A long time ago, in a life long lost to all but memory, I was homeless and living in a truck. Some nearly 36 years ago I ended up in Boise, Idaho. "Ending up" is the best choice of wording here, as Boise is not a place you aspire to go to, its the place you end up when you have nowhere else to go. Back then, Idaho was being over-run with literal Nazis and National Socialists trying to create a "White Christian Utopia." Instead, as expected, they created an inbred shithole that gives Alabama a run for its money. Idaho is a place known for not being known, for being utterly unforgettable, the true meaning of Flyover Country.
Which leads me to my recent health adventure. I'm dying, in a slow motion train wreck of consequences of a life filled with dubious life choices. Turns out one of the docs writing a book on what we think is wrong with me travels the country and offers services to Catholic hospitals around the US to verify treatment gathering data for medical researchers. My doc suggested last year that when she is nearby I go see her. Now that I am on government healthcare, this became a possibility. Turns out she was going to be in Boise, ID and I got set up to go see her over two days for a series of tests and information. Boise is a seven hour drive over two mountain passes that would require a multiple day stay in town. Current doc convinced me this is a good thing for me to do, so I agreed. Only problem? The dates were in October. For those that don't understand what Idaho is like in October, think wild swings from 25°C to feet of snow.. in a 24 hour time frame. Not a fun time to be on the freeway. . I'm not homeless and don't live in a truck, but looks like I will be living in a camper trailer for a week or so.
I realized that this was going to be the first "Big City" I'd visit since 2019. I was going to be in town for at least a week, so I made a list. One thing that has been annoying is something wrong with the truck. If I took the time, read the manuals, got lucky with tools and parts I could probably fix it. This issue is that if I got the truck apart and could not put it back together again, I'd be in trouble and stuck on the mountain until spring. Being smart is knowing when to let the professionals do the work. I called a dealership, explained the issue, set up appointments, verified parts are available (horray for a 20 year old truck) and made the arrangements to hang out in the dealership while the work was done. The other issue, since I'm not exactly the beacon of health, and Idaho is basically a soup of Covid, I asked the hospital about parking my trailer on thier property to save on the risks of staying in a hotel during a labour shortage. They have parking set up for "non-terminal" patients that wish to not enter the hospital since all the Idaho hospitals are using portable morgues right now. with me being gone at lest a week, I decided to winterize the house, bear-proof the yard, do a ton of clean up, and made sure that the solar panels were waxed and cleaned. I spent time at the library in town to get a list of addresses and directions since I do not have a smart phone any longer. List set, homestead locked down, bad weather incoming, so off to Idaho I go.
The first pass was no issue, the rain and snow started as I stopped to get gas at the half way mark. Anyone living in real weather knows that first good snowfall of fall is a shit show. Non-locals forget that snow exists, chains may be required and your front wheel drive car needs to slow the fuck down. My trailer is 2500 pounds loaded, and I ended up putting chains on the trailer up the second pass. My guess is they got 4-5" of snow by the time I got there, and another like amount by the time i came down and could see the city of Boise. The seven hour trip took 11 hours. By the time I made it close to town, I made the correct decision to stop at the rest area and bunker for the night to start fresh in the morning. The rest area... man first big change. Brand new building, high efficient toilets, very nice place. The last time I had been on this stretch of road it was like a drive back in time and everything was shit. Instead, the rest are was... nice? We'll go with nice as the descriptor here.Rolling into town I got my first real shock. The place had grown and become a real place. In the last thirty years, Boise became a metropolis of just about a million people. The rest of the drive into town was a confused WHY BOISE? WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED HERE? Million dollar homes? Yuppie chain stores? Boutique shops? Tourist Trap souvenir shops? What the ever fucking hell happened here?
I got settled, checked in with the hospital, they gave me a sign to put in the window of the trailer that I am a patient, and went right to the dealer to get the truck fixed. Here, I had my first of three incidents that defined my week. I'm sitting in the lounge area, drinking shitty but free coffee, reading a book trying to ignore everyone else around me. In the periphery of my alert profile is a "kid" being loud and annoying. The kid, probably early 20's, is dressed like a trust fund baby (expensive looking loudly colored jacket, hat on sideways, jewelry, shoes not boots for the snow on the ground) there to get a sports car fixed. I know this because he dropped the name of the car loudly several times. At one point it is just him, his I guess girlfriend, and I. He says something, then I hear him say "some weird old dude reading a book" and now I am paying attention. Up until this point I have no idea what the kid is saying as I am actively ignoring him. I look his way, and he looks at me and says "yea, you asshole, got something to say?" I put my book down and stand up.
