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Sunza Beeches Bozeman, Montana 2012

Breakfast with the boys, a traditional geezer activity all across this country–one which I participate in myself almost weekly. One of the guys shown here was relating an incident that occurred to him recently. He was burning the weeds along an irrigation ditch when one of his new neighbors from out of state came over and started complaining that his fire was also burning some fence posts that may or may not have belonged to the neighbor. (The two had strikingly different opinions on that.) The guy telling the story objected to his neighbor’s attempted interference–strenuously. After some choice personal accusations suggesting the neighbor participated in questionable sexual activities with family members, he started on a more general rant that I’ve heard regularly since moving to Montana thirty years ago. It goes something like this: “I wish they’d build a fence on the god-damned border and keep those sunza beeches from California out of this state altogether. All they do is drive up the damn property prices and try to change every damn thing from the way we’ve been doing them around here forever.” In spite of not being a Montana native no one’s ever called me a sunza beech for moving here–at least not to my face. I think they more gladly make room for you if you grew up in a place like Kansas as I did because, out here where mountains are considered a form of supreme being, anyone coming from such flat country is considered a refugee.]]>

Big Damn Country Big Timber, Montana 2012

Back in the last century when I first knew the Fashion Queen and before she became Dr. Fashion Queen I went to her baccalaureate graduation ceremony. Other than there only being about 30 people in her graduating class at Alaska Pacific University, about the only thing I remember from that occasion was the story the keynote speaker told. Actually I only remember the punch line not the entire plot which had something to do with Teddy Roosevelt and a friend who liked to get out and ride around in the expanses of the American West. But it was entertaining and the punch line was a quote attributed to Teddy Roosevelt when he and his friend rode up to the brow of a hill overlooking a vast scene. Reacting to the view, Teddy said “Big damn country” to which his friend replied “Good to get out.” Every since then, whenever I come over the brow of a hill while out driving around and am confronted by a scene such as this view of the Crazy Mountains near Big Timber, I will say to myself or the Fashion Queen if she is with me “Big Damn Country” to which she will reply “Good to get out.” How’s that for the lasting benefits of a college education.]]>