In Pride

With Big Sky Pride coming up this month, it seems appropriate to me to repeat something I wrote eighteen years ago.  They say that stuff you put on the web is never completely lost, but just in case, I'm copying it here.  I wrote this for the November 1997 issue of Outspoken, which was Missoula's gay/lesbian newsletter and have edited it slightly to reflect the current situation.

Grandpa's Notes:

Many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea.... Oops, that's another story and another writer, but once upon a time doesn't quite fit either. Still, at a time before some of the people reading this were born, a group of men met every Tuesday evening in a private home under the name of Gay Males Together. When I came out in 1977, at the age of 27, it was because I read an ad in the Missoulian that suggested I call a phone number for information about that group and its activities. I don't know how long Gay Males Together had been meeting at that point. I remember moving to Missoula in 1975 and seeing the ads then, but too frightened of my own secrets, I spent two years gathering the courage to call that phone number. When at last I did call and learned the address of the meeting, I showed up at the door, full of fear and trembling at the possibilities that lay inside that apartment. What kind of monsters would I see when the door finally opened. Remember, this was before Ellen, before before Priscilla or To Wong Foo, before even Victor/Victoria and La Cage aux folles. Would I see sights that would push me even deeper into the closet than I already was?

You see, I had been having anonymous, public sex with men for 10 years at this point. From my first experience as a hitchhiker at 17, riding in a Firebird from Reno to Sacramento, through grad school at UC Berkeley where the athletic department graciously furnished a site for nude sun-bathing and gay sex (activities I willingly engaged in--and still do, should I add), I enjoyed the anonymous encounters with other men. I enjoyed watching other naked men playing with each other sexually, and I certainly enjoyed it when they played with me. BUT I WAS NOT GAY! I had a girlfriend--with whom I never exchanged anything more sexual than the occasional chaste kiss. I knew that as much fun as playing with men was, the right woman would come along and I would settle down into the American dream (or nightmare) of married life, home in the suburbs, two and a half kids, dog, station wagon, etc. etc. ad nauseam. So in 1969 when Louis Landerson, then a classmate in Senior level French courses and later a writer for Boston's Fag Rag, showed up one day in class wearing a button which read "Gay is Good!" I ran as fast as I could in the other direction. I don't think I ever spoke to Louis after that day, and today that is one of my great regrets. A few years later, in 1973, I was studying in one of Berkeley's many parks when I noticed a celebration taking place at a distance. While I watched, amazed, the celebrants moved toward me, led by two six foot tall white rabbits. When they were close enough for my near-sightedness to focus, I saw that they were carrying banners reading "Gay Pride!" and the white rabbits were men in rabbit costumes who had their genitals exposed for all to see. Again, instead of joining the celebration, or taking those "family jewels" in my hand--which I would do today--I closed my book (with its accusatory lavender binding) and left the park. Whatever those people were celebrating, it had nothing to do with me.

So four years later I found myself standing in front of a closed door in the lower Rattlesnake, waiting for the door to open and for those damned white rabbits to accost me. What I found instead was a group of men, mostly in their 20s and early 30s, who were no different than I. Of course, you knew that, didn't you. This group of men became my family. While I wouldn't use the word "sisters" to describe them, I would happily dance to Sister Sledge singing "We Are Family," a song which became the de-facto gay anthem in the early 80s. It was with this group of men that I helped rent and decorate the basement of the Palace--where the billiard parlor now sits--for the first gay dance held to anyone's recollection in Missoula. Should I mention that the name we put on the rental agreement was The River City Rafting and Cruise Association?

Sadly, our Tuesday evening host was facing increasing scrutiny into his private life, and his job was being threatened (he was an elementary school teacher), so we had to find a new place for our meetings. They were much too important to us to give up. Fortunately, one of our group was able to offer his home and the meetings went on. At the same time, I took on the task of answering the phone number that was advertised in the paper, the gay male hot-line! That phone rang in my home for almost five years in the late 70s and early 80s. Roughly one-third of the calls were legitimate calls for information about gay people and our activities. One-third were calls seeking sex, and one third were crank calls. A pretty good average considering the times. The routine was this: if someone called to ask about the Gay Males Together meetings, I would agree to meet them at the 4-Bs or some other public space, always asking them to identify themselves, and never giving any way for them to identify me. That way I could check them out safely, and meet with them in a public setting without jeopardizing either myself or the group. One day in 1979, a fellow called on Tuesday afternoon and gave his name. This was unusual, but even more unusual was that I recognized the name. He had been a student of mine when I was a substitute at Stevensville High School in 1975. Rather than stick to the routine, I figured I could trust him and gave him the address of the meeting. That evening, early on with only four of us present, the doorbell rang and we opened it to find six young men wanting to beat us up. We refused to fight with them (after all they were six to our four), so their ringleader--the fellow who had called--opened the screen door and punched our host. We called the police who, remarkably, did show up to take our statement, then we took Rob to the Student Health Service where he was admitted with a concussion. Sometime, if you're interested, ask me about the way the police and the city attorney's office handled the whole matter. The next week, while we waited anxiously for a repeat of the trouble, a group of women showed up at Gay Males Together armed with baseball bats, chains, knives, etc. to protect their boys.

