Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana
Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana
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I last talked about my reunion with a college classmate from sixty years ago. I’ve kept in touch with several others, including a couple from grade school, through all these years and the many changes we have each been through. I was just reading an interesting article about the current state of life expectancy and found I am nearly two years past my expiration date. Statistically, the average American male in my pre-Baby Boomer class will last 77 years and five months. The ladies, generally mor...
I had a reunion last week with a friend I will have known for 60 years at the end of this month. We were freshmen in the Montana School of Mines dormitory in 1964. Although we kept in touch, primarily via email, we had not seen each other for nearly thirty years. Over a few days, we relived our early time together, much of it wasted, and shook our heads in amazement at the things we did without thinking. It’s an established fact that young men’s brains don’t fully develop their reasoning and sel...
In the last couple of weeks, the artificial intelligence craze seems to have become part of my life, for better or worse. On the positive side, a couple of investments in the technology sector are doing very well. On the other hand, it ushers in an era of great uncertainty, blurring reality and even history. This has already occurred in the digital age, in that significant information recorded only electronically gets lost as systems are updated or sites cease to exist. I find myself getting...
Two months short of his third birthday, my dog was hit and killed on the highway recently. He was not a wanderer and very intelligent, so I’ll never know why he went there, but it happened. I know all of you pet people have gone through the same loss. It is an immutable fact that our most loyal friends will leave us too soon, and there is no cushion to soften that loss. Anyone who has lived decades and always had pets, has been through that darkness repeatedly because, even if they reach old a...
Last Saturday, I was headed back home to an antique tractor and engine show. A variety of perspectives always come to mind: the things that are so very different and the few that have not changed and never will, at least in my lifetime. The springtime mountains, still snow-topped down into their shaded valleys, and the greening hills and plains flowing away from them, with subtle hints and vivid splashes of wildflowers, coming back into the bloom of their endless life cycle. Mature cows and...
The primary elections are just ahead, where perspectives collide, and some are eliminated in the rush to November. This may be the most emotional and anger-tainted campaign ever, with little agreement on any front. There are so many perspectives! In the olden days, like in the last century, the choices were fairly well-defined. The questions on the ballots were simple: Democrat, Republican, Independent, and maybe a Socialist or Green party thrown in as a token gesture. Now, none of those...
Boy, oh boy, oh boy! What better time to write about perspectives than an election year? Especially this one. I hardly know where to start. Local? State? National? Present, upcoming, or lingering on from the past? Events? Issues? Personalities? Real or perceived? All are integral in our lives, whether or not we’re directly affected or have any ability to make a difference. Some of the topics are front and center in our thoughts, while others are just too abstract to be worth thinking about. W...
Everyone has their perspective on any given issue and is subject to modification or even complete reversal as information, conditions, and circumstances change. It can be argued that there is no time like an election year and social media to see the broad spectrum and panorama of those differences. This is not meant to be political commentary. Still, I’ll touch on some classic examples, as well as some from another touchstone of controversy: religion, since it is another place where widely d...
In college, waaaay back in the 60s, I wrote a column for the school paper, edited by a classmate. He texted me last week and said he heard I was writing this one, so I sent it to him. We ran into each other yesterday, and he said I’d become philosophical in my old age. Well, that struck me as being pretty serious and got me thinking about how limited my knowledge and experience were then. My view of the world has changed, becoming more introspective and textured, although not as vivid. When y...
In the early 1980s, I ran the farthest-north underground mine in the United States, halfway between Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay, in the Brooks Range, eighty miles north of the Arctic Circle. The haul road to the North Slope oil fields was over thirty miles away, so our operation depended on air transportation. Everyone who came to work on the project, including me, was new to Alaska and couldn’t wait to fly over the mighty Yukon, with images of crystal-clear water surging through rocky canyons. W...
"O, wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An' foolish notion." Robert Burns Translation: Oh, what power it would give us, to see ourselves as others see us. It would free us from many a blunder, and foolish notion. How we see the world and the people around us is the most personal of perspectives. How other people see us is one of life's greatest mysteries, probably second only to what happens when life ends. The end of life is...
When I was a kid, I started getting hay fever around the age of four or five. Since we lived on a ranch and harvested hay from mountain meadows, the prognosis was gloomy for the summer months (summer being any time it wasn't winter.) My eyes would swell shut and become glued that way overnight, itching. along with my throat, and my nose would run down to my toes. Antihistamine medication in the 1950s was little help and just made me sleepy. I didn't know about karma then, but if I had, I would...
Just to make it clear, right from the start, I’m 78 years old, which is as good a reason as any for writing some thoughts down from this perspective. Perhaps others will find them interesting, maybe not, but I guess we’ll find out. The theory of relativity, in its simplest form, says that things are different, depending on where they are and where they’re being observed from. In real life, it also depends on who is doing the looking. Throw in the added element of personality, and relat...
