Deep State Driscoll

After speaking to the American Legion at Glasgow, Montana, “in the middle of nowhere,” I ran out of gas 74 miles south and 36 miles east of even more isolated Jordan, Montana (population 366). The last and only other time I’ve done that was almost making it home from Spokane to Hamilton in 1967 but at 3AM having to ask a guy from Stevensville to call my Highway Patrolman father to bring me a gallon of gasoline for the last 20 miles of my Christmas trip home from college. When the black patrol car slid quietly up to me in the 4AM ground fog, my dad had his window rolled down and said, “I’ve seen better heads on wooden nickels.” Now I was stuck on the most remote possible edge of one of his old patrol beats out of Miles City, to Jordan, over to Circle and back down to Miles City. Now I had a cell phone and the CENEX gas Station in Jordan told me to call RW Repair, which I did, and fortunately Ray and Wanda lengthened their work day to drive 72 miles with 5 gallons of gas to assist me. I followed them into town and, when we settled, I was relieved the cost to me was only $154 dollars, and I was delighted. I was delighted because my father’s old Montana Highway Patrol Badge, the badge of an honest cop and therefore, like myself a proud card-carrying member of the deep state, was 154. I see him now having fun with this.