I have always felt responsible for Rob's injury, but that attack was the catalyst which brought about Out in Montana. When the women and the men started talking about our mutual concerns and needs, we started meeting in earnest with the intent of building a state-wide gay rights organization that would also provide social outlets for gay men and lesbians across Montana. Remember that at this time there were no gay bars anywhere in Montana, and only a couple in Spokane. For the next year gay men and women from across western Montana met regularly and wrote By-Laws, Articles of Incorporation and a mission statement for Out In Montana. By design the organizational duties were to be equally shared by women and men. This was a concept almost unknown in those days. A group of five of us, three men and two women, travelled to Los Angeles for a meeting of grass-roots gay/lesbian organizations and there we found men's groups and women's groups, but no other groups that incorporated both men and women on an equal footing. I'll never forget OIM officer Ellen Sue Findley standing on a chair in comedienne Robin Tyler's West Hollywood apartment shouting "Gender parity means two men, two women, no more no less." She was responding to an organizational statement that groups attending this L.A. meeting were to have gender parity, which was defined as being at least two women out of a group of four. Under the rules of the meeting, all four could be female and the group would still be considered to have achieved "gender parity." Out In Montana was in the vanguard of men and women working together.

At the height of our organizational activity, Out In Montana had chapters in Missoula, Butte, Bozeman, Billings, Great Falls and Kalispell, held four board meetings each year at locations all across the state (well, actually, never east of Billings), published a newsletter for a mailing list of over 1,000, and had two main fund-raising events each year--Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends with attendance figures usually in excess of 400.

I could speculate on what went wrong and why Out In Montana didn't survive the 80s, but under the circumstances I believe such speculation to be pointless. We made mistakes in our enthusiasm and zeal, and frankly, times are quite different today than they were thirty-six years ago when OIM was founded, or even twenty-some years ago when it died.

One word that I would leave with you is participation. It's always easy to sit back and criticize what our organizations are doing. They never do what I want, right? But what takes real courage is standing up and working to change the things we don't like. Join in and make these organizations truly yours. Speak up and don't be afraid to let your voice be heard. You may not always get what you want, but at least you'll be in there trying and hearing the reasons others give for not supporting your ideas. Or maybe, wonder of wonders, they will support your ideas.

Montana's 2015 Gay Pride event will be held in Missoula this month. Get out now and help with the planning, organizing and work--and believe me there will be a lot of work that needs to be done. Make it an event that you, I, Missoula and all of Montana can truly hold as our own. Make it an event filled with pride!

Your grandpa,
Bryan D. Spellman

Let it Snow

Interstate 90 at the Van Buren Street Interchange

Missoula, Montana

December 28, 2014

Whenever I tell Kevin I love him, he always asks "Why?" even though he knows this question drives me crazy.  Last Sunday, December 28th, provided a good example to show just why this man is so important to me.  He is the most generous man I know.

The day brought snow and cold temperatures, and during the night a lot of snow had fallen.  As we headed out for breakfast, Kevin asked if I thought our friend Mike would need to have his driveway plowed out.  Mike has been given a temporary position in Seeley Lake, which is about 60 miles northeast of Missoula, and one of the places in our region that gets a lot, and I mean A LOT of snow.  I gave Mike a call and found him with his mother in Missoula, but he would be heading up to Seeley in the early afternoon because he had no idea what he would find there.  We agreed that after breakfast, we would drive into Missoula, meet him, and follow him to his Seeley Lake home.  Just in case.

After breakfast, we made a quick drive home to pick up my camera (ALWAYS take your camera) and also to throw the chains into the back of the pickup.  I should note that Kevin has a big-ass plowing blade that in the winter usually lives on the front of the pickup.  He uses it to not only plow our third of a mile driveway, but also to plow out the rural fire station, the ambulance barn's parking lot, and the local Conoco station.  If you have a need for plowing, just call Kevin and he'll probably come as quickly as he can.  But with the kind of snow we were anticipating in Seeley, he knew he'd best have the tires chained as well.

The Blackfoot River near Angevine Park

No, this is not a black and white photo

December 28, 2014

What started out as a quick trip home came to a halt near the bottom of our driveway where we found our "next-door" neighbor on his knees putting chains on a Honda sedan that was half buried in the snow on the side of the road that leads to our driveway.  A young man was standing by the car, and occasionally assisting in tightening the chains.  Turns out our neighbor's son and his family had left the house to return to their home, and when they tried to turn off the driveway into the county road, they continued to slide across the road and into the snow bank on the far side.

After kibitzing for a while, during which time another neighbor showed up to lend his advice, our neighbor went back to his house to put chains on his own truck, and we headed home to throw the chains in the back of ours.  I took advantage of the time at home to load a few geocaches into my new Garmin so that I could show off my Christmas present to Mike.  As we headed back out, we found our neighbor ready to tow his son's car out of the ditch, and we waited patiently until the car was safely back on the road.  Only then did we set off for Missoula, almost an hour after we had expected to be on our way.

The roads between Plains and Missoula were wintry, to put it mildly.  As we approached the WYE where US 93 heads north after crossing Interstate 90, we began to hear radio chatter talking about a multi-car accident in the westbound lanes of the interstate.  Because of Kevin's present and past work with Search and Rescue, the Rural Fire Department and the Ambulance Corps, he has a police scanner in the truck which is always turned on.  As we listened, the Highway Patrol asked that the interstate be closed, at least westbound, because the traffic was making the situation worse by the moment.  When we first heard the call, there were two semis, a tow truck, and numerous private cars all involved in the wreck.  The Highway Patrol, understandably, wanted to minimize further damage.

Looking East from Greenough Hill

December 28, 2014

By the time we got to the WYE ourselves, a patrol car was blocking the westbound onramp and we were hearing that somehow the patrol had managed to block the interstate itself so that westbound traffic was forced to exit.  We, however, were heading east, so we drove past the westbound onramp, and took the large loop leading onto the eastbound lanes.  I also took the time to call Mike and tell him that we were, at least, much closer and should be at his place in fifteen to twenty minutes (ten miles away by the highway, but such were the conditions).  Mike suggested that conditions were getting worse by the minute, and he wasn't comfortable with us trying to follow him another fifty miles.  We agreed to leave it up to Kevin, as he was driving, and Mike agreed to wait for us to reach his house.

