James D. Kriley--A Very Personal Appreciation

When Irish eyes are smiling,
Sure, 'tis like the morn in Spring.
In the lilt of Irish laughter
You can hear the angels sing.
When Irish hearts are happy,
All the world seems bright and gay.
And when Irish eyes are smiling,
Sure, they steal your heart away.

--Chauncey Olcott & George Graff

Dr. James D. Kriley
Wildhorse Island, Flathead Lake, Montana
Taken Summer 1995

The first call came yesterday at 9:45 am, the last at 10:04 p.m. In between several calls came from friends and former colleagues all wanting to make sure I had heard the news. Dr. James D. Kriley had died, doing one of the things he loved the best, in one of his favorite spots. We should all be so lucky.

My first memory of Dr. Kriley, or Jim as everyone knew him, was a conversation he had with my boss, Sr. Kathryn Martin, as the three of us walked across the University of Montana campus. Kathy was Dean of Fine Arts, Jim was Chair of the Department of Drama/Dance, and I was the new Administrative Assistant in the Dean’s Office. UM had just hired a new president, one of the seemingly endless series of presidents before George Dennison arrived, and Jim had one simple question. “Does he drink?” He then added the statement that would color my view of him for several years. “I don’t trust someone who doesn’t drink.” As my parents were strict teetotalers, Jim’s expressed opinion was enough to make him suspect in my eyes.

In 1986, Sr. Kathy accepted the position of Dean of Fine Arts at Wayne State University in Detroit. UM began the process of conducting a national search to replace her. The University’s administration appointed Jim as Interim Dean. Remembering both that earlier conversation and the numerous battles that had been fought between our office and the Drama Department, I prepared myself for the worst. Our office secretary quit because she knew she couldn’t work with “that man.”

My situation was complicated by the fact that just a few weeks earlier, my partner, Richard Donovan, became the first person in Missoula County to be diagnosed with AIDS. AIDS was an unknown quantity in western Montana—a disease that “those people” got in the big cities. Richard and I knew our home would be fire-bombed if the word got out. Our doctor, a family friend, urged us to move to Seattle where Richard could get better care. Knowing that Kathy was leaving, and fearing the reaction of the community, I had not told her of the diagnosis. Now I had a new boss, albeit an “interim” one I didn’t completely trust, and a decision to make. How honest could I be with this man?

The situation was taken out of my hands when Richard was hospitalized for the first time at the end of August. For years I had written all the grant proposals submitted out of the Dean’s Office, and a major submission deadline was September first. Jim let me know that my place was at the hospital and that I was not to worry about the grants. Throughout the course of Richard’s illness, Jim continued to remind me that my first priority was to home and family. I assume the office work got done. All my memories of that period center on Richard.

The next Spring, the University offered Jim the Dean’s position. In the same way he had convinced the search committee that he was the right person for the job, he had won my support as well. When Richard died in July, our local newspaper interviewed me for a front page spread. A few people phoned the University demanding that I be fired—“a person like that has no business working on campus.” Jim told them that they didn’t know what they were talking about.

For the next twelve years, Jim and I worked closely. Under his leadership, the School of Fine Arts moved from being the ugly step-child of the University to one of the central units of the school. Our budget, always insecure in the past, firmed and grew, and with increased financial security, the School’s faculty grew in number as well.

To be sure there were battles that Jim did not win. We don’t need to revisit them. The battles he won, in my opinion formed on the inside, saved the School of Fine Arts. Prior to Jim’s tenure as Dean, the School’s history, for at least fifteen years, had been one of attrition and loss. Both the Art and Music Departments had lost a quarter of their faculty. Art lost their colleagues in a single budget cut. Music lost theirs one by one, with the Full Time Equivalent (FTE) faculty being reduced year after year until by the late 1980s, the Department members were shell-shocked, always wondering what head would be axed next. There were even calls for eliminating the Department altogether. With Jim as Dean, the faculty losses stopped.

