The Phantom Tollbooth

It was 1981, and we were continuing our exploration for copper, zinc, gold, silver, and cobalt in a massive sulfide deposit in Southwestern Oregon, just north of the California border. It was a vigorous project with a lot of moving parts, and was actually going quite well. (Feel free to review an earlier post — Minerals and Economic Warfare, Part 2 — that touches on this project in a bit more detail.)

Along with the drillers and heavy equipment contractors, a veritable army of field personnel tasked with extending the claim block nearly five miles into California along the favorable horizon, and a robust geological staff to oversee all aspects of everything, I had well over fifty people working on the project at the same time. And since they were doing different things and going to different places, each specific crew had to pretty much drive themselves. This meant a lot of traffic going up Lone Mountain Road from O’Brien Oregon.

And then back again to O’Brien after their shift was over.

Lone Mountain Road was, and still is, a fairly well traveled highway (or low-way, as the case may be). I wouldn’t quite call it an Interstate (even though it zigzags across the Oregon-California border at least a half-dozen times as it winds its way to the coast), but it does have several special names and numbers, and is even paved for the first several miles as it heads southwest from Highway 199 (and again on the western end where it finally limps down Rowdy Creek to Highway 101 in Smith River, California — those who make it the whole way are living proof that guts and testosterone are always more persuasive than brains).

Anyway, along with the pavement, those first several miles include a plethora of homes. Inhabiting said dwellings were the residents and their significant others; as many scruffily kids as they may have; dogs, cats, chickens, cows, sheep, and horses; and all the exotic wildlife indigenous to the area (deer, bears, skunks, banana slugs… and so many others — it was and remains a wild and woolly environment).

We did our best to encourage the workers that were using the road to be respectful of the locals, and transit their paradise slowly — kindred souls all, the crews desperately wanted to keep the dude (and in some cases dudette) who was signing their paychecks happy, so they complied as best they could.

We never had any problems getting to work; heading southwest up Lone Mountain Road along the West Fork of the Illinois River. But, unbeknownst to us, there was a local resident who was hoping to make some money off this whole thing and improve his standard of living. Billy (not his name, but it’ll work for now), determined that since his property fronted on Lone Mountain Road and his deed said that the tax lot ran out to the center-line of the highway, when the crews were coming home from work they were driving on his property.

Clever and resourceful boy that he was, Billy devised a plan…

So here come the workers one Friday afternoon, tired and sweaty and looking forward to drinking up most of their pay in the tavern across the parking lot from our field office and core shack, when they were brought to a standstill by a barricade in front of Billy’s place. He was standing there with his pistols, and demanding his rightful toll. His idea was that if every truck that drove by gave him $5.00 every time they tried to get home from work, in very short order he would be a lot better off financially than he was at the moment.

Well, as you can imagine, this did not last very long. It was a bit of an inconvenience for the crews to have to drive into the oncoming traffic to get around him, but they made it work until we could arrange to get Billy and his barricade maneuvered out of the way — a short discussion with Lonnie was pretty much all it took. By Tuesday of the following week it was all over and just a memory (and a good story to reminisce about forty-five years later).

You may wonder why I am bothering you with yet another trip down memory lane. The answer is simple:

Like most of us who are still drawing breath, I been following very carefully what’s been going on in the Middle East. (Or at least what we’re being told. Isn’t it interesting how the details can be so wildly different depending on who is doing the reporting?) I’ve also been watching in awe as both sides posture and scream and yell and threaten, and do all the things that combative and irrational minds tend to do when they hate each other, and have little idea what they are doing.

My mind can surely take me to some mighty strange places, and one of the things I have been wondering about is how any of these Bozos figure they can legally block the Strait of Hormuz and demand a toll for every ship that passes by. Last I heard, Iran was going to demand one dollar per barrel for every oil tanker that transits the waterway. But that’s just the last I heard — this insanity is changing so fast that NONE of us have any idea what’s going to come next — least of all the “leaders” responsible for navigating a way out of this morass (and how frightening is that!).

But… it would seem like Iran can only legally lay claim to one side of the Strait of Hormuz (and we can’t really claim ownership to any of it). The shipping lanes — if you can believe the above graphic — are actually south of the “Maritime Border,” putting them on the side controlled by Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

So, just like getting past Billy on Lone Mountain Road, why can’t the tankers simply stay in their lane and steam right on through the narrows? This would seem to be a plausible work-around, especially since we have “completely obliterated” Iran’s ability to launch any sort of aerial attack, and all of their mine-laying boats have been sunk (along with the rest of their navy).

Just askin’…