Streets in Missoula were a mess, but Mike lives relatively close to the Orange Street off-ramp, and we were soon parked in the alley behind his house.  Mike came out with two shopping bags full of books, four hymnals and a fourteen volume set of Elbert Hubbard's Little Journeys, printed in 1916, that he had inherited from his father, former Missoula Symphony Director Joseph Henry.  Knowing how much I love playing hymns, not to mention reading, Mike thought that I would appreciate having these books, and he's absolutely right.  I'll write more about Hubbard's stories in a future post.

Back on the Interstate heading east, I really was having second thoughts about the whole venture, especially considering that we would be driving back home in the dark with the storm apparently worsening by the second now.  We were still hearing chatter about the accident on the Interstate, and in a telling comment on how dysfunctional our state government has become, the Highway Patrol had not been able to get any response from the Montana Department of Transportation concerning closing the highway.  At this point, we had been hearing all the communications for over a hour, and could confirm, if anyone were to ask, that MDT was not responding.  It was at this point I took the first picture shown above which should give you an idea of just what the weather was doing to the highway.

In my experience, if conditions in Missoula are bad, then conditions along Montana 200 as it follows the Blackfoot River are usually worse.  I was really not looking forward to the next forty miles.  You can tell just how little light there was by the lack of color in the photo of the river.  And as I noted above, that is NOT a black and white photo.  I have done nothing to subtract any color from the original shot.

Pyramid Peak and the Bob Marshall Wilderness

Seeley Lake, Montana

December 28, 2014

Fortunately, the road was not as bad as I had feared, and east of the community of Potomac, we actually began seeing some, not a lot, but some color in the sky.  Cresting Greenough Hill, we saw the sun shining on the peaks of the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and that created the gorgeous winter scene shown above.  By the time we turned off MT 200 onto MT 83 for the last fourteen miles north to Seeley Lake, the road was clear.  I had hoped to get some good winter shots of Salmon Lake, but all we saw was a vast snow field where the lake normally lies.  There were a couple of ice fishing shacks up toward the north end of the lake.

Arriving at Mike's place, we found that someone had already plowed him out.  I asked if the shop needed plowing, but Mike assured me that someone would already have done that.  But, one of his co-workers was hard at work at home trying to clear his own driveway with a snow blower.  We got directions and headed over that way.

While Mike chatted with his co-worker, Kevin got busy plowing the driveway and access road.  He decided against putting on the chains, as it was getting late in the day, and without the chains, he couldn't do much about the high buildup on the sides of the road, except make them higher as he drove the plow back and forth along the road.  After six or so passes, he said he'd done about as much as he could, under the circumstances, and we picked up Mike and drove him back to his place.

Boy Scout Road, East Side of Seeley Lake

December 28, 2014

In Missoula, we stopped at El Cazador for supper.  Kevin had his normal Steak Fajitas and I had Chile Relleno a la Jarocha, which meant the that filling included shrimp and crab meat.  Very good.  I recommend it.  The streets of Missoula were, by this time, mostly ice covered, and still people drove way too fast for the conditions.  I wasn't sure if I'd be able to walk the half block back to where we had parked, but taking it slow and easy, I made it to the truck, and with Kevin driving judiciously, we made it home safe and sound.

Can you see why I love him so?  Who else would offer to drive 140 miles, one-way, on the off chance that a friend would need to have his driveway plowed?  And then, upon finding that the friend didn't need help after all, would volunteer to help a total stranger?  He's a good man, and I eagerly look forward to seeing what our lives bring in 2015.

Happy New Year!

4. Missoula County, Montana

4

Missoula County is one of the original nine counties of Montana Territory. In 1864, when Montana Territory was created by dividing Idaho Territory, Missoula County covered most of the land west of the Continental Divide. Today, seven counties have been formed from the original Missoula County.

The Missoula County Court House

The city of Missoula sits in a natural bowl, geologically the bottom of Glacial Lake Missoula. If you know where to look, you can see the shoreline still visible on the hills that surround the city. I knew that the lake was large, but reading about it in preparation to writing this blog, I learned that it was larger than two of the Great Lakes (Erie and Ontario) combined. That's a lot of water.

Today, Missoula is known as the hub of five valleys. The Clark Fork River flows in from the east through the Hellgate Canyon. Just east of town, the Blackfoot (sometimes called the Big Blackfoot) River flows into the Clark Fork. If you've read Norman Maclean's book A River Runs Through It, most of the fly-fishing took place on the Blackfoot. If you saw the Robert Redford movie, the part of the Blackfoot was played by the Yellowstone, another important Montana River. In town, Rattlesnake Creek flows into the river, and there is a sign marking the spot where Lewis (of the Lewis and Clark Expedition) camped on July 4, 1806. On the west side of town, the Clark Fork and the Bitterroot Rivers merge, and together, a much larger river flows west out of town, out of the county, and eventually out of the state. The Clark Fork is one branch of the mighty Columbia River, and it carries the largest amount of water out of Montana, more even than the Missouri.

I once heard an NPR commentator refer to Missoula as the largest U.S. city completely surrounded by the Rocky Mountains. There is no place in town where you can stand, look at the horizon, and not see the mountains rising before you.

View of Lolo Peak from Stephens Avenue, Missoula

The county extends roughly 30 miles west of the city, and borders Idaho County, Idaho at Lolo Pass. It reaches another 35 or so miles east of town, where it borders Granite County (number 46) on I-90 and Powell County (number 28) on Montana highway 200. The county is shaped like an irregular backwards capital "L" with the northern extension on the east side of the county. It reaches up through the Seeley/Swan Valley, caught between the Mission Mountains on the west and the Swan Range on the east. A chain of lakes lies in this valley which is a popular winter and summer recreation area.