In an academic field where doctoral degrees are the exception, Jim held an earned doctorate, a PhD, from the University of Washington. While I am not sure of the exact nature of his doctoral work, my memory leads me to believe it had to do with Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

What I do know is that his own education led Jim to propose a new undertaking for the School of Fine Arts. Traditionally the School saw its mission as training artists, arts educators, and, to a lesser extent, future audiences for those artists. Jim’s proposal, which grew into The Creative Pulse, expanded the School’s teacher education programs to bring back established K-12 teachers and further their education in the arts and education during their summer breaks. In this, Jim usurped the prerogative of Schools of Education. With the Creative Pulse, the School of Fine Arts took on the mission of re-educating the educators.

Dr. James Kriley
Flathead Lake, Montana
Taken Summer, 1995

I could write at length of the successes of this program, of the untold number of grade-school and high school students whose education has been enriched because Jim conceived the Creative Pulse. To be sure, Jim would be the first to admit that the program was a collaborative effort involving faculty from across the School. I am equally sure, however, that had it not been Jim pushing the Pulse, the program would not have happened. In the ten years I was involved in the Pulse, I came to see it as the most important work we were doing in the School.

Often have I said that the one saleable skill I got in grad school was the ability to type. Jim did not learn typing in school. As computers became more and more common on desk tops across campus, Jim kept looking for voice recognition software so that he wouldn’t have to use the keyboard. We tried a variety of unsatisfying programs to no avail. That doesn’t mean that Jim was a Luddite. Far from it. His embrace of new technology led to the development of the Media Arts program at UM. This program grew out of Jim’s conviction that we were failing our students if we trained them only for the traditional performance stage and ignored the reality of a market place increasingly dominated by the likes of George Lucas.

Jim was a story teller and he saw the potential of new media technology in sharing our stories. I remember a conversation he had while giving UM Alumnus Carroll O’Connor a tour of the Media Arts facilities. Carroll was most impressed watching our students in the editing lab. He regretted that he had not had the technology available for All in the Family. Thanks to Jim Kriley’s vision and dedication, future UM alumni won’t share that regret.

Prior to being named Dean of Fine Arts, Jim served as Chair of the Department of Drama and Dance. During his tenure in that position, he took a sabbatical leave and studied in Los Angeles. While in southern California, he also studied sailing. After returning to Missoula, he bought a small sailboat which he kept moored at Flathead Lake. Eventually his skills and desires outgrew the first boat, and he found a 27’ Erickson for sale in Portland, Oregon. Using my pickup, he brought the boat back across the mountains. (I got to tow the empty trailer back to Portland on my next run to California.) The new boat replaced the old at Flathead. For those of you who don’t know Montana topography, Flathead Lake is the largest alpine lake in the US and the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes. It stretches approximately thirty miles north to south and fifteen miles east to west. If you have a sailboat in Flathead Lake, you don’t really need to sail anywhere else.

Jim loved sailing and he loved the Lake. He always had a cabin on the west shore of the Lake, and we had many faculty and administrative retreats at Jim’s cabin. The highlight of any lakeside retreat was a day spent sailing. Usually we’d sail from Big Arm where the boat was moored to Wild Horse Island and back. We’d snack on board, then have a big dinner on shore. Jim was a fine cook as well, and the only person who could fix salmon in a way that I would enjoy eating the fish. We always ate well on our retreats.

Drs. Randy Bolton and James Kriley
Flathead Lake, Montana
Taken Summer, 1995

If Randy Bolton accompanied us, as he usually did, Randy would make gin and tonics in the boat’s cabin as we tacked across the lake. It was on Jim’s boat that I learned to drink g&ts.

Dr. James Kriley was the best boss I have ever had. He was my friend, my colleague, my mentor, my confessor. I’d like to think I served some of those roles for him as well. After my father and John Wesley, he was the most influential male in my life. I will miss him terribly. In Maslow’s hierarchy, the top level is “Self Actualization.” This is represented by morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts. This is the level where Jim Kriley lived. This afternoon, in my own private Irish wake, I intend to lift a large gin and tonic in remembrance. Henceforth every g&t will be a toast to Jim.