One thing I try to notice on people that want to square up is where are their wrists? Lay flat on the ground. Now, pull a leg up so your leg makes a 90° angle to the floor. Lay your arms flat and your writs will be right about where your hip joint is. My writs are about a hand lower than my hip giving me a reach of about 32" something I learned to memorize in high school when it came time to fight the sheet wearing protestant assholes. This kid has short arms. Don't fight a guy with long arms, folks, his reach will fuck your day. Second thing to notice, the first two knuckles. If the first two knuckles on the guys hands are all weird looking, scarred, rough and knobby? the owner of those hands has hit a few things in his time and probably knows how to fight. This kid had better manicured hands than a few women I've known. Soft hands, loud mouth, short arms. I'm not in the fucking mood for this shit.
end part 1 of 3 due to posting limits
Part 2 At this point I will describe myself a bit, not enough to dox, but enough to set a scene. Since losing all the weight I've gained some height; the doc has me a 181cm tall. This is about an inch and a half taller than the last time I had my height recorded. I'm wearing steel toed work boots that add about an inch and a half to my height, the old thicker Levis work pants, and a well worn Cardhart jacket that was loose on me when I was fat and now looks slightly comical. (And functional as all hell, this jacket is awesome and they don't make them any more. Work in one of these in -20°C with a 20kt wind and you will never wear anything else in winter ever again.) All the work I've been doing on the property has rebuilt my ams, back and chest so I have muscle again. Fold a normal piece of paper in half, then in half again. My palm covers that square; the length of my middle finger from first knuckle to tip is just under 20cm. With my arms outstretched palm up and horizontal, placing a yard stick on my shoulder joint, I can just barely curl my fingers around the end of the measuring device. I am now underweight for my body build; I've not been this thin as an adult ever, and with the muscle, I do look thin and gaunt but also wiry, not frail and sickly. Picture an older guy with giant gorilla hands, Orangutan arms, shoulders too far apart, and facing a kid that looks like he has never been in a fist fight. And I've joked here before on the other account that I have a resting "murderer" face. He immediately noticed my sidearm. Back in the day when i lived in "the big city" my every day carry was a well made and well used .380. I love that pistol. The problem is that in my hands it looks like a pop-gun and the deterrence factor is replaced by a "tiny toy gun" visual. With that same .380, however, I could put three rounds inside a 2" circle at 30 meters. My big meat paws absorbed the recoil and kept the pistol pointed at the target. Bears, however, do not respect the report of the .380, so I swapped it out for a .45, hoping that with all the police and military use the ammo would be available and inexpensive. (Narrator voice: LOL nope) I have a CCW, but Idaho is run by nutjob protestant traitors worshiping at an altar made of firearms, so concealed carry and open carry are legal here. I stand up, my jacket stays in the seat, and the guy at the counter is looking at me with a serious OH SHIT face. I look at the kid, he's taken a step back. I look him in the eye, sigh and say loud enough for the guy at the counter to hear "Kid, I don't want to do paperwork today, go sit down and be quiet, please." The counter guy's face tried to laugh, but to his credit kept it under control. The kid sat down and steamed for a bit. Can't say for sure but I think the counter guy called to accelerate whatever was being done to his car because he was gone in about 15 minutes. Once the kid was gone, I walked over to the counter to apologize, and had a nice converstion with the counter guy and his coworker. They gave me an address of a gun store to go get ammunition and some supplies; they told me to name drop them as one of the guy's dad owned a firing range and was a buddy of the gun store owner. I went to use the restroom and looked in the mirror; holy shit I looked homeless! No wonder the kid tried to start shit with me! I keep myself clean and wash daily, I brush my teeth daily so I'm not dirty, but the image looking back at me from the mirror gave me a pause. My hair and beard were longer than I thought they were as I really don't shave at the house since I don't have running water. There is no way I can go to a medical specialist looking like this. The truck is done, and I ask about a barber shop that can get me cleaned up, they give me an address. The barber was fantastic. Lads, if you ever want to feel amazing, find an old school barber shop that does a full face hot shave. Hot towel, straigh razor, everything. If you see beauty products, walk