One Nation, Under God
One Nation, Under God
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I used to give bats no more thought than most folks do. They were just another interesting critter I caught fleeting glimpses of as they flitted about at dusk. Then I moved to Malta, home to the northernmost colony of migrating little brown bats in North America, and I became intimately familiar with them. The 100-year-old stone house we bought there was bat central. Trim was missing on a couple of second-floor windows giving them entry into the house, and while remodeling the place I found...
Republican lawmakers wasted little time in getting down to business on one of their top priorities: arming Montana college students. Less than two weeks after the Legislature began its session, a bill that would allow concealed carry of firearms on public college campuses passed a vote by the GOP-controlled House. The bill now proceeds to the Senate. The idea is that armed students could prevent mass shooting incidents on campus. No one would start popping caps in Abnormal Psychology 101...
Admittedly, I’m a bit of a Luddite. I don’t tweet, blog or Zoom. But I do have a favorite device: the radio. I prefer the immediacy it provides. Always have. Although the news app on my phone offers a plethora of options for keeping up with the outside world, I’m content to listen to a single news broadcast at the top of every hour. It’s more than enough, especially in these troubled times. Since this all began last March, Barb and I have been keeping to ourselves, something I’m much more comf...
If I can hang on just a little longer, like magic it will be gone. My fears will vanish, and I’ll be able to stand proudly upright once again. In the meantime I’m terrified. I’m of an age that any day could be my last. As careful as I try to be I still slip up occasionally. Literally. And then I fall down. For 60 days I chased the dogs up hill and through dale, a loaded shotgun in my hands, safely navigating the uneven terrain. On the 61st I got my comeuppance. Following pheasant tracks in a...
It’s been a while since I’ve fallen through the ice, but late-season pheasant hunting always carries that risk. I didn’t expect any problems this year. It had been dry for months and the freeze came early. Every stock pond and marsh up here had good, thick ice by December. The slow-moving Milk River was almost entirely frozen over. Almost. Hunting with friends last week along the river west of town I heard a shot and watched a rooster drop out of sight over the bank. “Great,” I said to myself...
“Dot was drinking the Christmas tree water again,” Ace said, eyeing the puppy with disdain. “That’s no big deal,” I told him. “I’ll be taking it down soon anyway.” “She also has one of your shoes,” he said. “Maybe you should start minding your own business and not minding hers,” I replied. “I don’t have any business,” he shot back. “I’m just helping you.” “Thanks, but I think I’ve got it under control,” I said. “Try to relax.” “I can’t,” he said with a low growl. “That’s true,” I had to admi...
It took a while, but I’ve finally turned into that guy. My friends and I used to poke fun at older dudes who no longer hunted big game, didn’t care if they bagged a limit of birds, and were as pleased with the fluidity of their casts as they were with what was biting the end of their line. I couldn’t imagine life without elk, a game bag full of birds, or a fishless outing. I used to take great pride in harvesting an elk every fall. Back then I could walk forever, and I shot a lot of elk miles...
It’s been a little more than a year ago now that my dog Ruth died of a brain tumor. She wasn’t yet three years old, and had already turned into a wonderful bird dog. She had a good nose, was enthusiastic, and retrieved anything I shot. She was also a sweet dog. I’ve mourned the passing of a lot of dogs, but Ruth’s death was particularly difficult for me. I still don’t understand why. Maybe it was because her passing was so unexpected. Maybe it was because she was going to be my last dog. I’d...
The snow that fell during a blizzard early last month has pretty much disappeared across most of the state. Except here. The streets in town are still icy and a covering of settled, hard snow blankets the landscape. I used to take pride in that distinction when I lived in Cooke City. Early snows there tended to hang around until spring, and folks quickly embraced winter, firing up the snowmobiles and dusting off the skis at first chance. But I no longer live in Cooke, nestled in a mountain valle...
I don’t pay much attention to all those television ads for medications aimed at my generation. Still in relatively good health, I’ve yet to begin taking pills that will improve my memory, help me sleep all night, or shrink my enlarged prostate. I figure the longer I go without, the better chance the pills will work when I really need them. Soon enough I’ll join the ranks of those fragile, befuddled old folks looking for a cure. In the meantime, I’ll just try to suck it up. An ad I watched...
It always passes too quickly. When I parked my truck at dawn on the opening morning of bird season I was surprised to see a sage grouse sitting on a rise, silhouetted against the lightening sky. I took it as a good omen even though the bird flew as soon as I stepped out of the truck. That seems a long time ago now and it has been nearly three months that I’ve been hunting this fall. For the first six weeks I hunted the early mornings to beat the heat and avoid the snakes, sneaking Ace out to t...
Eight months ago Barb and I cut short our vacation and raced home to take shelter. It was a scary time. So much about the pandemic was unknown. We kept to ourselves, wore masks when necessary, and carried on with our lives as best we could. At the time, however, Covid pretty much remained a problem elsewhere. A lot of Montanans began to doubt the threat the virus posed. They railed against health measures they said weren’t needed. Reports that coronavirus affected primarily the elderly fueled th...
Every angler is looking for an edge, a technique or perhaps a secret lure sold on late-night television that fish simply can’t resist. I’m still looking, but apparently I’ll have to check drones and remote-controlled boats off my list. Montana wildlife officials are considering rules that would prohibit fishing with both. Not that drones or RC boats are sure-fire fish catchers. They’re just annoying. Both sound like a swarm of angry bees. However, they do provide anglers with new ways to deliver...
