Not even a MILF or a scissors-wielding Mitt tops the snap on this lid.

Just sticking my head through the blogversational door for a few brief comments before heading back down to the salt mines. I'm surely not alone in seeing loads of stories worth earnestly discussing. Even with the current distracting titillation offered by stories on prep school bullying and being way too attached to certain parents. Amidst all that you've probably missed that the U.S. Postal Service threw a bone to rural America by deciding to keep a ton of small offices open a few hours a day for at least a few years. The deal likely will come to stink. But at least huge swaths of America can still make the trip into town to pick up and/or mail their manifestos. In even easier to miss news, the Labor Department has backed away from the overstated tempest in a teapot some feared might prevent farm families from hiring their own bairns. Or is it utes? Depends on the holler from which you hail, I reckon. As of now, this just means lots less job searching for farm kids throughout small town America. I can feel the collective disappointment for a subset of America's youth who lament never getting their shot at bagging your groceries. Takes one to know one, if you catch my drift. Finally, a totally missed case with an engrossing narrative effectively came to an end in Iowa yesterday when a last jailed defendant was paroled from prison. To mark that fact, not a single news story was filed, even though the parolee made the front page of the "Washington Post" two months ago. I'd link you somewhere worth going, but this case turned into Gertrude Stein's Oakland, if you know what I mean. Rest assured, I won't keep you hanging forever on that note.

In non-newsy news for a totally different reason (since I've not yet mentioned it), I'm about waist-deep into planning my next roadtrip. And it's a humdinger. This time I'm looking at two weeks and change spent traveling through densely-populated - and way in the middle of nothing - parts of Canada and the northeastern urban corridor of these United States. Mix in a little rural New York State and you've got me on the road from just after Memorial Day through mid-June. By then I plan to have some new tools up and running for everyone to keep tabs on the work in progress. Maybe more definite show to go with the rarely clear tell. However it's construed, check back. Please. And, thank y'all for doing so.

Laboring to keep kids off the farm?

"I grew up working on a farm." I'd love to see current Census stats that could somehow ballpark the number of people who can say that. These days, I'm sure we're talking a miniscule amount of people who can join me in making that claim. For me and my whole extended family from Wisconsin, this is a badge of honor. A serious percentage of the decent stories I carry with me from those formative years come from that farm life. That's why I'm perplexed by the effort by the Labor Department to limit agribusiness hiring of young people. There's a long list of issues raised. Including the fact that serious accidents do indeed happen on the farm (or on those businesses closely associated with agriculture). But do we really want to keep young people from having those jobs and from gaining those experiences? I'm certainly not embracing the recent classist scoldings coming from Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump - a nation that sends its poor to work as apprentice janitors is a nation on the decline in more ways than the obvious. I'm talking about something entirely different. After all, the roots of this nation are solidly agrarian, even if those roots have grown weak and far fewer in number. I see something utterly valuable in having kids - yes, kids - out there working on farms. Within certain limits, of course. Granted, I grew up on a farm that was unconventional. To say the very least. Yet I remember punching the time clock on that farm as far back as the summer before I started Sixth Grade. I think my first hourly wage was $1.50. Adjust that for inflation, up the ante, and give kids a safe shot at life on the farm. Of all the things to regulate, kids working on the farm doesn't belong near the current top of that list.

I'd love to hear from anyone else with similar experience, no matter what view they take. Especially if they disagree. It's far from idyllic out there. It's real. And necessary.

Chasing Amish rainbows

Whenever I drive through northern Wisconsin, the sight of Amish people ambling along in their horse-drawn carriages never ceases to cause a double take. They're like rainbows. Always worth a looksie. And just about as approachable. I do, however, have plans to visit with them in the future given their unusual contribution to the agribusiness workforce up in the Northwoods. Quite amazingly, they increasingly stand alongside Mexican workers up there as the primary remaining pools of workers in the particular business area I'm exploring. Before I can get to what they do, I'm struck by how little I know about who they are. Just the basics are still a mystery. Amish vs. Mennonite, for example. I always simply referred to their community near Medford as Amish. Usually with an "um, but I'm not really sure" attached to the description. Thankfully, the Amish have taken to the web to clarify things. They may not be the most up-to-date on design, but the flock that's migrated at least in part to sharing their ways on the web are nonetheless informative. Now I know that the Medford-area Amish are the oldest such community in Wisconsin. I also see that even the Amish bitch about the winter. So are we really all that different? Actually, yes. Unless they're somehow finding their way to this blog right now thanks to a Google search after a dinner party conversation about me brought the subject up. WAY different. Still, I dig the carriages - you gotta give them mad props for keeping that technology fresh.