out. If you see a shelf or two full of supermarket disposable razors, shave cream and the like, walk out. IF you don't see old paintings, war memorabilia or other indications of "old people work here" go find a place that meets those requirements. The barber happened to be Irish with an accent so we talked a bit about family history and it turns out our families had a similar trajectory. Run from the Brits, chased off the East Coast, relatives fought for Irish Independence. He mentioned all the Californians moving in, I asked questions about what happened here. I commented that it is not the liberals in California and Oregon moving to Boise; its the shitbags, borderline evil tech people that got lucky and wealthy so now they are better than us normal people. Trust fund kids trying to be a big fish in a small pond. "Not best people" moving in. I mentioned all the Teslas and BMW's I see, and it looks like the Trust fund idiots took over. I mentioned the fancy clothing shops that felt out of place. I mentioned that the last time I was here, I don't remember seeing any newer cars, it was mostly 4x4's trucks and construction vans. He told some stories. Turns out his family has been in Idaho since before it was a state, a great-grandfather owned a ton of land and cashed out only for his parents to squander the inheritance. Then he had a front row seat to the massive changes to the state in the last 25 years. All in all it was a great experience, and I came out looking human again. Best $125 I've spent in months. The doctor was good, and over two days poked, prodded, took samples, asked a ton of annoying questions, gave a full physical, wrote a ton of notes, usual doctor stuff. They are seeing "immunocompromised" individuals in a part of the hospital that is accessed from a single entrance; covid patients enter the other side of the building. I was advised to minimize contact with people and not go into stores and restaurants due to Idaho keeping true to form and being full of morons. (Did I mention the mobile refrigerated trucks they use as morgues due all the shit bags dying of Covid? Yeap, they are real and I walked by them for a few days.) Day two they hook me up the IV, escort me to my trailer on the roof of the parking garage, and I begin the monthly two day ritual of suck. With the shit they pump into me, I can't sleep, and I am not supposed to eat for the 24 hours they have me medicated. I installed a hook for the IV bags in the trailer, this was mentioned by both the doctor and the nurses that checked on me as I have done five of these now. I sat down to write this post, switching between writing and browsing the internet on the hospital wifi. I'm still a bit grumpy from the idiot at the dealership, and sit down to process what the doctor is telling me.
Part 3/3 Somewhere about 2-3AM, as I am reading a book, there is a loud pounding at the door of the trailer. The pounding that is only one thing: a cop. He yells to open the door. At this point I've not had any food in 24 hours, no sleep in 36 hours and all my filters are off. One of the things I am reading in the news is that the cops up here are not serious about COVID, not getting the vaccine, and in general are asshole Idaho cops. I open the curtains, turn on the interior light and prepare to give him a bunch of shit. I inhale to give the cop a piece of my mind, when I see him look at me, then look at the note on the door with a number to call verifying that I am a patient and have permission to park, then he looks at me again (and I guess he sees the IV bag). He shoots me a highly disgusted angry look then he storms off. Like stomping his feet like a toddler storms off. This is probably a good thing because I don't want them inside the trailer, don't want them to find my sidearm, and at this point in the treatment cycle the only defense I have is a news story about a cop killing a dying man at the hospital. After he left, I IMMEDIATELY unload the sidearm, put the ammunition in one drawer and hide the pistol in another drawer. If anything is true about cops it is that they are all shit humans; being a piece of shit with psychotic tendencies and low IQ is now a part of the job description. Any decent person becoming a cop eventually either turns to vermin and nightstick wielding garbage or runs the fuck away from the profession. Cops hate it when you threaten their aura of authority. I expect this guy to be back, fortunately over the next few days, no cops, no problems. I did report the incident to the hospital as there are video cameras everywhere. They asked if I wanted to complain to the PD, I said, maybe a bit too loud, "FUCKING HELL NO!" I have out of state license plates, there is no fucking hell of a way I am putting myself on their radar; I'll get shot 6 times in the back as a suicide, then have weed and heroin sprinkled on my corpse as they scream HE HAD A GUN on the news for the next six months. I