My heart goes out to his wife Mary Kay, his daughters Megan, Casey and Colleen, and to all of our mutual friends and colleagues who I know are as bereft at this point as am I.

According to the news report, Jim’s unoccupied boat drifted ashore at 4 pm, Monday, August 18^th, 2008. An aerial search of Big Arm Bay enabled searchers to locate his body. As Jim was an excellent swimmer, I have to assume that he had a heart attack and died instantly. He was in a place he loved, doing something he loved. We should all be so lucky.

For the local reaction to this loss, read today’s Missoulian .

There's a tear in your eye,
And I'm wondering why,
For it never should be there at all.
With such pow'r in your smile,
Sure a stone you'd beguile,
So there's never a teardrop should fall.
When your sweet lilting laughter's
Like some fairy song,
And your eyes twinkle bright as can be;
You should laugh all the while
And all other times smile,
And now, smile a smile for me.

When Irish eyes are smiling,
Sure, 'tis like the morn in Spring.
In the lilt of Irish laughter
You can hear the angels sing.
When Irish hearts are happy,
All the world seems bright and gay.
And when Irish eyes are smiling,
Sure, they steal your heart away.

For your smile is a part
Of the love in your heart,
And it makes even sunshine more bright.
Like the linnet's sweet song,
Crooning all the day long,
Comes your laughter and light.
For the springtime of life
Is the sweetest of all
There is ne'er a real care or regret;
And while springtime is ours
Throughout all of youth's hours,
Let us smile each chance we get.

When Irish eyes are smiling,
Sure, 'tis like the morn in Spring.
In the lilt of Irish laughter
You can hear the angels sing.
When Irish hearts are happy,
All the world seems bright and gay.
And when Irish eyes are smiling,
Sure, they steal your heart away.

Meet Me in Montana

The group as of Saturday Morning, August 2nd, 2008
Taken at St. Regis Montana (Fuji disposable camera)
Kevin and I are front row on right behind dogs

Won't you meet me in Montana.
I wanna see the mountains in your eyes.
Woah, woah, I had all of this life I can handle.
Meet me underneath that big Montana sky.

--Dan Seals

A bit of history. In 1982, I rode (a horse, that is) in the Grand Entry of the Reno Gay Rodeo. I made a pair of leather chaps from a dyed red hide I purchased at Tandy, had a friend make me a cowboy shirt with a blue bandana print on the cuffs and yoke, and put it all together with a pair of blue 501s, a Resistol Silver Belly hat and Tony Lama boots. Did I look like a cowboy? Probably not, but I was dressed to the nines and carried the Montana flag proudly. Joan Rivers was the Grand Marshall that year, and I got to be real close to her in her pre-botox days.

By the late 1980s, a group of guys living in the Billings area started the Big Sky Gay Rodeo Association for Montana and northern Wyoming. I joined the group and got their t-shirt. In 1995, a friend and I traveled to Phoenix with the intent of buying a business. The purchase fell through, but my friend and I attended the Phoenix Gay Rodeo and had a ball. That is the sum total of my gay rodeo experience. Until the first weekend of August, 2008, that is.

In 2006, Jeff Taylor and John Tomes opened their Cowboy Up Ranch near St. Regis, Montana, for a weekend of camping, dancing, floating the river and making good friends. The weekend was called “Meet Me In Montana,” and was sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Gay Rodeo Association. Somehow I managed to get on their mailing list and read about the gathering, but as I was in California looking after my mother, I was not able to attend.

The second annual gathering happened in 2007 as I was getting ready to set out on the 6,000 Mile Sunday Drive. Again, circumstances did not allow me to attend, but I was determined to make it to the 2008 weekend.

With that goal in mind, Kevin and our friend Mike spent a Sunday afternoon in late July putting the camper back on the pickup. The camper has been sitting up by the cabin for quite some time. (I unloaded it from the pickup long before I headed to California.) The camper was dirty inside; some of the expected gear was missing, and one jack had lost all its hydraulic fluid and would not support the weight of the 11 foot long beast. While I went into Stevensville to look for hydraulic fluid, Kevin and Mike managed to get the camper off the ground, onto the pickup, and off the mountain. I’m glad I wasn’t there to watch.

