One Nation, Under God
One Nation, Under God
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In a state known for weather extremes, it’s the most dreary that I most dislike. While a week of sub-zero temperatures quickly grows old, and summer heat waves are hotter and last longer than ever before, both pale in comparison to the depressing downer of smoke season. Typically, we don’t have to deal with smoke in Montana until later in the summer when the forests dry and start to burn. It’s all preventable, we’re told, if only the forests were better maintained. One former president, in a st...
I’ve always been reluctant to jump on bandwagons. The latest this or that rarely appealed to me. Then I heard about No Mow May, a movement that encourages folks to let their lawns grow unfettered during the month of May in an effort to benefit bees and other pollinators. Without hesitation I clambered aboard that wagon and joined the band. In all honesty, however, it has little to do with my concern for bees, and a lot to do with my disdain for lawn mowing. I’d embrace any movement that get...
The water is back. Following years of drought that dried up much of the state, an exceptional winter snowpack appears to have turned the tide. Every stock tank and ox bow up here is brim full. I may even have a lake house once again. For two years the water in Fort Peck Lake has been dropping, so much so that the bay upon which my house sits began to more closely resemble a ditch. Since the first of March, however, the lake has been rising steadily, up nearly four feet already, and the snow in t...
I got out with the dogs last week for our first long walk of the year. A couple of us are showing our age. I limp a bit more than I used to, and although I didn’t think it possible, Ace has gotten even slower. Never a fast dog, Ace has paced himself his entire life. It’s served him well. With the exception of a slower gait and a graying muzzle, you’d never guess he’s almost 12. I think. He might be going on 11. A middle dog, he always slipped under the radar, hunting behind older, better-trained...
The drawing for special elk permits has come and gone, and for the first time in memory I didn’t care. Filling out an application for a special tag was something I used to do every spring without fail. It increased my odds of killing an elk, and guaranteed I‘d have an elk license in my pocket come fall, a general elk license being the prerequisite for the drawing. I loved to hunt elk. Over the years I managed to kill 20, evenly divided between cows and bulls. Whether I drew a special tag or not...
Technology baffles me. Most of my skills are archaic, involving hand tools and shovels. Like that old Hank Williams Jr. song, I can run a trot line and skin a buck deer, but my i-watch remains a mystery, the fish-finder in my boat is still a work in progress, and Siri haunts me. I’m even at the mercy of a trash can. About a year ago Barb decided it was time to replace our kitchen trash can. It sat tucked away out of sight under the counter where its decrepit condition went largely unnoticed u...
Be careful what you wish for. Following years of drought and rapidly declining water levels we finally got a real winter. Now it’s spring and the melt has begun. It looks like we’ll have plenty of water in our bay at Fort Peck Lake once again. Unfortunately, however, I can’t get there. Lat week the north fork of Rock Creek washed out a culvert on the only road leading to our cabin, taking a sizable chunk of road with it. Until the road is fixed or the ice melts there’s no way in or out. While th...
I must be out of touch. I had no idea that transsexuals, and concealed firearms were the most important issues facing me and my neighbors in rural Phillips County. I would have thought the closing of the local retirement home -- one of seven shut down last year across the state -- or perhaps rail safety, would top the list. Maybe a general lack of rural health care or failing infrastructure in Montana’s small towns might pique constituents’ interest. But no. Apparently we’re more conce...
From the first day that hunters were allowed to harvest bison that wandered out of Yellowstone National Park there have been protests. A bison advocate jabbed a hunter with a ski pole that first season. Others chained themselves to a gate, hoping to disrupt the hunt. Negative publicity eventually prompted state officials to limit the hunt to American Indians, with only a few permits issued to the general public. It appeared to be a wise move. Indians have hunted bison for thousands of years,...
Wow! Another accolade for Bozeman. Now, according to Time.com, it’s one of the greatest places on the planet. That information appeared on my facebook feed -- surprise, surprise -- compliments of a real estate agent. Bozeman, like most every other town in the state, had already been included on a plethora of lists: best mid-size city in the U. S., top ski town in the West, favorite spot for trust-funders to pretend to be locals, etc. And it is a swell place, but greatest on the planet? Why n...
Leaving Malta, a couple of weeks ago, headed south on vacation, we managed to slip between storms sweeping the country. Except for a stretch of snow-covered highway through Island Park, Idaho, we had dry pavement all the way to the desert. I doubt we’ll be so lucky on our return trip. The atmospheric river which I had been hearing so much about this winter is still raging. We’re on the edge of it and we’re nearly in Mexico. Somewhere between here and home, I suspect we’ll have to cross it, but...
Barb and I are enjoying a closeness while traveling we hadn’t experienced before. We’ll see how long it lasts. For the past 30 years we’ve fled Montana in March seeking warmer climes. It used to be Florida, a five-day road trip with a boat in tow. Now it’s the desert Southwest, a much shorter journey, with nothing in tow. We’d always driven a pickup or SUV on our escape from the frigid North. This year, however, we’re traveling in Barb’s Mini Cooper convertible, a cool car, but certainly mor...
