A fence or an ambulance

We citizens can all give thanks, the ugly general election campaigns of 2010 are over, and we will now intelligently deal with the results. When stripped of their political spins, many of the big issues boil down to arguing whether to treat the Cause or the Effect.

This dilemma has bugged political leaders since time began. To clearly understand what I am talking about here, let us look at a local puzzle.

The Highline Trail to Granite Park is usually opened to hikers in late June each year and often shoveled out by the Over the Hill Gang, as it was again this last spring. Due to a little misunderstanding, the Gang didn’t clear it for about three years following 2005.

That trail has to be among the top 10 hiking adventures in America … or even the world, but it can be scary in places like Oberlin Bend where the snow really builds up over the winter. To make things easier for opening the trail each spring, the Park Service usually blasts the worst of that snow away before shovelers are sent in to clean a footpath; however, one spring, maybe 1999, they didn’t take that precaution before we shoveled it out.

When I asked then Chief Ranger Steve Frye to explain, he said, “Well George, it’s a matter of practicality. We had a conference down at Park headquarters and it was agreed we wouldn’t do that this year because without a blast ditch to catch them, any one of those old guys who slipped would slide all the way down to the Going-to-the-Sun Highway and … it is a lot easier to give first aid on the road.”

Discussing this matter with the late Elmer Searle, Gang Elder, he recited a poem. Elmer had a fitting bit of literature for all occasions.

‘Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,

Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant;

But over its terrible edge there had slipped

A duke and full many a peasant.

So the people and something would have to be done,

But their projects did not at all tally;

Some said, “Put a fence around the edge of the cliff,”

Some, “An ambulance down in the valley.”

But the cry for the ambulance carried the day,

For it spread through the neighboring city;

A fence may be useful or not, it is true

But each heart became brimful of pity

For those who slipped over the dangerous cliff;

And the dwellers in highway and alley

Gave pounds or gave pence, not to put up a fence,

But an ambulance down in the valley.

“For the cliff is all right, if you’re careful,” they said,

“And, if folks even slip and are dropping,

It isn’t the slipping that hurts them so much

As the shock down below when they’re stopping.”

Then an old sage remarked, “It’s a marvel to me

That people give far more attention

To repairing results than to stopping the cause,

When they’d much better aim at prevention.

Let us stop at its source all this mischief,” cried he,

“Come, neighbors and friend, let us rally;

If the cliff we will fence we might almost dispense

With the ambulance down in the valley.”

A somewhat altered U.S. Congress will be operating in Washington, D.C. come January 2011, and the one meeting now has to at least have some altered ideas. It will be interesting to see what develops in the coming year, a fence or an ambulance … maybe both.

G. George Ostrom is a Kalispell resident and a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist.