Catching Wild Pigs

Healdsburg CA

Description

Each year in California brings new, restrictive regulations. I often think, “It can’t get any worse”, but then are thrown something new. Our personal lives are a mass of restrictions. Our businesses are drowning in regulations. Our office manager spends more time doing “compliance” than billing, accounts receivable, payables and payroll. We know business executives are packing up their employees and revenue streams and moving to friendlier states, tired of being directed by untold legislation. But the masses seem oblivious to the personal freedoms lost in just the last generation. The latest one makes it illegal to bring ketchup packets to a table without being asked and removing a condom without permission. Really???? It reminds me of the story of the tenderfoot who bought a ranch in the mountains soon to discover there lived on the property dozens of wild pigs. He first tried to “round them up”, but found they bolted into the brush when they first spotted him. Frustrated he contacted a seasoned old-timer on the adjoining property for advice. In a few days, he was visited by his neighbor. After greetings were exchanged the neighbor told the tenderfoot what to do. “First, you feed them. Sweet corn and potatoes works well. Put out food for a few days and see they will continue to come back for the free food. Then build one side of a four-sided pen. The pigs will first come and sniff at the fence, but will quickly round the end and continue to eat the free stuff. They might notice they cannot come and go the way they used to, but little matter. They can get around the end of the fence to chow down on the free food. Then add a section of fence at right angles to the first section and keep supplying free stuff. The pigs return and sniff at the two sections of fence. A couple of the pigs get suspicious of the blockage of their free transit, and leave for another part of the mountain, but most seem oblivious that they are no longer free to come and go from two directions they once did. Then build another section of fence. Now a few more pigs sniff at the three sides of the pen and a couple leave for another ranch to range free, but most come in through the open side and continue to gorge on the corn and potatoes. You will also notice the herd of pigs is getting larger, joined by other pigs from nearby looking for a free meal every day. And lastly, you build a fourth side of the pen with a gate in it close to a grove of brush. The pigs, now accustomed to finding the opening, and expecting the free food, file blindly through the gate and feast with not one thought of the fence around them. Then you sneak out of the brush and slam the gate closed. At first, the pigs panic and run around the pen, but find no way out, and soon calm and go back to eating. It doesn’t even dawn on the pigs they are no longer free to roam the hills, smell the flowers in the next valley or drink from the pure waters of the melting snow. And that, my friends, is how you catch a herd of pigs, and also how you catch 39.5 million Californians.