There were, of course, other problems with the camper, but Kevin assured me that we could get it fully functional, and by cracky, we did—almost. OK, the air conditioner needs to be recharged, and the heater isn’t working properly, but all the water lines are now good and we can use the sinks, the toilet, and the showers. Yes, it has two showers: one inside and one outside.

Friday, August 1^st, we drove west on Interstate 90 heading toward St. Regis and the 2008 Meet Me In Montana gathering. It was a beautiful day to be heading into the country, and all went well until we passed a motor home near Superior. For you history buffs, the very first Gideon Bible was placed in a hotel room in Superior, Montana way back in 1908. One hundred years later, as we were nearing the town, our truck began a bump and grind that had me grabbing the door trying to hold it in place. A roadside inspection showed that all tires were fully inflated, and the tread all looked good, so we weren’t suffering from a flat. Kevin assumed that we had lost the balancing weights from the front passenger side tire, and appeared relatively unconcerned as we drove the final fifteen miles to St Regis at a reduced speed. As for me, well what do I know? Kevin is the one with the CDL and the big rig driving experience. If he wasn’t concerned, why should I be.

Once at the Cowboy Up Ranch, we found a relatively level spot in the area set aside for trucks and trailers. Having claimed our spot, we walked over to the only other vehicle parked in the area—a truck and horse/camper trailer rig from Moscow Idaho. Three men and two women from the Moscow/Pullman area were happily sipping cocktails while their horses were pastured in the next field. We introduced ourselves and settled in with them.

Over the next few hours, more guests arrived, setting up tents on the ranch house lawn. While we expected folk from Washington, Idaho and Montana, we learned just how wide a circle Jeff’s email reached as we gathered at the fire pit for the early evening Meet and Greet. Joe was from northern Louisiana. Kirk from Boston. Carlos from Barcelona—yes the one in Spain. All told there were folk from eleven states, Canada, Spain and Switzerland. Were they all cowboys? Hardly. But it was a great group of men and women.

It became obvious that many of the people present were old friends. I was able to reconnect with some friends of my own—men I hadn’t seen in years. Abe and Dave drove down from Bigfork with their four dogs. Roger came from Missoula. Tim and Bill drove over from Heron. I hadn’t seen any of these men since before I went to California. I was pleased to be able to introduce them to Kevin, and he now has several more friends than before.

In talking with Kirk from Boston, I learned that he was interested in geocaching but had never actually been out hunting for hidden treasure. I had done my homework and I knew that there was one (just one) cache in the St Regis area. There was no way I was going to move the pickup, but since Kirk had a rental car, I asked if he’d be interested in finding the cache. According to my Garmin GPS unit, the cache was just about two miles from the ranch.

On the west side of the town of St Regis, there is a nature trail that winds through a swampy area. As Kirk and I hiked, we came to a dead tree on the ground just off the trail. Kirk informed me that he was not about to put his hands in that mess, and I assured him that the cache was almost certain to be exactly where he was loathe to venture. Sure enough, I was right. We found the cache easily, and I reminded myself once again that I should always carry heavy gloves with me for just such a find. Hey, I’m not all that keen on putting my bare hands and arms into dark, dank places where a cache is likely to be guarded by all manner of creepy crawlies.

The Barn where we danced
Taken at St. Regis, Montana
August 2nd, 2008

Back at the ranch, we dined on excellent chicken enchiladas, then gathered in the barn for an evening of dancing, story telling, and catching up with friends. We began by learning a round dance mixer—the Barn Dance. Some two-stepping, some line dancing, and a waltz or two followed, but most folk stayed on the sidelines chatting with old friends and making new ones. It was sort of like the old junior high school dances where no one actually danced.

I have no idea how late things went on. Kevin and I headed for the camper and our bed long before midnight. Saturday was going to be a full day and we needed our beauty rest.

