McDonald Syndrome

Again?

McDonald Syndrome

Revered upon Passage

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            The great steakhouse, McClintock’s, at Shell Beach, California demonstrates it best.

            No, it isn’t the view of the ocean that captures it nor is it the exceptional American grown beef that graces it tables. It isn’t the waiters with their propensity to pour water into glasses on the tables from above their heads or even standing on chairs, either!

            It is the allure of a West that is in such jeopardy that grabs you when you walk into that place. It is prompted by the tools of the cowboy trade that are hung around. It is captured in the old tintypes that reveal a now mysterious world. It is the fascination that tourists and customers display when they see glimpses of a world now known by so few.

            It was best served the afternoon I stood and watched the old cowman emerge from the crowd to stand in juxtaposition with the urban masses that take pictures and text to their friends how great the place is. It was a stark display of the simplicity of his being. Starched Wranglers, long sleeved white shirt, shop made boots with underslung walking heals, and a brushed silver belly hat. He had a button cover and a conservative belt buckle each with a brand displayed. His hands and his face wore the symptoms of time in the sun of the coastal range.

            His bearing was erect. He wore his hat until he sat down at his assigned table. It was then removed to reveal the most telling symbols … his forehead was bleached white and his hair demonstrated he placed more emphasis of his being than coiffed hair.

            Revered upon Passage

            Today’s local liberal rag yielded one article that was worthy of attention.

            It was a story of the McDonald home near the site of the first atomic bomb, the Trinity Site. Like so many pioneers who sought open spaces rather than the river valleys in New Mexico of the years around 1880, the McDonald’s arrived to stake their future. Water was the issue of permanence and it was families like theirs that bet everything on finding it and prevailing at odds that few today would take.

            Their story line switched to a German settler by the name of Franz Schmidt. It seems Mr. Schmidt, too, dared the odds and settled in the Jornada Basin. In 1912 his house burned and the following year he built another nearby. By the time of the Depression, Mr. Schmidt was ready to submit to the frailty of age and the demands of ranching. He sold the house and his property to the McDonalds. It was their intention to brand permanence upon their ability to survive, but that was short lived.

            Within a decade, WWII had broken out and the government, having established what was then known as the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, contacted the McDonalds and many other ranchers in 1942 that their turn was up on the lands and to vacate for the greater good of the nation.

            The McDonalds protested and were told their options were twofold. They could leave or they could take their chances in court where sympathetic judges would discern the importance of the greater cause and evict them anyway. The family chose to fight their battle in court, and, to the surprise of many, they won. They were awarded $60,000 by the court for their heritage. In today’s money, that constituted a hefty collection, but how is a legacy valued? How can a government simply sit around a table and pencil in a wish list of a footprint that tramples upon a community of people who care more for their life commitment than to any monetary payoff?

            The article then leaves the McDonalds in a vacuum. It says nothing about the promise made by the government the family would eventually be allowed to return and ranch. It says nothing about the delay in expectation until 1970 when the Army summarily signaled they were vacating their promise. As usual, there was no empathy nor was there any hint of the human catastrophe associated with the injustice.

The decision was simplistic. The government had lost the original intention to pay nothing, the matter of their fleeting promise was unfortunate, but, in the greater scheme, those lives were just … trivial.

Again?

Any empathy of the modern progressive voyagers is clearly visible when cultural extinction finally takes place. It is demonstrated in places like McClintock”s or in the rebuilding of the McDonald home that will be visited by looky loos twice a year. That is when curiosity finally displaces indifference or even malice and contempt. That is when the public elevates symbolism over the substance of the living. That is when the living and their efforts to survive for a cause all their own are gone. That is when a living culture becomes extinct.

It then becomes trendy to demonstrate fascination and even measures of compassion.

It is time to call it for what it is. The underlying disdain some in society have for the land steward has more to do with the temptation of the accusers than the evil of the steward. The steward has never had the capability of affecting landscape scale debacles of which he is accused, but the force of government and mobs do, and that is demonstrated in every corner of the West. We are witnessing diminishing wildlife, raging forest fires, diminished water flows, uneconomic forest production, oblivion toward true evolutionary influences, ravaged ranges by wild horses, ever diminishing carrying capacities, race and social baiting and upheavals, and true migration corridors along our southern border long converted to multibillion dollar drug and human trafficking routes.

It can’t all be the fault of the land steward. He’s out trying to find his water leak.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Gary Dunshee, Big Bend Saddlery, can craft an exquisite button cover with your brand on it.”