The (not so) Plain and Simple Correspondent: On the Road with Mickey & Goofy

When our children were small they were given kids' records they'd play endlessly on a cheap, low-fi yellow plastic record player, especially at bedtime. Soothing or entertaining for them, crazy-making for their parents. One Disney-produced wonder featured the antics of Mickey Mouse and Goofy, and as a result, a phrase from that LP, “This was Mickey and Goofy's greatest adventure!”, entered our family lexicon to use whenever my family set out from California on a trip. This stirring motto was not yet available to quote when I was young. Every summer my family of origin would charge off to see grandparents in Iowa, or to camp in a park, or visit comrades. In the fine old days back when, we went by automobile, six people squeezed into a sedan with luggage and food tied on top shoehorned into the trunk, and bundles underfoot. Predictably, at least once a day the young fry would get bored enough to engage in a spirited argument, Papa would threaten to thrash us, and then we'd settle down again. Well, seventy years later, give or take a few, my partner and I are midway through our winter getaway on Amtrak to visit kin and friends out West, and it has been yet another one of those unforgettable Mickey & Goofy's greatest adventures.

During the worst of Covid there was no passenger service on Amtrak and this is the first year in several that the railway has returned to a semblance of normal. We notice a few changes for the better since last time we hiked out this way: warmer blankets, more substantial pillows, newer rolling stock. The rails are still in rough shape, a long way from high-speed “bullet”

trains such as other civilized countries have. Meantime, as we have progressed town to town, everyone we know and care about has grown undeniably older, showing signs of wear and tear, as we have, of course. It has become harder for one of us to crawl into the upper bunk of the sleeper car roomette, harder to keep our balance walking the aisles of the cars when the train is in hectic motion, harder to heave our bulging suitcases into allotted spaces, harder to dress and undress in tiny cubicles, harder to rejoice over the repetitive menu, even though the poor and dispossessed would rejoice in having the uneaten scraps I saw go into the garbage. Since freight haulers have priority over passenger service, we have endured long waits, but with newspapers and books to read, knitting, snacks, and staring out the windows at variegated winter scenery (and oceans of trash tossed over backyard fences as well as littered tent cities under bridges) to occupy our waking hours, I remind myself that we are the privileged few. We have enough disposable income to fritter away a month in escapism while multitudes are homeless, being bombed, persecuted, or facing any of the other ills many of which needlessly befall humankind.

Happily, there was one stretch out on the plains where a zillion pheasants and about that many deer populated the landscape, other places where snow buntings, horned larks, and hawks of multiple species delighted a birdwatcher's eye. Unhappily, at the stops where one could stretch one's legs, the platforms and walkways were icy on the northern route to Seattle, and to add to the danger of falling, it was necessary to run the annoying gauntlet between tobacco addicts to reach a smokeless patch in which to breathe and exercise. Flooded fields, orchards, vineyards, and swollen rivers abounded as soon as we reached the West coast. The destruction is immense. Trees down everywhere, so that the constant sound of chainsaws sounds like nests of riled hornets. My beloved Sierra Nevada chain, where I grew up, is buried under fathoms of snow, gorgeous to behold, a skier's paradise. Also life-threatening due to avalanches, tobogganing or skiing into trees, rocks and gorges, not to mention encountering hungry large carnivores on the prowl. Bears will hibernate, but not cougars. Hey, this is living, the real article, perils that haven't changed over the centuries in these hills. For all the physical hazards, being exposed to honest danger is perhaps preferable to being captive to electronic devices or papers where commentators tell you that catastrophes are “the news”.

In the dining car on the train, a version of Groucho Marx's radio show, “What's My Line?” plays out. We exchanged info with students returning to school from semester break, an airline pilot on holiday, the comfortably rich who reminisced about chartering yachts in the Caribbean and enumerable cruises, a blue collar worker just curious to try train travel before having a hip replacement, people en route to care for sick relatives, a professional French horn player, technology specialists of all sorts (including a video game executive), fathers traveling alone with little children. Many aboard are retirees, as you might imagine. This may be the chief delight of train travel as opposed to flying or being encapsulated in a motor vehicle. There is ample opportunity to converse with others and bond into a sort of temporary fellowship. Small kindnesses are bestowed. Now, if only the engineers who announce station stops and other important information would speak more slowly!!!