Salmon Lake in the Seeley/Swan Valley

For those of you who, like me, like data, Missoula County today covers 2,598 square miles, and with the 2000 US census count of 95,799 county residents, that meant 36.9 people per square mile. The 2008 census estimate showed 107,320 people living in the county, which puts Missoula County in second place after Yellowstone County. The two are the only Montana counties to have over 100,000 inhabitants.

Missoula is the home of The University of Montana, Region 1 of the U.S. Forest Service, and me. I moved to Missoula in 1975, and it's been home ever since. In fact, if mother's obstetrician had had his way, I would have been born in Missoula, but father had been transferred to near Billings, and mother insisted on going with him. Go figure. You can get more information on Missoula County and the City of Missoula by clicking on the links. Unlike Butte/Silver Bow, and Anaconda/Deer Lodge, Missoula city and county voters have turned down consolidation each time it has appeared on the ballot. Under Montana law, such issues must be revisited every ten years.

Photo Information:

Note that clicking on any photo will open it in a larger format and in a new window.

Missoula County Sign: Taken 3/26/2010 at the Missoula/Powell County line on Montana Highway 200. Nikon D80 DSLR, Nikkor 16-85 mm wide angle/tele/zoom lens set at 45 mm. ISO 800, f /16.0, 1/4 second.

Missoula County Court House: Taken 3/6/2010 in Missoula, Montana. Nikon D80 DSLR, Nikkor 16-85 mm wide angle/tele/zoom lens set at 18 mm. ISO 125, f /11.0, 1/500 second.

Lolo Peak from Stephens Avenue: Taken 11/15/2009 in Missoula, Montana. Nikon D80 DSLR, Nikkor 16-85 mm wide angle/tele/zoom lens set at 85 mm. ISO 800, f /9.5, 1/1500 second.

Salmon Lake HDR: Taken 10/2/2009 at Salmon Lake, Missoula County, Montana. Nikon D80 DSLR, Nikkor 16-85 mm wide angle/tele/zoom lens set at 25 mm. ISO 125, f /13.0, three separate exposures blended as an HDR image.

View of the Bob Marshall Wilderness: Taken 12/27/09 using a Nikon D80 DSLR fitted with a Nikkor 16-85 mm tele/zoom lens set at 85mm. This is a true HDR image processed in Photoshop CS4 with an ISO 125, f /16.0, and three consecutive exposures of 1/60, 1/250 and 1/1000 second. Camera was mounted on a tripod.

View across the Seeley Lake Valley at the peaks of the Bob Marshall Wilderness

Rollin' on the River

I guess it all blew up in Missoula
There just was no other way
After months of goin crazy, there was nothin left to say
But when the dust had finally settled
And the air had quickly cleared
Whoa, things were better off than I had feared

jimmy buffett and greg taylor, 1977

To see and hear Jimmy Buffet perform this song, click here.

The Big Blackfoot River
Taken 7/25/09
Johnsrud Park, Montana

NOTE PLEASE: Clicking on any photograph will open a full-screen version of that photo in a separate window. All links also open in a separate window. Finally, should you be so inclined, you can see these photos and more taken on the river, but unedited, on my Picasa website.

Arguably, the most famous book ever set in Missoula is Norman Maclean's 1976 A River Runs Through It. Now the river in the title is metaphorical, but the actual river on the banks of which much of the story is set is the Blackfoot River. Early in the story, Maclean writes:

Paul and I fished a good many big rivers, but when one of us referred to "the big river" the other knew it was the Big Blackfoot. It isn't the biggest river we fished, but it is the most powerful, and per pound, so are its fish. It runs straight and hard--on a map or from an airplane it is almost a straight line running due west from its headwaters at Rogers Pass on the Continental Divide to Bonner, Montana, where it empties into the South Fork of the Clark Fork of the Columbia. It runs hard all the way.

Speaking from very personal experience, I can vouch for that last statement. When I took my river canoeing class, the final "exam" was to run a seven mile stretch of the Big Blackfoot from Whitaker Bridge to Johnsrud Park. As we neared Thibodeau Rapids, our instructor made us beach our canoes, and walk downstream to reconnoiter. Pointing to two rocks on the left side of the current, he said "That's where you'll capsize." I'm proud to say that of the twelve boats in our class, eight did capsize, but mine was the only one to capsize on the rocks. The others flipped over long before they reached our own personal Scylla and Charybdis. It was at least a quarter mile before I was able to get my feet under me and clamber out of the fast-moving water. Never again will I underestimate the power of a river.

All set to float the river
Taken 7/25/09 at Johnsrud Park
Blackfoot River, Montana

Not that I should have. Like Maclean, I grew up in a parsonage. My father, like Maclean's, was a minister (Methodist, not Presbyterian) and a fly-fisherman who tied his own flies. Oh yes, Maclean's book spoke volumes to me. And the river that ran through my father's early life, if not my own, was the Ohio. I grew up with many stories about life on the Ohio, but the most vivid concerned my mother's younger brother, Virgil Stephens. In 1946, Virgil and two friends were canoeing on the Ohio and their canoe capsized. While his two friends clung to the overturned boat, Virgil swam for help and drowned. His two friends were saved. I can't tell you what a powerful story that is when you hear it over and over again at a young age.

