A Postscript to “Hopes and Dreams”
Turns out that one of the truck/horse rigs that I passed leaving Choteau a week ago belonged to Leslie and her husband. I learned to know Leslie almost 30 years ago when she was a Nevada…
Category: Montana Assays
Anas #7 – Hopes and Dreams
I dropped granddaughter Ella off in Choteau on Friday afternoon—in time to join the small town’s 4th of July celebrations. She anticipated the crafts and food in the park, a parade, a street dance, open houses,…
Clouds
A few weeks ago, I joined the Cloud Appreciation Society. For $46.39—or thirty-five pounds. The Society is headquartered in the UK, with participants from around the globe. I became member number 66,998. And soon received a letter, a…
Time Machine
I drove the Grizzly Gulch-Unionville loop last weekend on a day so perfect, so clean and blue and radiant I couldn’t stay inside. 44 years ago, soon after my arrival in Montana, colleagues at the…
Beyond the End of the Line: Compensating
Helena, Montana, is a very lovely, very small capital city. More a town in many ways. Our official population stands at 33,000, though surrounding suburbs now account for another 20,000 or so. We began life…
End of the Line
In 1980, two months after I moved to Montana, I had to return, briefly and quickly, to Washington D. C. for a hearing. Except I couldn’t. I got there and back, but not quickly. Or…
Bad Behavior Under the Big Sky
In the autumn of 2022, Montanans—who, I swear, didn’t quite realize what they were doing—managed to cherry pick the worst of our citizens for almost every political position available. There are, of course, some notable…
Views: From Here To . . . .
This afternoon, I’m looking out to the east, watching the Big Belts. The 75 mile-long Rocky Mountain island chain stretches in an arc—a belt. Not quite 10,000 feet at its highest point. The Missouri River…
Hibernation
That’s where the words have gone. Some special “extended state of torpor.” Some deep drop in the metabolism of language and memory. Shocked into an energy-saving indolence. A lethargy designed to evade these dark days….
Safely Gathered In
Two posts ago, I jumped the gun with my essay on fighting to accept winter. Since then, the universe has served up an uncommonly lovely fall. We have had flickers of frost some mornings. We…