I’ve got most of the gear on the list of required stuff to call yourself an outdoorsman in Montana. But like that line from an old Meatloaf song “I won’t do that.” “That” in this case being a customized grill guard for my pickup. My truck is already big enough without a cow-catcher hanging off the front like a locomotive. I carry a Leatherman on my belt, have a bone saw in my pack, and wear a neck rag when it’s cold. I’ve owned horses, drift boats, and a Honda Trail 90. I’ve never owned a grill...
Winter started early. The snow that fell in November is still here, hidden under all the snow that’s fallen since. Another storm is on the way, promising more snow and a third bout of sub-zero cold. I’m glad I got out last week. It was barely below freezing with only a slight breeze. Inside the spearing shack it was warm enough to take off the gloves. Spearing fish is much like deer hunting from a stand: long periods of inactivity abruptly interrupted. One minute it’s hard to stay awake and t...
The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks inform me regularly when lion hunting season closes in each district. I don’t hunt mountain lions, but I like living in a state where I could if I wanted. And I like knowing they’re there. I used to think lions in Montana were limited to the mountainous regions of the state, hence the name, but I’ve since discovered that’s not the case. Shortly after moving to Malta, I was hunting antelope on public land south of town while Barb waited in the...
I was sitting on the patio at the lake last summer enjoying the sun when I noticed an object high in the sky to the north. It was roughly the shape of an oval with a bright, shimmery border. It wasn’t moving. I blinked and shook my head, sure that it was only a floater in my eye, but when I looked again it was still there. Barb was inside the cabin and I was reluctant to call her. She is a firm believer in UFOs, Sasquatch, and the like. She remains convinced the odd little critter we spotted a...
With all the snow this winter it’s getting hard to tell who’s new to Montana and who’s not. Almost everything’s covered. That lump in the snow might be carefully planted shrubbery or it might be a pile of old tires. Only spring will tell. That expanse of the snow-covered yard may well hide a groomed lawn of exotic grass or just as likely, an untended dirt patch sprinkled with dog droppings. Winter, with its accompanying blanket of snow, is the great equalizer. To an extent. Large, ostenta...
I finally gave in. Admitted I was tired of the snow. The endless winter. The unrelenting cold. But while many of our neighbors seek refuge in the Arizona desert once winter tightens its grip on Phillips County, Barb and I felt no need to leave Montana. Balmy Livingston is good enough for us. We bought a small house there on a quiet street, and while Malta remains home for now, we’ll probably eventually end up in Livingston. We have family there including a dozen grandchildren and another on t...
My wife tells me I need a special counsel. Apparently, she’s fed up with all the documents I have stored in the basement of her office. She insists a special counsel is necessary to move all of my important papers to a Dumpster in the alley. I’m pushing back. This is important stuff. Since entering the newspaper business in 1985, I’ve kept a lot of paper. Boxes of newspapers, photographs, correspondence, and media guides are stored neatly in the basement of the old telephone company build...
When Barb and I moved to Malta from Bozeman 17 years ago I jokingly told people I was moving back to Montana. Bozeman, like many places in the state had begun to look like everywhere else in the country: same stores, same housing developments, same traffic jams. It also was a place of economic vitality. There were jobs and opportunities to make a living there. Barb and I, however, didn’t need that. We could work online, and brought our jobs with us to Malta, where, unlike Bozeman, the economy w...
Even in Montana where we like to think of hunting as part of our heritage, there aren’t nearly as many hunters as there once were. That doesn’t bode well. Hunting license sales account for about two-thirds of the funding for Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Montana is third in the nation in percentage of hunters at 21.1 percent behind South Dakota at 24.1 and Wyoming at 22.7. Montana, however, does top the nation in firearm ownership. According to a 2020 report by the Rand...
I experienced a disturbing moment during the recent cold spell. While outside shoveling the sidewalk a few days ago in -27 degree weather, I realized that I was quite comfortable. I wasn’t too cold or too hot. My hands weren’t aching. My face wasn’t even covered. Perhaps I’ve lived here too long. Of course I was shoveling out of the wind, which a couple of days earlier had cooled things to a relatively chilly -72, but it was straight up -27 nonetheless. Winter seldom loses focus up here, a...
Growing up in southern Indiana I always wished for a white Christmas but seldom saw one. Snow, when it did fall, never lasted long. Then I moved to Cooke City where it can snow every month of the year. By Christmastime there the snow is typically measured in feet. A white Christmas is a given. Not all of Montana, however, is so lucky come the holiday season. I remember a December in Bozeman that started out white, but was brown and bare by Christmas. That won’t be the case this year. More t...
The writer of a letter to the editor in last week’s paper claimed the reintroduction of wolves to Montana is an effort to exterminate the deer and elk in the western part of the state. As a result, hunters have flocked to eastern Montana where there are no wolves, and consequently, more deer and elk. I beg to differ. Wolves were actually reintroduced to Montana by way of Yellowstone Park. And while they did wreak havoc on the elk herds there, that’s not western Montana. Western Montana is a str...
Why didn’t anybody tell me this was going to happen? I never understood why my father took to the couch when he turned 70. But he did, and for much of the rest of his life that’s where he remained. Mom used to say it was because his legs hurt. I left it there. I was young and healthy and full of myself. No way was I going to follow in his footsteps or lack of them. That was his choice. Not mine. I’d stay active until I tipped over. Or so I thought. Then I turned 70. I’d accumulated a few ach...
