For Nearly 20 Years, Malta was Home

I’ve had some pretty prestigious Montana addresses.

General Delivery, Cooke City was my first, and it’s still hard to beat. Tucked into the valley of Soda Butte Creek, surrounded by snow-capped peaks, Cooke is only a couple of miles up the road from Yellowstone Park.

I’ve also called Livingston home, and probably will again. Like Cooke, it has spectacular mountain views, and while Yellowstone is a few more miles up the road, it’s still close.

For a few years, Barb and I lived in Bozeman on Willson Ave., the fanciest street in town lined with grand old homes. The view in winter out the picture window in our modest apartment looked like a Courier & Ives print. Shortly after we moved from there, however, the building was torn down to allow the neighbors to expand their manicured flower garden.

Eventually, we bought a house on West Spring Creek Drive, on the south side of Bozeman. A split-level on a cul-de-sac, it had a wonderful view of the Bridger Mountains, and Bobcat Stadium was just visible through the trees.

Although there was no spring creek to be seen -- it was somewhere to the east – the Gallatin Range was only a short bike ride away.

Then a store opened in Bozeman selling nothing but batteries, and that was the last straw. Fleeing the congestion and growth in the Gallatin Valley we moved back to Montana.

For nearly 20 years now we’ve called 234 South Fourth Street East in Malta home. Hardly a prestigious address, it nonetheless tops my list and always will. If you have to ask why, you probably wouldn’t understand if I told you.

Now we’re moving again. Our cabin on Fort Peck Lake will be home for much of the year and it has an epic address – 44 Walleye Way.

The rest of the time we’ll spend in Livingston close to grandchildren and hospitals at the little home we bought on the corner of I and Montana.

There’s a scene in the movie A River Runs Through It where Norman, the older Maclean brother, asks his younger brother Paul to move with him to Chicago.

“Oh, I could never leave Montana, brother,” Paul replies.

I feel the same way.

I can’t imagine an address that doesn’t end in MT.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]