He actually made two extra jumps just so I could catch him in the act
Taken 7/25/09 at Johnsrud Park, Blackfoot River, Montana

I've spent a good bit of time on rivers in my life. Those streams which speak most clearly to my soul are the Bitterroot, the Yellowstone, the Madison, the Missouri--all in Montana, the Sacramento and the Smith in California, the Columbia, the Ohio, and, yes, the Big Blackfoot. I've probably spent more time on the Blackfoot than any other river. I've navigated it in my canoe, run it in rafts, even sat in an inner tube and let it carry me downstream. My favorite sunbathing spot is at Red Rocks, approximately 25 miles east of Missoula, and seven miles of bad road off Montana highway 200. There's just nothing like a sunny day on the river.

"The Hub of Five Valleys" is one of the nicknames for Missoula. While number five is the home of Rattlesnake Creek, flowing south out of the Rattlesnake Wilderness Area, the other four valleys that come together at the basin which used to be the bottom of Glacial Lake Missoula are the Bitterroot, coming in from the south, the Upper Clark Fork flowing from the east, the Lower Clark Fork flowing toward the west where it eventually merges with the Columbia, and the Blackfoot which flows into the Upper Clark Fork just east of town. All these rivers have their charms and their dangers. And people being human, there's a lot of trash deposited along and in the rivers. Thanks to the efforts of one woman, Marietta Pfister, much of the Blackfoot's trash gets picked up every year.

Scuba Divers and their backup prepare to clean up the river
Taken 7/25/09, Johnsrud Park, Blackfoot River, Montana

On Saturday, July 25th, five members of Kevin's Ham Radio club worked to ensure the safety of the approximately 200 men, women and children who showed up to clean up the Blackfoot. I went along for the ride, and to record in pixels the important work being done. Of course I also recorded some of the fun on the river. 2009 marks the sixth consecutive year for the Blackfoot River Clean-Up, a community-based activity that brings together federal, state and local governmental units, as well as community organizations and the public. This year, ten sets of scuba divers cleaned the river bottom while scores of others walked the banks and waded the shore lines. What they found is nothing short of amazing, but, fortunately nothing near as bad as in the early years of the project. The story of the clean-up is being told in classrooms and community halls around the country, energizing others to take seriously their responsibility to care for the world around them.

Just a bit of the trash pulled from the river
Taken 7/25/09 on the Blackfoot River

If you'd care to read Norman Maclean's wonderful story, or see the movie version that Robert Redford made, you can get them through my Amazon.com affiliation by clicking on the boxes below.



Note that in Robert Redford's movie version, the part of the Blackfoot was played by the Yellowstone River south of Livingston, Montana (and the setting for several other Jimmy Buffett songs).



Or, maybe you just want a poster of Brad Pitt and a fish!

Langläufer leben länger

Interstate 90, Exit 104
Missoula's Main Downtown Exit
1/2 mile from our home
Taken 1-3-09 through the windshield

It doesn't show signs of stopping,
And I've bought some corn for popping,
The lights are turned way down low,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
--Sammy Cahn

NOTE: All photos can be seen full screen by double clicking on them. The complete set of photos I took on this outing can be seen on my Picasa web gallery. All pictures and links open in a new window.

This winter may be headed for the records as one of the “worst” in recent history. So far, here in Montana’s “banana belt” we’ve had over a week with sub-zero temperatures and wind chills down to 40 below or lower. We’ve had snow that has fallen for days on end, and we’ve seen one storm front pass through and move on only to be replaced by a new storm front.

Regular readers will recall my December post about getting caught on Lookout Pass behind a jack-knifed semi, or my report of our excursion to put a ham radio antenna up on top of a mountain where we were caught in a blizzard on Labor Day. But please don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. As long as I’m not spending every free minute shoveling the stuff, I like the snow. I like the way the hills and mountains around town gleam white in the sun. I like sitting in the hot tub while the snow falls on my head and shoulders. I love watching the dogs bounce through the drifts in the yard. Well, Minnie bounces, seemingly oblivious to the cold and wet. Gypsy is a true California Girl, in the best Beach Boys’ fashion, and she tends to venture out as little as possible this time of year.

But the real joy of the season, for me, comes when I strap two long, thin strips of wood onto my feet and take off cross-country skiing. I understand that there are places in this country where “skiing” means being towed around some body of water behind a boat or jet ski. And I know as well that there are those whose idea of skiing involves paying exorbitant amounts of money to ride some contraption up a mountain then schuss back to the bottom, only to get in line for another ride up, ad nauseam. The skiing I prefer doesn’t require any motive power than my own heart, lungs and legs, no ropes, chairs, boats, lifts, or fancy clothing. A turtleneck, jeans, jacket, scarf, gloves and boots, and I’m all set. Oh, if the snow is deep I may well strap a pair of gaiters round my pant cuffs to keep them dry, but that’s as fancy as it gets.

My move back to Montana in January 1975 coincided with one of the snowiest winters we’ve seen in these parts. The first weekend I was back, I headed into Missoula and spent a little over $100 at the Trailhead, Missoula’s premier outdoors store at the time. For my C-note, I got a pair of boots, a pair of bamboo ski poles that I still use, thirty-three years later, and a beautiful pair of narrow, blue Kongsberg skis from Norway. I called them my Norwegian Wood. I left the skis on the front porch of the cabin and was out skiing every day from January into April, a minimum of three miles a day of cross-country skiing. I was twenty-five years old and in the best shape of my life. The Germans have a saying, “Langläufer leben länger” which means, “cross-country skiers live longer.” As I know a number of western Montanans who have skied into tree wells and died, I won’t swear to the accuracy of the statement, but I can’t think of a better form of aerobic exercise.