We have dribbled away our allotted weeks in California, mainly in the Sierra foothills, loving and being loved and cosseted by our near and dear. Soon Mickey & Goofy will haul their stuff aboard the train again and once more vow to travel light (she). Losing one leather mitten and one pair of prescription glasses is a start. Highlights: a library fundraiser, an Audubon Society presentation, a lively book club meeting, hearing one son preach, another practice his guitar before a gig, cooking and cleaning for busy friends, reunions with fragile people who may not be alive next year at this time. All good, as a friend of mine likes to say. All good.

Correction: An error-ridden first draft of the interview with Minerva Montooth was inadvertently printed in the last issue of Valley Sentinel. For the corrected, authorized version please consult the Sentinel’s website. Apologies all around.

Katie, who until recently lived in Plain, has been writing for fun and profit since childhood. Self-described as opinionated, she writes in the interests of a more loving, better-functioning world for all. She may be reached at katiewgreen@icloud.com.

Bill Lueders, Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council

Many people in Wisconsin are under the impression that the disastrous probe into the state’s 2020 presidential election conducted by former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman is over, as are its costs to taxpayers. They’re wrong.

The probe, conducted over 14 months by Gableman at the behest of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, failed to find any evidence of significant fraud. It did, however, reveal ample evidence of incompetence on the part of Gableman and his team, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), including multiple spelling errors. It also led to contempt charges against both Vos and Gableman, and to a judge’s referral of Gableman to the office that regulates attorney conduct for his disgraceful behavior during a court proceeding.

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Vos, whose name the OSC routinely rendered as “Voss,” fired Gableman last August, after relations between the two had soured to where Gableman endorsed the speaker’s GOP primary opponent. At the time, the cost of the probe and associated records battles was tallied at more than $1.1 million, all paid for with taxpayer dollars. Remarked state Sen. Melissa Agard (D-Madison): “I’m glad that Speaker Vos has stopped the bleeding for these tax dollars going to a sham investigation.”

In fact, the bleeding never stopped. The amount paid by taxpayers now stands at more than $2 million, including nearly $1.5 million in legal fees, according to a report by WisPolitics.com; it could yet rise by hundreds of thousands more. That’s in part because Vos and attorneys for OSC are continuing to drag out litigation over the four records-related lawsuits brought by American Oversight, a liberal watchdog group.

One case, involving contractors’ records controlled by Vos, awaits resolution on various issues, including whether American Oversight can recover its in-house counsel fees. Vos is arguing, against logic and history, that attorneys who work for a group bringing a fight cannot recover their fees. A second case, involving records in Vos’ own files, is being briefed in the circuit court on attorneys’ fees; which Vos is contending are too high, though they are well within the norm.

A third case, in which a judge ruled in American Oversight’s favor and awarded it $197,510 in attorneys’ fees, is being appealed over every aspect, including attorneys’ fees and a contempt finding against the OSC.

The group’s attorney, Jim Bopp, received permission from the court to file a 35,000word brief, more than three times the usual limit. In this case, according to WisPolitics. com, “Assembly Republicans have already spent more fighting a judge’s order that they cover legal fees for American Oversight than the $197,510 taxpayers are currently on the hook to pay.”

A fourth case, regarding preservation of OSC records, remains pending.

In all of these legal challenges, taxpayers are footing the bill for the outside counsel; if American Oversight prevails, which I think is likely, taxpayers will also have to cover the group’s legal costs.

“All of this could have been avoided if Speaker Vos and OSC had simply followed the law” by preserving and providing records of their investigation, says Heather Sawyer, executive director at American Oversight. Enough already. It’s time for Vos and the Legislature to truly turn off the spigot of tax dollars flowing into this ill-begotten cause.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders is the council’s president.