Blue Healers and Seatbelts

Krayton Kerns
5.23.07

What was that,” I thought as I trotted through the scrub brush.  It appeared again, a blue-heeler flying above the horizon and then disappearing behind the ridge line.  Curious, I turned my horse and loped up the hill to peer at the happenings on the other side. 

Bent over at the bottom of the next gulley was our ranch hand Alvin.  With the reins of his saddle horse in his left hand, and his right hand tightly gripping his dog Boy by the scruff of his neck, Al held his heeler off the ground and screamed commands in his ear. Boy played dead. To accentuate a point or because he couldn’t find the right word, Al would suddenly toss the dog high in the air.  He was a strong guy and he could really launch that dog.  After a moment or two, he was out of breath so the lesson stopped.  Boy jumped up smiling and wagging his tail, and Al, still cursing under his breath, climbed back on his horse.  Together, like a team, they trotted down the draw towards the herd. 

“That was amazing,” I mumbled as I trotted back into the brush patch.  Since I was only 12 it was the first dog beating I had seen in real life, all the others had been on TV.  (Actually we didn’t have TV but the neighbor kids described TV to me, so I figured this is how a dog beating would look.)  

Overtime I learned Boy had a problem with his “get-back governor”; he was never issued one at the blue-heeler factory.  Al would give Boy a command to heel a cow and when the cow did finally turn tail and run Boy would attack her every step as she exploded out of the brush, through the creek and over the hill.  Within seconds Al would join in the chase screaming at Boy to “get back!”  (Commanding Boy to make a ham and cheese omelet would have met with better success.)  Eventually Boy would tire and stop running, Al would catch up, and that is when another flying lesson would begin.  All parties, including Boy, seemed to enjoy the blue heeler air show.  Even the cows would stop and turn to watch the spectacle. 

It was Boy’s persistence that has stuck with me all these years.  Regardless what he was told, he always did what he wanted.  No one was going to tell him what to do. 

And that brings me to my point.  We conservative legislators were successful in defeating SB 300, the primary seat belt law.  This bill would have given law enforcement the authority to stop your vehicle under the suspicion you not were wearing a properly adjusted seat belt.  Because this was a question of freedom, not safety, we defeated the bill 45-55. 

May 22, 2007 the Billings Gazette reports law enforcement is beginning a two-week “Click it or Ticket” program.  Random checkpoints will stop all motorists to educate and encourage the use of seatbelts. No tickets are to be issued.  The overtime expenses generated by this campaign will be paid by grant money from the state Department of Transportation…that would be you, the Montana taxpayer who overpaid your tax bill by $1.2 billion dollars.  They are using your money to enforce a law the legislature rejected.   

Just like a blue heeler chasing a cow, the Department of Transportation is going to do what they want, when they want and to whom they want, with complete disregard to the wishes of the electorate.  Who do they think they are, Fish Wildlife & Parks?  Where am I and what have you done with my country?