Heading up Spring Gulch Trail
Rattlesnake Recreation Area
Taken 1-3-09 near Missoula, Montana

We’ve had very few winters as snow-bound as the winter of 1975, but I’ve made it a point to get out as much as I can when the ground is white and the sky is blue. There are two areas on the edge of Missoula where you can ski for miles, Pattee Canyon, south and east of the University campus, and the Rattlesnake Recreation Area, north of town and the entrance to the Rattlesnake Wilderness Area. There have been days when you could ski down the city streets, and I’ve skied to work numerous times in the past. New Year’s Day, I strapped on my Bushwackers, wider skis that do not require waxing and are wonderful for questionable conditions, and I skied down the street to pick up the bike path that fronts the railroad tracks three blocks from home.

Friday morning we woke to rain, and by noon the temperature was nearly 40 degrees in town. The snow started melting, and melting fast. I spent most of the day putting together and mounting an exhibition of my photography which will hang through the month of January in the Western Montana Gay and Lesbian Community Center. With twenty-two of my photographs framed and on display, this is the largest show I’ve had to date. It is largely the same show I had in Crescent City back in 2007, but at the last minute I decided I had to include some of portraits I’ve taken of various Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from Eureka and the Russian River areas of California.

When I returned to the Center at 5 for the First Friday Art Walk, the temperature had begun to drop and the wet sidewalks and streets were turning to ice rinks. I was surprised at the number of people who braved the elements to visit the exhibit, but there was no where near the visitors from past openings. Between the weather and the fact that First Friday was the day after New Years, I’m not disappointed with the turn out.

Saturday dawned bright and clear, and Kevin surprised me by asking if I wanted to go skiing. Kevin is not a skinny-skis person, and his previous experience involved down-hill skiing or going on search and rescue missions on a snowmobile. Still, I was pleased that he’d ask, and was quickly ready to drag the equipment out of the shed and into the Expedition.

Kevin "Boy, is this hard work"
Spring Gulch Trail
Rattlesnake Recreation Area
Taken 1-3-09 near Missoula Montana

We headed up the Rattlesnake, as in my experience, it’s the most forgiving area nearby for new skiers. Of course, I’ve been doing this for over thirty years, so I have a tendency to forget just how awkward it can be trying to maneuver over snow pack and ice with seven feet of two inch wide wood or plastic strips fixed to your feet. Still, Kevin was game, and only fell three times getting out of the parking lot.

The Rattlesnake is one of Missoula’s favorite playgrounds, and the parking lot was full when we arrived. This meant that the trails were also filled with people of all ages walking or skiing. I didn’t see anyone on snow shoes this trip, but I have in the past. Most people were skiing in pairs or as groups of four, and we passed more than a few families with small children struggling to master the skills necessary to stay upright. My own parents were avid outdoors enthusiasts, but they were more attuned to summer and fall activities—hiking, fishing and hunting. Both my parents loved roller skating, and I had my first pair of roller skates before I could walk, but neither parent skied, so this was not something I grew up with. I wish I had. I do have a picture my father took of mother holding me up while roller skating, and we saw that scene repeated several times yesterday with parents and small children on skis.

When I first started skiing, I bought a book called The Cross-Country Skier’s Bible. It was great fun, but not a terribly good instruction manual, as I recall. I do remember reading somewhere that “if you can walk, you can cross-country ski.” In fact the writer continued, “Oh hell! If you can shuffle you can cross-country ski.” It’s not quite that simple, but almost. As long as you don’t mind shuffling with seven foot long, two inch wide boards on your feet. I keep mentioning the long, skinny nature of cross-country skis because it is the distinguishing feature of the sport.

I’m sure it was in the “Bible” that I read about the author’s adventure beginning to ski in Yosemite National Park. After two days of lessons, the man took out one morning on his own. Skiing up a narrow mountain trail, he eventually realized he was going to have to go back down the mountain. On the way back down, he noted that he was picking up quite a bit of speed and there appeared to be a tree right in the middle of the trail ahead of him. Trying desperately to remember what he had been taught about stopping, he couldn’t come up with anything. Finally, choosing discretion over valor, he fell down rather than run into the tree. Back in Yosemite Valley, he looked up his teacher and explaining what had happened on the trail, he said “I can’t remember how you told us to stop.” The ski instructor looked at the ground, cleared his throat a few times and mumbled “There’s no way to stop on cross-country skis.”

Kevin "How do I slow these things down?"
Spring Gulch Road
Rattlesnake Recreation Area
Taken 1-3-09 near Missoula, Montana

Kevin found this out personally. He kept trying to make his skinny skis behave the way downhill skis do. Downhill skis have metal edges on them that allow you to turn the ski on its side and cut into the snow or ice. Cross-country skis have no such edge. Downhill skis are wide, allowing you to angle them into what is called the snowplow position which, theoretically at least, slows you down. You can snowplow with cross-country skis, but the effect is neither as immediate nor as effective as with downhill skis. None of Kevin’s skiing experience prepared him for this lack of control.

Still, he was brave and agreed with me when I suggested climbing the trail that runs on the south side of Spring Gulch with the intent of skiing back down the road on the north side. I let him take the lead, in effect letting him set the pace. This also allowed me to stop periodically and pull my Nikon Coolpix L3 out of my parka pocket and capture some of the scenery. I kept hearing comments floating back on the breeze. “This is hard work.” “This is too much work.” “Ow,” as he fell yet again. But he kept getting back up and pressing on. I was so proud of him.

At mile 1.3, roughly half way up to the place where the trail and road merge, there is a bridge across Spring Gulch, and Kevin felt he’d worked hard enough getting that far. We crossed the gulch (one of the two places I fell), and started down the road. I prefer going up the trail and coming down the road because on the road there’s a little more room for error. The trail is one set of ski tracks wide, and winds among the trees and shrubs. I have skied down the trail, but you have to be on your guard the whole time, and frankly, I don’t find that much fun. I really didn’t want to be responsible for Kevin skiing into a tree. The problem with skiing down the road is that the snow tends to be skimpier and more prone to icing over. Still, I’ll take that route by preference. The Spring Gulch loop is my favorite local run, and had we gone all the way to where the trails merge, we’d have skied close to six miles. As it were, we covered between three and three and a half including the run from/to the parking lot.

