Sit Down, Senator

I was told by my Mother, Alice Josephine (Davis) Jackson, the easiest way to make friends is to be a good listener. Mom Jo was a good listener and never seemed to lose her patience when a long-winded visitor droned on and on without stopping for breath or comment. I don't believe she actually listened but she had an uncanny knack for nodding her head, yes or no, at the correct time. We accused her of having extra sensory perception and she proved our assumptions right in later years.

I have tried to be a good listener, however I lack Mom Jo's patience. If a person is interesting enough and believable I will listen as long as it takes to get his or her message across or tale told. I will not listen if each sentence contains one or more "you know" questions because I don't know and they know I don't know.

I was working for a large exploration company in Nevada in 1977 searching for large tonnage gold deposits. The company was trying to be a good neighbor and take care of the land with the least disturbance possible and diligent reclamation.

In order to placate environmentalists, meetings were often held to acquaint them with the operation and proposed projects. Naturally there were some who were totally against mining and were very vocal about it so a larger than usual meeting was arranged with a hall large enough to accommodate the attendance of both factions.

There were so many scheduled to speak that a time limit of five minutes had to be imposed on the speakers, which was acceptable to all. A senator had been enlisted by the environmentalists to heavily weight their agenda. Those of us who could get free were encouraged by the exploration company to attend.

We had a heavy equipment operator who went by the name of Slim Meutze (pronounced Mit-zee) who was quite tall, heavily muscled, and made it a point to be in a front row at this crucial meeting. It went very well until the Senator took his place at the podium and began his speech with what he perceived to be vote-getting words that took mining companies to task for raping the land and leaving it with their coffers loaded and the land not fit for man or beast. Slim began to fidget. The senator droned on and went past his allotted time. Slim fidgeted more. The senator was approaching ten minutes of haranguing when Slim could take no more of it. He stood up, pointed his finger at the senator, and roared, "with all due respect, senator, you have taken more than your five minutes and so far have said nothing. Now if you have something to say, let's hear it; if not, I advise you to sit down." The senator was dumbfounded and meekly returned to his seat. Slim may have not been a good listener but I believe Mom Jo would have applauded him.