may be dying but I want to kick around and be a pain in the ass for at least a few more years. Speaking of being a pain in the ass, I now qualify for disability and have a work restriction on file. So not only am I suckling the government nipple for very expensive health care, I now get to fuck up the Social Security fund. Eat shit, kids. I recover from treatment, get all paperwork in order, thank the docs and nurses, got my booster shot and flu shot, and prepared to leave. The gun store was what you would expect from a deep Red State 'Murica store. At least this one did not have Nazi gear on display. But hey hey hey! They had ammo in stock, which is something I cannot say about back home. The camping and survivalist rations were hilariously terrible. I mentioned that I was buying 60 days of food at Costco, the stuff that they sell in 5 and 10 gallon seal-able plastic jugs, and he and I shared a bit of a laugh over people willingly eating MRE's. I had serious expectations walking into the place, I'm glad to report that at least this one gun shore is not full Treason. Since I was not feeling like absolute shit, I even asked for a coffee shop not run by a trust fund kid or silicon Valley start up, which generated laughs from everyone in the building and a good recommendation. (The coffee was average but reasonably priced) Next stop was a Costco, where I was the only customer wearing a mask. Stocked up on Mormon Armageddon vittles and some winter gear. Then, heading home. Fortunately there were no incidents, and I barely missed a snow storm on the way back. I get home, drive to the pole barn I keep the truck and trailer under, and step out of the vehicle. As soon as my feet hit the ground, every fibre of the lizard hind brain kicks in, all my hair stands up on end and my heart starts racing. I AM BEING WATCHED. If you have never been off a paved road, you may not understand how this feels and how your brain reacts. It's an interesting experience when your brain understands you are now in the food chain and one wrong move and you are dinner for something meaner and hungrier than you. I look carefully at the ground; wolf prints. Lots and lots of prints. Old ones, though, and I am used to seeing evidence of wolves on the property. The last time I was at the hospital for 3 days, the wolf pack slept in my patio area. Slowly, I start scanning the grounds. Nothing looks like it got under the house, the porch is creature free, no human evidence, the doors and windows are all closed and locked. I make sure I have my sidearm, loaded, and start to walk slowly around the house and pole barn. Then I saw it out of the corner of my eye. Bears. Two of them, hiding in the treeline watching me some 300 meters or so away. These are the first bears I've seen on my property since I've been up here; winter will be interesting. The thing about bears is that they do not like being around people unless there is food around. Hunger always wins over danger, the way to deal with bears is no trash, no food, nothing edible, no hunting scraps, don't clean a kill anywhere near the house, leave nothing that will make a hungry animal brave. If you have a game cleaning table, keep it at the treeline as far away from your buildings as possible if you don't have access to enough water to scrub the equipment clean. I have a room in the house I made about as air-tight as you can get to store my food in, I have a pit that I burn everything that I generate trash-wise. I also use this pit as a latrine just to poison the potential food source. The food room window is foam sealed, and the door has an air-tight gasket. I also store any packaging that I don't feel like burning in this room until I am ready to do a burn. I live close enough to some of the bad wildfires this summer, so my guess is that the bigger animals are on the move and the house is in a 10 acre clearing that occasionally is host to mule deer and a moose or two. This winter I'll have to watch to make sure that any dead animals are taken care of so I don't attract the big predators. I am also happy that the dark solar panels on the house were clean and generating power; nothing inside the house looks like it froze. When real winter starts I have a pellet stove and a pellet press that I learned how to use this summer, so the stove keeps me warm, cooks my food and makes coffee. A ton of pellets is cheap and lasts several weeks when you are warming up a 700sqare foot well insulated house. I don't fuck with Bears, at all, and neither should you. I sat down and started writing an bear mitigation plan just in case they hang around. Boise is still a shit hole of a city filled with mostly garbage people. Now, it is attracting the MAGA crowd and becoming even more National Socialist that it was before. Meth and Covid are running rampant in the place, so here is hoping some of the really bad people meet their Karma. Looking at home and rental prices