It was a stunningly beautiful day, as I hope you can see in the pictures I’ve chosen to display here. The complete photographic record of our day is on Picasa, and you can click here to access those photos. In a few I have tried to remove the blue cast from the shadowed snow, but I found in so doing, I also removed the blue from the sky. If you go to the Picasa site, click on F11 to see the slideshow in full screen mode.

One of the things I love about cross-country skiing is the way you glide through the woods with only the whoosh of your skis for sound. I have been skiing with two different friends who felt they had to fill the silence with talk, and I have to admit that I’ve never asked those friends to accompany me a second time. I love being out by myself, but as I get older, I no longer feel that it is wise to take off for a day in possibly adverse conditions without someone along, as the Scots say, in case. Yesterday, the only person I saw skiing alone, was not really alone. She came skiing down the trail completely engrossed in a conversation on her cell phone. Brave new world, indeed.

I’m looking forward to lots more ski trips, including a few to some of my favorite places, Lolo Pass on the Montana/Idaho border (US Highway 12), St. Joseph Pass (Montana highway 43, just above the Montana/Idaho border on US 93), and Mount Haggin between the communities of Anaconda and Wise River, Montana. Lolo Pass is 45 miles from Missoula, and St. Joseph Pass and Mount Haggin are roughly 100 miles from home, albeit in different directions. I won’t be carrying the D80 with me, but the Coolpix takes fine pictures and fits in my jacket pocket. I’ll keep you informed.

Rattlesnake Creek (formerly Missoula's main water source)
Taken 1-3-09 near Missoula, Montana

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me
That I live and you are gone.
There's a grief that can't be spoken.
There's a pain goes on and on.

Phantom faces at the window.
Phantom shadows on the floor.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.

--Herbert Kretzmer

NOTE: All photos can be seen full screen by double clicking on them. The complete set of photos taken by Kevin and myself can be seen on my Picasa web gallery.


The following letter was written on February 9th, 1989, almost twenty years ago. As I reread it this morning, I wanted to share it with you all, partly as an historical document, but also because I feel the message is still relevant, even if dated. It was written to the ex-wife of a dear friend, a woman living in southern California and working in the entertainment industry. She and some colleagues wanted to put together a performance piece dealing with the way AIDS was effecting people in rural areas. I wrote of my own experience. In reading this, remember that this is a history, and does not reflect current facts. Missoula, for example, is now Montana’s second largest city. It remains a small town. Also many more than six have now died in Missoula.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear Dale,

When I think about AIDS in Montana many images come to mind. The first, of course, is Richard. When he was diagnosed in June, 1986, his was the first case to be diagnosed in Missoula County. It made the daily paper. No names were mentioned, fortunately. We expected the house to be fire-bombed. This is, after all, the town where the Mayor asked the City Attorney to ban a gay dance because gay people would bring AIDS to Missoula.

The local gay rights group, Out in Montana, had just started an AIDS Support Network, anticipating a future need. We didn’t tell them of the diagnosis because we didn’t have the strength to deal with both the disease and with their ignorance. We didn’t have the energy to train them to deal with people with AIDS. So we stuck it out alone, just the two of us. Richard asked me not to talk to anyone about his diagnosis, nor would he talk to me about his weekly conversations with his doctor, so for at least the first three months I was completely alone. Of course there weren’t many people in town who would have understood what we were going through.

Missoula is a small town, even if it is Montana’s third largest community. Word got out, and people in other offices on campus called me to offer condolences. I told them that while the situation was indeed difficult, it was basically no different that watching a loved one dying of cancer or some other fatal disease. I felt that I had to reassure them because of all the ignorance about AIDS.

From the time he noticed the first KS lesion in February, 1986, it took Richard a year and a half to die. We both learned a lot during that period. As time went on, we taught others a great deal, also. I did things I never dreamt I would do. I learned to give hypodermic injections. I learned to handle syringes and needles, subclavials, i.v. bottles. I never expected to become a nurse.

When Richard died, I was told to prepare his obituary myself unless I wanted the mortuary to do it for me. Since I had no control over what the mortuary would say, I wrote the thing myself, at work, the morning after he died. That was all I did at work that day. When I turned the obit in to the paper, it caused quite a stir. They wanted to interview me and they didn’t want to say that he was survived by his “lover.” We finally compromised on a less loaded term, and I agreed to an interview.

The interview appeared on the front page of the paper, complete with a picture of Richard, Thursday morning. (Richard had died Tuesday evening.) They didn’t waste any time. Within two weeks, the article had appeared in every daily paper in the state of Montana. (It is a small state, after all.) Again, I expected the house to be fire-bombed. That didn’t happen. What did happen was amazing. I received cards, letters and phone calls from friends, of course, but also from complete strangers scattered across our state. A woman from Phoenix saw the article in the Billings Gazette and sent it to me. A man read it in the Bozeman Chronicle and called me. An elderly neighbor called me to offer her love and support. Two people called the President of the University and demanded that I be fired. (I wasn’t.) The house was not fire-bombed.

After Richard’s death, a support group was formed that met with a counselor on a weekly basis. I attended the meetings, even though I no longer fit the criteria for attendance (i.e. sero-positive test result, AIDS/ARC diagnosis, partner/spouse/lover of either which assumed that the partner was still alive, or current care giver). Our group of ten quickly dwindled to a group of three: the counselor; a young man with KS; and me. Once again, I was being a support, but not getting much support. At the end of the year, when that young man died, I ceased all involvement with AIDS work. I have to heal myself and see no outside help available here. The truth of the matter is that if you want to be involved in AIDS work, even in Montana, there are more than enough sick people who need your help. Little time is available for those who are physically well, but emotionally drained.

