He was the kindest man I’ve known: scholar, gentleman, Lutheran, dad, husband, boss, Chief Historian of the National Park Service (NPS). Although he had too little confidence in himself, his political instincts were spot on….
This early spring, I stretched to the far side of my memory, Stalking riches: the pure gold of so many moments that life has given me; The uncanny, dazzling opportunities that I never saw coming…
Montana Preservation I’d spent that 1980 April morning interviewing. The Montana Historical Society’s Preservation Office Program Manager job was up for grabs. Notwithstanding the fact that I’d just snagged a great position in the National…
Montana Preservation I’d write a more fulsome history of my 15 years as Montana’s State Historic Preservation Officer, if I could remember them. That alone is a puzzle. How is it that the defining position…
Montana Preservation They were looking for a fight – those mining company executives and disdainful forest supervisors. The subdivision developers, the highway engineers, the power company managers, and, of course, the university presidents. Many were…
Montana Preservation It was always going to be tricky—adopting the State Historic Preservation Office into the Montana Historical Society’s established family. But needed. For a decade the Parks Division of the Department of Fish and…
Don’t count them out. Or think them made redundant by Google. They are damn pure magic. Portals into time travel. Archetypes of standing stone circles, temples, pantheons of all the gods we’ve worshipped over time….
I’ve lived for 40 years in breathtaking landscapes. Where, from our deck at the Land, the Backbone of the World—40 miles of the Rocky Mountains—stretches into infinity. Where night after night, my home range—the Big…
I was just home from watching my 87 year old mother die. For her, that meant the blessing of peace after months of fear and unease. The cruel additives to her illness. For me, that…
It seems the notices come weekly now As one class mate after another dies. The news relayed by a faithful Bullpup Who’s lived his life in McPherson. Or hers. A pillar now of the community,…