The River and the Birds
High Winds on the High Desert. Summer Lake, Oregon.
Yesterday, due to the on-going calamity of representational government known as the State of Oregon, I was forced to drive six hours – round trip – to renew my driver’s license. This was because only about half of the very expensive government apparatus of this state is actually working in their offices at any one time, and also because the long-promised on-line renewal program is not on-line and no one seems to know when it might actually be on-line. By contrast, information about the next planned fire-bombing of the Federal building in Portland is readily available on the internet.
Under these circumstances a citizen is required to make an appointment, which is the only way one is allowed inside a DMV building. Appointments are also tricky to schedule because many offices, including the facilities closest to my house, are not taking appointments at all, and the soonest available appointments in the next ring of bureaucratic purgatory are in July, which is after my license will have expired. Given my requirement to travel, and to occasionally rent a vehicle, I was forced to make an appointment in Lakeview, Oregon, which is a very pleasant timber and cow town on the high desert, about 3 hours from my house.
After battling high-winds, annual spring road construction, and a proliferation of cattle haulers – ranchers in that country are scrambling to get their cows into the mountains due to the on-going drought and absence of feed on the desert – I arrived with about ten minutes to spare. I was delighted to find the parking lot empty and mounted the stairs to the office where I was met by a sign declaring in a kind of Prussian pique: NO APPOINTMENT NO MASK NO ENTRY BY DECREE!
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