The Missoula Gay Men's Chorus
9-18-08

Other aspects come to mind, though. The wonderful lesbian who has been at the bedside of nearly every man who died of AIDS in Missoula (six to date). She, too, is burning out, and I hope that she can find her own strength again. The population in Montana is small enough that we know each other. We’ve been friends, family, for years, and now we watch our brothers die. We also see others coming home. Men who left Montana at 20 full of health and energy are returning at 40 to die. The truth is that those of us born and raised in the state will always be Montanans, wherever we may end up. Perhaps half the cases of AIDS treated in Montana were diagnosed elsewhere: in San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Portland, Chicago. This has other implications as well. A (Montana) friend died last Saturday in San Francisco. I was told via long-distance from Washington DC and was asked to pass the word along to other friends. This meant calls to Seattle, Portland, and even to San Francisco, because so many gay Montanans leave the state, and David’s friends were no exception.

AIDS in Montana. The contrasts under the Big Sky are amazing. A gay man with AIDS in Great Falls has to see a dentist in Helena, 90 miles away, because no Great Falls dentist will work with him. A Missoula man dies in a Billings nursing home, 350 miles from home, because no Missoula nursing home will take him. The Billings AIDS support Network passes out condoms and safe-sex brochures to prostitutes on the street corners. The alternate test site in Havre (population 10,891) tests more IV drug users than all the other alternate test sites in the state combined. Medical personnel state that Montana fits the third world scenario for AIDS distribution, i.e. heterosexual transmission. No one is quite sure what this means, because the official figures do not seem to back it up. Maybe it’s their own homophobia coming out. Montana is the only state in the region that does not require reporting of names of those testing sero-positive. As a consequence, our alternate test sites serve North and South Dakota, Wyoming (which until recently had no alternate test sites), Idaho and even Washington residents. State health officials fear that the Legislature will change our unique regional standing.

Well, I fear that I have rambled enough. I hope this helps. Thanks for asking.

Sincerely,

Bryan

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thursday, September 18th, 2008. The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt came to Missoula. Well, seventy-five panels, each with at least eight quilt pieces, were put on display in the Adams Center, beginning with an opening ceremony. University President George Dennison spoke about the importance of educating our community. The Missoula Gay Men’s Chorus sang two numbers. Keri McWilliams, Executive Director of the Missoula AIDS Council and Gert McMullin, Quilt Production Manager from the NAMES Project office in Atlanta, Georgia, spoke. Twenty-seven people read the names of the men, women and children whose lives were remembered on the displayed panels.

If you’ve never seen The Quilt, let me tell you that it’s an emotional experience. I doubt that it’s possible for anyone to come away from a display untouched. But then, I have a personal stake in The Quilt. The panel I designed for my lover, Richard Donovan, was the first panel submitted from the state of Montana.

Richard died on the evening of July 21st, 1987, thirteen months after being the first person in Missoula County to be diagnosed with the disease and eighteen months after he first noticed a couple of spots on his shoulder which he suspected were KS (Kaposi’s Sarcoma) lesions. July 21st was a Tuesday. On Thursday, the 23rd, the Advocate showed up in my mailbox. The Advocate, then as now, is the nation’s leading gay news magazine. The July 23rd issue had a notice about a new project just getting started in San Francisco. Cleve Jones and a group of his friends wanted to remember the people they were losing to AIDS in the form of a quilt. There was a number to call for more information, so I called.

“Montana?” The person on the other end of the line cried. “Montana? We never thought we’d hear from anyone in Montana.” I learned that the quilt panels were to be six foot by three foot, roughly the size of a casket, and that everything should be sewn down, not glued. The plan was to get everything collected in San Francisco, then display the quilt for the first time at a special ceremony to be held on the US Capitol Mall, on Sunday, October 11th, 1987. Richard’s fortieth birthday.

I designed Richard’s panel, using his favorite denim jeans and vest. Richard was a tailor, and had made all his own clothing. It seemed only appropriate to use his work to remember him. Richard’s friend, Susan Gilmore, did the actual work of putting the panel together, and we shipped it off to San Francisco.

On Sunday, October 11th, I was in Washington for the opening. Whoopi Goldbert spoke at length, as we stood silently lining the sides of the Mall. Finally the quilt was opened, and readers started reading the names. I found Richard’s panel, and stood a while in thought.



Portions of the Quilt have been shown in Missoula on three other occasions. I have also traveled to Seattle to see it displayed there. The Quilt, as it is displayed, makes me think of the experience of walking through a military cemetery on a battleground. I have the same feeling of needless loss that I felt walking through the cemeteries of Gallipoli. But the pain is much more personal.

I used to keep a list of the friends I have lost. When the list of Montana names reached fifty, I stopped counting. My friends continued to die, but I could no longer bear holding that list. Things have changed. Today I have many dear friends living with the disease. It is no longer the automatic death sentence it was twenty years ago. It is still a horrifying disease. When I read about young men, “bug catchers” as they call themselves, who are actively trying to contract the disease, I want to scream. When I read about people who want to have only unprotected sex, I want to take them by the neck and shake them till they wake up to the reality of this disease.

Mostly I feel like a survivor of a war. When I go out to a gay venue, I see a few people older than I. Mostly I see men twenty to thirty years younger than I am. I see very few people my age. We lost the better part of a generation of gay men to this disease. Beautiful, handsome, strong men. The leaders of our community, gone to a virus. I want it to stop. I want it never to have happened. I want Richard back.

Richard Donovan
10-11-47 -- 7-21-87