These were days of immense pressure on members of O.U.T.R.A.G.E. as they tried to deal with restructuring the federal government, organizing a fall election, and also the devastation caused by two calamaties they could not possibly have planned for: a massive east coast hurricane and a record-breaking west coast earthquake. Those two incidents occurring in such proximity after the carnage from the January bombings had created a new sense of urgency: things had to get done expeditiously in order to prevent panic, rioting, or maybe even an all-out civil war.
All over the country O.U.T.R.A.G.E. members were working 'round the clock trying to hold the remnants of a terribly tattered union together. Some compared their plight to that of Abraham Lincoln's as he toiled under extreme pressure trying not to let a young nation rip itself part. On many, the intensity was taking its toll.
On Tuesday, February 26, a small town newspaper publisher, Ron Oetting, had introduced Article XXV, a resolution that urged the United States to apologize to the world. It was the last resolution introduced before the interim elections were held on March 4, 2008. Oetting's weekly community paper had been the only newspaper in the country to endorse Ross Perot for President in 1996. One of Oetting's most cherished memories was when he'd been invited to present a framed copy of the paper to Mr. Perot. "Meeting Ross Perot was a highlight of my life," Oetting had once told his good friend, Phil Baker. Oetting had written countless commentaries criticizing the federal government during the fifteen years he owned his newspaper. His remarks were not received well in the small Indiana town where he lived, and which was full of staunch dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. Ironically, he had even published a 'prototype' tabloid newspaper called "OUTRAGE" which he wanted to publish on a quarterly basis, but the lack of funds and an even further lack of serious ambition always seemed to prevent the project from moving forward, as was the case with most of Oetting's pipedreams. His head was full of ideas, but even he admitted that having ideas didn't mean anything if you didn't have the resources or tencity to implement them. As a diversion, he and Baker whiled away hours of their days at one of three local pubs, where they had become known as "the Bobsey twins". Other than Sundays, hardly a day went by when the two didn't meet for lunch, converge on a bar for afternoon 'cocktails', or spend an raucous evening in inebriated debauchery of some sort. For years, the same old jokes, even more staled by the stench of cigarette smoke and beer, seemed to keep a new barfly or an old 'regular' laughing. The scene was their own small-town version of Billy Joel's "Piano Man". The two had an affinity for telling each others' jokes and - even after a thousand hearings - managing to laugh at each other and themselves as amused patrons and bartenders looked on with bewildered postulation, assuming both men were on their way to la-la-land.
Baker had taken early retirement, having moved to an Iowa farm where he seemed content to milk cows, feed pigs, and bail hay with his wife, Janie. Oetting, who had walked away from a shattered marriage in 2002, consoled himself with writing delusional memoirs and fantasized blogs that never seemed to end, much less ever get published. Oetting was approached about O.U.T.R.A.G.E. in 2006, and quickly signed on, believing it to be the answer to America's decline.
Never used to continuous hard work, the two now found themselves at an advanced age in circumstances foreign to their routine. Baker was busy tending to his farm; Oetting was engrossed in the challenges of O.U.T.R.A.G.E. Baker and his wife had joined O.U.T.R.A.G.E. and introduced Article XVI, a resolution urging the escalation of the "war" on poverty in America.
It had been one of the most defining moments of the process as the crusty old farmer and his wife had presented a comprehensive outline of the steps necessary to break the stranglehold poverty held on the nation.
In a moment of incredulous irony, word was received that both Phil Baker and Ron Oetting had died within minutes of each other on the first day of spring, Friday, March 21, 2008. Baker had been slopping pigs in Iowa, slipped and fell face first into the area of the farm he affectionately called "the pigs' shitter". Oetting was visiting a rural Indiana horse farm distributing O.U.T.R.A.G.E. literature when the Amishman he was waiting to see lost control of his horse-driven wagon. Oetting tried to stop the run-away horse, but was trampled as the horse and wagon slammed into the barn. The wagon was filled with fresh horse manure, which literally buried Oetting alive. The death certificates of both men listed causes of death as "accidental".
It seemed to be a fitting end to two men who enjoyed getting 'shit-faced' together so frequently.