It seems only yesterday I was diving off the dock to cool off in the lake. It was just last month. Now I’m digging through my drawers looking for long underwear, regretting not putting the snowblower on the tractor, and trying to find the water hoses under the snow. Winter arrived abruptly last week. It wasn’t the usual fall equinox storm. That one usually hits in September and gives us a preview of what’s to come. This year, however, September was warm and dry from beginning to end. Octob...
My 13-year-old grandson Isaac shot his first pheasant last week. He was using the shotgun I’d given him last year. A Model 1200 Winchester pump, it had been a Christmas present to me from my father more than 50 years ago. I never saw the bird that Ace flushed from a thicket of willow saplings as it rose cackling into a stiff wind blowing off Fort Peck Lake. I yelled “Rooster!” but Isaac and his father, Aaron, didn’t need the warning. The bird dropped at Isaac’s shot and their English cocker Ch...
I’ve never used electronic collars on my dogs. A whistle always sufficed. But as I begin training what may well be my last bird dog, I’m considering a change. All my friends use electronic collars, and I can’t help but notice that their dogs are a bit more under control than mine. It didn’t used to bother me. I always put more emphasis on enthusiasm for the hunt than any strict protocol. I bend to the dogs’ will as much as they do mine. Last season, however, there were two occasions when my whis...
I wonder what this hunting season will bring. The weather and number of critters, however, aren’t foremost in my mind. The number of hunters is. If the summer months are any indication, there will be crowds. When things shut down last March and we were told to shelter in place I expected the outdoor industry would take a big hit. Instead it appears that just the opposite happened. Folks flocked to the outdoors. Trailheads were packed, boat ramps crowded, and campgrounds full. I had been w...
It’s not often that I weigh in on public policy. Years ago I suggested that folks who didn’t farm or ranch should live in town, limiting sprawl and taking advantage of existing infrastructure. That didn’t happen. Here’s another idea. Maybe this one will gain some traction. The wildfire smoke recently was awful. It lasted for days and made breathing difficult. It seems to get worse every summer. Something needs to be done. Smokey Bear’s tired old mantra simply isn’t working. We need the Rake Forc...
Yesterday was bittersweet. We said goodbye to a grand old dog and welcomed a new puppy into our lives. The pup’s arrival was expected, but Jem’s demise, although certainly no surprise, sure wasn’t planned for the same day. We’d gotten Jem shortly before we moved from Bozeman to Malta 14 years ago, however, I always thought of him as a Belgrade dog because that’s where he’d been born. And like that blue-collar community, he was a blue-collar dog. He retrieved everything I shot, including a winged...
The sun had yet to crest the Larb Hills when I let Ace out of the truck. He hit the ground running , and like he always does, raced 50 yards down the road before turning back to join me for the hunt. It takes him some time to settle down and he leapt and barked for a couple minutes until he got all the nonsense out of system and went to work, nose glued to the ground. Walking through the snowberries bordering the creek, I saw his tail become a blur of anticipation. A second later the morning...
My dog Jem turned 14 this week. He’s the last of my dogs that became acquainted with my father, who passed away nearly 14 years ago. Now the old dog is starting to act like the old man at the end. He moans and groans a lot, sleeps all the time, but always wakes up hungry. He demands to be fed, watered, let in, let out. He voices his unsolicited opinion on everything. However, there’s a big difference between old man and old dog. I never considered having the old man put down. I may have tho...
My life revolves around two seasons: hunting season and not-hunting season. Not-hunting season is almost over. From Sept. 1 through New Year’s I spend more days hunting than not. It’s what I do. During not-hunting season I fish a bit, grow a garden, and pound a few nails to impress my wife. But mostly I count the days until hunting season. If hibernation were an option I’d consider it. Go to sleep at the end of hunting season and wake up when it starts again. Just sleep through not-h...
During a trip to Cooke City last week I was asked about my license plate. “Where’s 11?” the woman who brought my barbecue sandwich wanted to know. “Phillips County,” I replied. She said nothing, just gave me look. I didn’t think anything of it until I got home and told my friend Dave. “She probably thought you were diseased,” he said. Phillips County, which had skated through the pandemic unscathed, with zero cases of covid until it blew up a couple of weeks ago, now tallies 90 some odd cases....
When I was young and full of myself there were a number of things I did that I swore I’d never quit. They were too cool, too unique, too fun. I couldn’t imagine a spring without horn hunting or a fall without chasing elk. I promised myself I’d drive over the Beartooth Pass every summer, and I’d never miss the Mothers’ Day caddis hatch on the Yellowstone River. Time has a way of breaking promises, however, and that list of things I’d never quit has dwindled to a scant few. One of them is com...
I was talking to my good friend Edub last week about folks we used to work with at the Bozeman Chronicle who had gone on to work for larger newspapers. We laughed about a rookie reporter at the paper who had struggled with the writing, couldn’t meet deadlines, and left after less than a year. Edub said he thought the guy was still working for the Boston Globe. Then he looked at me with a grin on his face and said: “And you’re working for the Phillips County News.” It’s true. My journalism career...
