How To Psychoanalyze An Entire Country: Idaho (Part IV)

Alert readers of this blog know that here in the Department of Not Having Enough To Do, we concocted a large spreadsheet which codified the relatively unexplored universe of State Attributes aka State Symbols and tried to suss out what the Attributes might tell us about each State.

Based on what I and a friend of mine learned when we staggered around Eastern Idaho for a week this past Fall, we realized that we had to talk about the State Attribute situation in Idaho. We had absolutely no idea what was going on out there.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Idaho. Napoleon Dynamite, the movie, was set in Idaho. Idaho and I were neighbors for three years when I lived in Ontario, Oregon, about a mile from the Snake River/Idaho border. I’ve done a lot of back country exploring/camping in Idaho. One of my sons will soon wed an Idahoan.

So basically, Idaho and I are on good terms. That said, when it comes to State Attributes, Idaho is a bit of a fixer-upper, in need of a bit of sprucing-up

Suggestions for Sprucing-up Idaho’s State Attribute Score

Suggestion #1: Revisit State Song

Idaho should elect a new State Song. Here’s the first verse and first chorus of the current song, namely: “Here We Have Idaho”

Here We Have Idaho by Albert J.Tompkins

VERSE 1 You’ve heard of the wonders our land does possess, Its beautiful valleys and hills. The majestic forests where nature abounds, We love every nook and rill CHORUS And here we have Idaho, Winning her way to fame. Silver and gold in the sunlight blaze, And romance lies in her name. Singing, we’re singing of you, Ah, proudly too. All our lives thru, We’ll go singing, singing of you, Singing of Idaho. et cetera…

It’s not a bad song as far as State Songs go and clearly, Idahoans are proud of their State but my main concern with this song is that the choruses are longer than the verses. I feel like the verses should be longer than the choruses.

And I’m not the only one who shares this concern. For example, somebody on a Reddit substack chimed in with: ” Currently writing a song. The choruses are twice as many bars as the verses. Is this okay? Typically my songs have verses and choruses that are equal in length. Many articles I have read say the same thing. Any help appreciated.”

Well actually, the general consensus from other substack contributors seems to be that you can do anything you want in a song. If I lived in Idaho I would probably vote for Private Idaho by the B-52’s as the new State Song. But that’s just me. You do you.

Suggestion #2: Legislate an official State Nuclear-Powered Contraption

Speaking of B52’s, Idaho should birth a completely new State Attribute which is this: State Nuclear-Powered Contraption (One That You Would Never, Ever, Dream Up In A Million Years, Even After A Fairly Hefty Dose Of Psilocybin). This move would also give Idaho extra status as the State with the longest State Attribute.

Believe it or not, in the 1950’s, research aimed at making long range bombers equipped with nuclear-powered jet engines was carried out in Eastern Idaho, near a bunch of extinct volcanoes, in a large tract of land now known as the Idaho National Laboratory or INL for short.

This research effort was given the rather pedestrian-sounding name of Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Project. ANPP for short. I swear on the high school diploma of All-American teen scientific genius, Tom Swift Jr. that I am not making this up.

Anyways, as we Canadians are fond of saying, 78 years later there are still several prototype atomic-powered jet turbine engines sitting in the parking lot of a decommissioned research facility/museum out in the INL.

EBR stand for Experimental Breeder Reactor, in case you were wondering. A breeder reactor makes plutonium out of uranium. Making more plutonium is like giving flamethrowers to a bunch of five-year-olds.

Flamethrowers aside, here are the prototype turbine engines, Heat Transfer Reactor#1 and Heat Transfer Reactor #2, affectionately referred to as “Heater One” and “Heater Two.”

And this is a lousy picture I took, of one of the display boards in the parking lot:

The first sentence of the caption in the top left notes that “The atom-powered bomber was expensive, impractical and obsolete, almost before it was conceived.”

Duh.

The explosion pictured in the middle row, in case you didn’t notice it, was nicknamed “Operation Wiener Roast” and demonstrated that the nuclear engine wouldn’t detonate if the plane crashed. That’s a relief. There’s a reason why they did this stuff out in the middle of nowhere.

The document on the right in the bottom row is a proposed menu for a 5-day bombing run to the Soviet Union. Napoleon (not Napoleon Dynamite) is reputed to have said that an army marches on its stomach. I don’t know what he said about the Air Force: maybe something about Red Bull and wings. Don’t quote me on this though.

Suggestion #3: Proclaim a State Atomic-Powered Town

All this talk about nuclear energy makes me think that maybe Idaho needs a State Atomic-Powered Town Attribute. The small town of Arco appears to be an excellent candidate as it’s only about 20 miles north of the INL. Arco also has the added feature that, in a pinch, its name can be rearranged to Orca.

My friend and I couldn’t believe our eyes when we rolled down one of the streets in Arco and saw this sign:

We looked at each other and said, “Whaaaat? We gotta look into this.” After extensive research consisting of asking a few locals, we learned about the Atomic Museum, the ANPP and also the elusive Idaho Desert Raptor Finch. More on the Raptor Finch in a minute.

On July 17, 1955, Arco was disconnected from the Utah Power and Light Company electric grid and cut over to the the output of a nuclear reactor which happened to be just down the road. This was a world’s-first big deal, per the sign.

The reactor was (also affectionately) known as BORAX-III. BORAX is short for Boiling Reactor Experiment but I also think BORAX-III would have been a great name for one of Superman’s enemies, or maybe a not-completely-unfortunate name for a band.

You can read all about it (the reactor, not the band) here: https://www.ne.anl.gov/About/reactors/borax3/index.shtml

Sadly, the experiment was short-lived. After receiving about an hour’s worth of nuclear-powered electricity, a helicopter descended into Arco and delivered an express utility bill to the Mayor. It was from the Federal Government, in the amount of $8,275,332.29. Needless to say, Arco was quickly hooked back up to good ole Utah Power and Light.

And you thought wind turbine electrical generators were expensive.

Editor’s Note: The bit about the utility bill is obviously utter bullshit. But you already knew that. I hope.

Suggestion #4: Replace current State Bird

We now arrive at the Idaho Desert Raptor Finch as a proposed contender to knock the cold-tolerant Mountain Bluebird off its metaphorical perch as State Bird. Not that I have anything against Mountain Bluebirds.

We just don’t know that much about the Idaho Desert Raptor Finch, except that it’s elusive, reticent and faintly radioluminescent.

We never saw one, due to its elusiveness and overall reticent tendencies. But we did find a nest situated in the guts of Heater One. Or maybe it was Heater Two.

You can draw your own conclusions…

Meanwhile, speaking of conclusions, I’ll leave you with this reprise:

And here we have Idaho, Winning her way to fame.
Silver and gold in the sunlight blaze,
And romance lies in her name.

Singing, we’re singing of you,
Ah, proudly too. All our lives thru,
We’ll go singing, singing of you,
Singing of Alpha Decay (and Idaho)