They're Flying!
Monfuckintana.
Montana is weird. Aside from the Blackfoot Indians that still follow hunter-gatherer tradition on their 1,500.000 acre reserve, it’s almost entirely composed of honkies. And by honkies I do mean white people. Regardless of what race it is that composes a town, in an established area a mono-cultural society seems to make for a unique atmosphere of unbiased accountability. Everything is done, and everything is done well. My sister’s BF currently works two jobs; one is a typical full time job and the other is a work program that connects citizens who need manpower for oddjobs, so pretty much whenever he (Steve) wants to work, he can. When we first came into Bozeman he was re-shingling someone’s roof from 7am-4pm through the program, only to go to his other job later that night from 7pm-11pm. My sister, Amy, said that she was the only person she knew who wasn’t working, and she just got off from working two full-time jorbs. What time isn’t spent working is spent outdoors or at least spent actively, and this formula seems to make all citizens of Bozeman pretty damn congenial. There’s a cultural center that hosts local bands in a huge field during the lunch hours of work where everyone goes to eat during their 9-5’s. Steel Pulse and two other bands recently held a concert in a valley miles away from any town. Every Thursday Main Street is shut down for live bands and good times. Why? Because it's Thursday. The homes here have so much character, all are custom built, small and lots have rusted motorcycles or old cars in the yard, some people have TPs set up, tree swings, etc. Seems like everyone here owns a pick-up truck, a large dog, and an extreme passion for the outdoors. At the same time, it’s not close to hickville- most people seem aggressively didactic.
The whole scene is a bit of an enigma. It’s difficult to explain but out here, there’s this pervasive cut-throat, verging-on-the-edge-of monomania to everything everyone does. Most of the outdoor activities do involve risking your life in some way. People run along foot and a half-wide trails that ride the tops of 9600-9800 foot mountains: for one, at that altitude alone the air is so thin that walking can leave you out of breath, let alone running, two, the slopes leading along the tops of mountains that tall are, obviously, lethal should you fall, and three, yer alone. You twist an ankle and it’s a three-hour hike (without any injuries) back to the base, and a half hour drive to civilization. People mountain bike from peaks on switchback trails maybe half a foot wide. My brother, sister, and I were climbing one of those 9600 ft peaks and at the top we came face-to-face with two mountain goats. If you run away from those things they will chase you and make sure you fall down the mountain, but we stood still and instead enjoyed one of the more serene moments of my life as they stared at us for a while and kept grazing, about 10 feet away from us. Montana seems to be composed of moments like that; if you know what you're doing, the majority of the time your experience will be awe-inspiring, if you don't know what you're doing you can die. But that’s just one instance; in the past two weeks someone went camping nearby and a mother bear + cubs happened to be around. Food was entirely locked up, campers were asleep in their tent and the mother bear still felt like her cubs were threatened so she attacked. One person was killed, the other two mauled. Bozeman is a valley community, surrounded on all sides by mountains and because of this, extreme weather usually comes very quickly and very unannounced; my sister got caught in a hail storm that bruised her up, broke windows and dented her car and the siding of houses. Steve went out shooting with a few friends and unknowingly shot towards someone far away. That someone did not like that, and he began shooting (with a scope) Steve and all his friends. They hid behind their truck for a good half hour before the guy let up. And that’s recreation. The quantity and quality that people put into their work here is stifling, and it has to be for their community to thrive; Montana is one of the poorest states in the nation. In that same respect, people bike ride, hike, explore, hunt, etc. to an extreme that gives you the impression the people are afraid of living to anything but their fullest potential. No one is obese, and I haven’t met a single person here that isn’t extremely amiable. It’s a refreshing and addicting attitude after coming from Midwest suburbs, where you wouldn’t turn too many heads if you said its aim veers on perpetuation for the sake of perpetuation.
Now I know, I know. Grass is always greener. Sure I love coming here and running around mountains, shootin’ guns off, listening to live music and being around great people, but I haven’t worked two full time jobs at the same time, let alone two manual labor full time jobs and there are definitely some downsides to that lifestyle. Get injured and yer fucked. The winters last nine months of the year. The nearest Apple store is in Salt Lake City. Bozeman is the wealthiest town in all of Montana (and it looks like a beat up Glen Ellyn, haha). I can’t give ya an erudite opinion on the rest of the state, but I can imagine most areas are much much more intense, with a lot less fun. Pony was a town that reached 120,000 in population during the gold rush. Now it’s a ghost town, and one of the biggest crystal meth-centers, if you will, in the nation. Get sick of this place and you’re really not going to be happy, but this is the second year I’ve come here and I haven’t smoked a cigarette, herb, boozed up, haven’t spent more than 10min. on the internet or watching TV in Montana, and sleep and satiation come more easily each night than it ever has, and everyone else seems really happy to be here too. There’s something to be said for that.
FUN FACTS: NICK AND AARON CARTER OF THE BACKSTREET BOYS ARE OF THE BLACKFOOT TRIBE, NO BULLSHIT. So is Rickey Medlocke, guitarist of Lynyrd Skynyrd and lead singer of the band Blackfoot. Wah wah.
