The Trailwatcher

G. George Ostrom

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Do you think professional bigtime stars of television poker games should be given urine tests for brain enhancing drugs? Don't laugh. It's probably on the way.

One of the latest examples of the United States Senate getting involved in things that do not concern them has to do with steroids. Some grandstanding Congressmen recently had a few professional baseball-batting champions on the hot seat while putting on an embarrassing circus for the media, so they could see themselves on national TV.

Baseball is an entertainment business, which has in-house rules regarding players conduct administered by its own governing organization. Just like our Congress that organization is sometimes slow to act on problems and just like Congress makes mistakes; BUT I would like the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives to concentrate on amending Social Security, balancing the budget, managing the public lands and foreign policy, instead of spending millions on Jose Conseco's uriniferous confessions or on how McGuire got such big muscles.

This latest political goat-rope reminded me of related activity a few years back and thus led to my digging out a column written in 1987. I thought it apropos:

Dad burn it! Seems like we normal folk can't relax for one minute. Still have quite a few "strange" things going on out there to keep a wary eye on. Somedays it seems like the "strange ones" are rapidly increasing in numbers. On the local scene we certainly don't take a backseat to any other rural area of America when it comes to our quota of oddballs but from my finely tuned diagnosis, most of the really big stuff is going on outside the Flathead.

With all the emotional arguments and lawsuits currently taking place over mandatory drug testing, it had to happen. A lady in Detroit, Michigan says there is a simple remedy for those who have cause to fear taking their basic peepee test. Meryl Podden is selling "certified drug free urine" in two-ounce bottles at $49.95 apiece. She told the Associated Press that sales are booming. Meryl's new company is called Insurine Labs and she says they put out up-front cash to drug and disease free "donors" for maintaining a reliable product flow. She also revealed that the pay for each marketable sample is only five piddling dollars.

Following the media leaking reports of over a 1,000 satisfied Insurine customers in the Detroit area alone, we know that there will be many other entrepreneurs going in this pure urine business. My beer-drinking friend, Gage McCastoff, is so despondent over these latest news releases he may have to take to his bed. Say's he has wasted away a fortune.

My friend is not the only person who may develop a lingering case of sorrow out of this urine testing business. One big push by the Feds is for checking out people like train engineers and airline pilots. That idea developed a good amount of logic after an Amtrak engineer back east allegedly got spaced out, and killed several passengers by running through a danger light.

Less acceptable to some, is the testing of athletes, but that too seemed reasonable for professional leagues following problems with million dollar professional players turning into drug addicts. I can imagine a scenario wherein some bearded, 325 pound, all-pro defensive tackle, buys a bottle of Meryl Podden's certified pure filtered kidney suds, then the laboratory analysis reports back that he is pregnant.

That would make a heck of a headline in Sports Illustrated and on ESPN… and at least two Senators would hold a hearing.