatedly told my wife that I hate this "this is a secret" crap.  It's so ingrained in her character, however, that it's impossible to break.  Minor routine information is secret to outside parties.

This is aided by the fact, however, that she's good at keeping secrets, a fact that's further aided by her being bad at conveying necessary information.  I'll often get really important news about somebody weeks after it's conveyed to her.

"Bob is dying of the Grip", I'll learn. Oh, when did we learn this?  Weeks ago.

Or, "don't forget, this weekend we're hauling cattle".  Eh?  I've already committed myself to working this weekend, when did you learn this?  Yeah, weeks ago.  "I forgot to tell you".

On the other side, I guess, I've come to absolutely detest secrets.  Only things that legitimately need to be kept secret.  I guess having lived a life of professionally keeping secrets, while watching lots of people keep stuff they shouldn't keep secret until it blows up in their face, has made me detest them.   

Oh, well.