Good friends, in the midst of this winter and in all the wintry, dark moments of your lives—pain, loss, fear, frustration, discouragement—we wish for you the
CHRISTMAS GIFT OF LIGHT:
- sparkling holiday lights;
- light hearts;
- light loads;
- light for your path;
- sweetness and light;
- life lived according to your own lights;
- the opportunity to stand in your own light;
- harbor lights to steer by;
- a light in your eye;
- shining sunlight and iridescent moonlight;
- the light of hope;
- Light, more Light . . . .
“Seeing”
“When the doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw ‘the tree with the lights in it.’ It was for this tree I searched through the peach orchards of summer, and in the forests of fall and down winter and spring for years. Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I’m still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells flamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck. I have since only very rarely seen the tree with the lights in it. The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in . . . .”
Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Walter Family Top Ten 2000 Memories
Dave summarizes Montana’s last century in his Montana Magazine “Past Times” series—one of several frequent writing projects.
Marcella’s dad, Paul Sherfy, spends several weeks in the hospital and moves to an assisted-living apartment after his prostate cancer flares up. Marcella travels to Kansas several times.
Emily and Sergio come to Montana in July, hoping for several peaceful weeks in the North Fork. Instead, the two of them are the first to spot the Kintla Peak fire in Glacier National Park from the safety of our cabin deck. The fire begins to crown within hours—and launches Montana’s roaring fire season.
Amanda and Bob graduate from Miles City Community College, move to Great Falls, and become University of Great Falls students. Amanda perfects her serving skills at the new Great Falls Applebee’s and her filing skills at Prudential Insurance.
We welcome Marcella’s dad and cousin, Gary Shivers, for a North Fork adventure in late August, only to have the fires and five flat tires rearrange some of our schedule.
Emily begins her last year at the University of Oregon–and combines her studies in feminist history with employment tutoring the Ducks sports teams.
Amanda’s Lady Argonauts basketball team (revived after a 15-year hiatus) gets underway very respectably—despite some unexpected coaching changes.
Marcella changes jobs again: moving from the Parks Division of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, back to the Montana Historical Society as the Chief of Heritage Operations—one of those suspect administrative positions—but still beloved territory!
Dave adds a new “jerk” to his repertoire of historical Montana jerk speeches (he presented over 30 such speeches this year)—and oversees publication of Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Montana History—a compilation of his work and that of five other aficionados of Montana’s seamier past.
We enjoy a year full of blessings: good health, interesting work, a new refrigerator, a winter that may produce enough snow to forestall more fires, skilled girls’ basketball, e-mail connections, rabbits, chickadees, our urban deer population, moonlight and clear roads for late night driving, the best of friends . . . and still more!