in the area? Wow this market is stupid. And if you are spending 500K for a house in fucking Idaho you are functionally stupid; even for remote work spending 400K and more for a house in fucking Boise is madness. Then again, if we can get 100,000 not-conservatives to move to Idaho those folks will change the dynamics of the electoral make up and maybe the dems can get two more senators, after they get a backbone. And pigs will fly on unicorns shitting rainbows. Like everywhere in this part of the country, there are help wanted signs everywhere. The hospital has a giant MINIMUM WAGE $16/Hr sign in the lobby at a job kiosk. Every fast food place looked closed at 9PM. Digging in behind the facades, you see signs with shortened hours, Out of stock signs everywhere, Help wanted, Now Hiring, No drug test needed! Closed early due to no employees. I did see a few "Nobody wants to work" signs as well. Add on a massive housing shortage, housing costs doubling since the pandemic started, and all the expensive cars rolling around. Also lots and lots of the big 100K RV's parked around town. Since I used to live in such a place myself, I saw a couple of "camping" areas that were obviously make-shift homeless camps. The big money in town... Where is all that money coming from? The city of trucks and 4x4's is now a city of Beemers, Teslas and Range Rovers. Are there really that many people from the coast with that much cash moving inland? And if so, if you could stop at Idaho that would be nice cause I don't want you fucking up my neighborhood. If anyone here is in Idaho, get involved in politics a decade ago cause you are losing your state. And vote against anyone for any office that cannot prove they have been in state for at least 15 years.
I haven't been in Boise in 20 years. When I was there, the bright, helpful young Mormons I hung out with were very excited and pleased by all the new people moving into Boise, probably because they were among them. They were disturbed that rush hour had grown to 10 minutes but figured it was a byproduct of all the growth. Prior to that, I hadn't been in Boise since 1991. When I was there in 1991, the bright, helpful young Mormons I hung out with were very excited and pleased by all the new people moving into Boise, probably because they brought things like pizza and chinese food and skate parks and actual shit to do. They were disturbed that occasionally the roads slowed down because people were actually driving on them but excited that there were things that could be done that didn't involve begging your parents to drive you to Spokane. Know what fucks with chemo? Negativity. I was only passing through both times. The second time my true destination was Mountain Home, which is every redneck mountain town I ever spent time in, minus the chicano culture. Nothing to do but drive drunk and make roadkill. Just on a lark I googled "mountain home heroin" and sho'nuff, 5lb meth bust for a town of 14,000 people. See - I know that everything sucks now and all progress is bad enough that you'd rather piss on your burning garbage to keep the bears away so of course if a place hasn't turned itself into shangri-fuckin-la in your absence it's a sign of the overdue apocalypse but look mutherfucker The only thing that used to bring people to Boise was potential. The thing that's still bringing people to Boise is potential. And it's been bringing people to Boise for so long that it's above the threshold of people who used to only consider coastal cities with an opera and a Microsoft. You know where the racists live? Where they can burn crosses uninterrupted. Where you can fuck up a queer and get off with a warning. Where there's nobody to protect the outliers so the outliers stay the hell out. You know where the racists leave? Where they can't get their racism on. Don't look now but your narrative is more likely to come out of the cop that banged on your door than the barber that shaved your face. When everyone around you is an asshole that deserves to get rolled you're gonna roll assholes. A BMW 328 MSRPs at $41k. A fucking Dodge Ram MSRPs at $34k yet in your head, the Ram is virtuous and the BMW is evil because you're looking for evil everywhere. Don't fuck with bears, agreed. Don't blame bears for fucking with your shit, agreed. But bears, much like techbros, are just trying to live their lives. $125 for a shave and a haircut? Holy fuck man that's Seattle pricing, which I don't pay, because that's not where my priorities are. I will absolutely pay $40 for a scented candle, though. Could I go "my choices are virtuous, your choices are shit?" Yeah, I could. But I'd probably be mad at the world a lot. Seems to me you had three good interactions (dealership, doctor, barber) and two bad interactions (cop, chav) but for you, this is a fall-of-Babylon narrative. And I guess what I'm saying is if you look for a reason to be pissed off you will always find it.