Saturday morning dawned gray and dreary. We had heard some raindrops on the camper roof during the night, and while the ground was relatively dry, the sky did not bode well for a day spent on the river. Nonetheless, after breakfast some thirty men and women boarded an old school bus for the ride to our put-in point on the Clark Fork.

There are three major rivers that carry water out of Montana. The most famous are the Missouri and the Yellowstone, both of which flow east from Montana into North Dakota and then continue on to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. The Clark Fork of the Columbia flows west into Idaho. It has the largest volume of the three and there are places between Missoula and the Idaho state line where the river is a raging torrent.

I had signed up for the river float, but I was not sure which stretch we would follow. Accordingly, I left the Nikon in the camper and brought along a disposable water-proof Fuji. There was no way I was going to risk losing my gear to the river rapids. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. The river we rode that Saturday was remarkably flat.

Pushing the bus off the road
Taken at St. Regis, Montana
August 2nd, 2008 (Fuji Disposable Camera)

Getting to the river turned out to be the biggest adventure of the day. Shortly after our bus left I-90 at the Sloway exit, it began losing power. Less than a mile down the road, our driver/guide pulled the bus over and stopped. A few people got off the bus for a cigarette break, and the owner of the home in front of which we were parked, came out to see if we needed help. Well, actually, we did. We were still two miles from the rafts, and the bus wasn’t going to move another inch. Our knight in shining pickup truck (two points if you recognize that line) loaded us in his truck’s bed and ferried us to the rafts.

Once at the water’s edge, we divided ourselves among three rafts, three inflatable kayaks and a large inner tube. Several of the rafters had water cannons and I have to admit, had the day been bright and sunny, the prospect of getting soaked would have been fun. Instead, I was more worried about hypothermia than heat stroke. August 2^nd, and we’re wondering if Summer is over.

To add to our fun, the wind came up, and was blowing from the West. There were places on the river where we had to paddle continuously just to keep the rafts from blowing upstream. We began to wonder if we’d be home in time for supper.

The various misadventures and the uncooperative weather didn’t dampen our spirits however, and as we floated we saw osprey, hawks, a golden eagle, a group of bald eagles, geese, mergansers, and several smaller birds. Had I had the Nikon and a long lens, you’d be seeing these birds as well. Alas the Fuji wasn’t up to the task.

Eventually the St Regis bridges came in sight and we knew we’d be back at the ranch soon. As the bus was still out of commission, Jeff and some of the guests who hadn’t floated the river met us on the bank and drove us home—again in the back of pickup trucks. It was just like being a kid again, getting to ride in the pickup bed.

Camping on the lawn of the Cowboy Up Ranch
Taken at St Regis, Montana
August 2nd, 2008

Saturday’s dinner was steak, after which we adjourned to the barn where we danced the Barn Dance once again. We two-stepped to Marie Osmond singing “Meet Me in Montana,” and the band played on into the night. (Click on the link to see and hear Marie singing.) I watched handsome men moving in sync to “Dizzy,” but try as I might, I couldn’t get the choreography down to dance with them. “Dizzy” is a line-dance that everyone assumes you know, so no one ever teaches it. Once home, I went on-line and found the directions. Next time I’ll be able to dance with those handsome men.

Once again, Kevin and I turned in early. I heard no raindrops over night, and Sunday we awoke to a beautiful, clear blue sky. Jeff served up a scrumptious Sunday brunch, and we said our goodbyes. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I was a happy camper. Kevin and I had a great time and we look forward to next year’s gathering. And yes, we’re going to join the Pacific Northwest Gay Rodeo Association. Ya never know when you’ll need a cowboy around.

By the way, I took along my kite bag, and was able to get five of my stunt kites into the air at one time or another. Here’s a picture of truck, camper and kites as set up on the Cowboy Up Ranch grounds. Oh, and the bumpy ride, it turned out, was caused by the belts in a fairly new Michelin radial which were in the process of separating. We got home and bought a new tire. Problem solved.

Our Home Away from Home
Taken at St. Regis, Montana
August 3rd, 2008

To see all my pictures from the weekend, go to my Picasa on line gallery here.