Yet another strange tale from Western Montana... Raise your hand if this has happened to you. You receive an e-mail inviting you to a departmental bbq an hour north at a professor's cabin on a lake (you Minnesota people can already relate, sorta). It is a gathering of the history faculty, yes, but the invitation was to all the graduate students, and you happen to be one of them (I already hear many of you mumbling that you can't relate to the situation). So early one Sunday, around eleven in the morning, you trek through your town in order to find the highway that goes north, but somehow you end up on I-90 trying to figure out where the heck highway 93 disappeared to while you were driving. After years of disappointing situations, you've learned to doubt yourself all too often and end up stopped at a gas station several miles down the interstate to discover that you were indeed on the right track. One in a million, I'm sure. So finally you journey northward through towering mountain vallies surrounded by dendric sentinals all out of line, until you break out of the valley to find you are face to face with something of myth, something you had seen only in your imagination... If Moria is burnied 'neath any part of this earth, it is below the Mission Mountains of Western Montana. You're shocked by the sight, especially being not unfamiliar with mountains (you live in the middle of a mountain valley). But, owing to the fact that your confusing jaunt through town put you nearly an hour behind schedule, you press on without taking any pictures. Once again you are stunned, but this time not by mountains, but by a lake like none you've ever seen in the west. But this is only the beginning of the story.
You arrive at the professor's cabin to discover that you know not a soul there. That you were somewhat expecting. But it turns out, you are the only graduate student. There are two eight-year-old girls running and screaming as though a building is constantly on fire. There is a young fellow, not yet thirty, and his wife who is due in two days, and surely looks the part. There is a lesbian couple in their thirties, and one of their mothers is there, obviously the age of a grandmother. Their is an African couple there. I mean an actual African couple, no hyphenated American anywhere to be seen. There is a middle-aged chain smoker with her puppy along, and you talk to her more than anyone else besides the professor and his wife who are grandparents, and halfway through the afternoon you notice the professor is missing his left ring finger at the second knuckle. Do you feel out of place. Of course, but that's something you're used to. This is a new kind of out of place, especially when you go for a boat ride, citing the fact that you hate boats, lakes, and most anything to do with water that is deeper than you are tall. In the boat ride is chainsmoker and woman's best friend, the professor's wife (we ought to call her Marianne, and I do wonder what would have happened if I was shipwrecked with this crew), the lesbian's mom, and the two eight-year-olds, all females, and you happen to be male (just try to relate, k?) You have little you want to talk about because you spend your days stuck in your apartment reading old textbooks or going to the movies and being dragged to A Cinderella Story, something that made you turn red at the ticket counter when you paid full price for nobody but you. You try to drink a Kokanee because your brother raved about the Canadian beer, but you can't even down half of it it tastes so terrible. The brats are good, the people are pleasant, and you're not sad you came, but my, you haven't felt so queer (taking an original meaning of this word, not to be confused with anybody else that was there) in a long time, so you go home sometime before the last and first people left, driving through mountain rainstorms with your windows down without caring because it does cool things off and you probably got a sunburn while out on the lake. Does it even sound remotely familiar? Me neither. Oh, and until I get at least one complaint about my blogs, I refuse to quite posting because, for some odd reason, other people say they like them. Either assisinate those people, or give me the verbal boot.
Marty, I apologize for lacking interest in your football whatever thingie. Start a fantasy banjo league, and I'm there.
Gabe, congrats on the dread of many men but the hope of some, being smack dab in the middle of girls galore. Someday when I have some time, I'll tell you why it's a near scientific fact why my children will be female. It's really kinda interesting. I'd be terrible with boys anyway. Like I'm gonna go play catch.
Brad, so you're a fan of Catch-22? I hated that book and never finished it, but maybe a more mature mind needs to get into it. I'll have Bacheldor read it and get back to me. Well, to follow-up your response to gazebo night, did we do it a second time or am I just making things up? I thought there was a repeat, but I also think that Iraq used sarin gas on the Kurds proving they had chemical weapons, so my memory could be off on some things.
Lynnea, maybe those girls had a similar experience to my last canoe ride. My youth pastor, Ben Archer's older brother, sent me and another young fellow out in what he called the "safe canoe" since I repeatedly stated I was scared of drowning (some people say scared of water, but I know what I'm really afraid of). So we paddled for over a hundred yards until the canoe began to sway back and forth. As it began to tip over, I remembered how far we were from shore, and it struck me that I was going to drown since I knew I couldn't swim that far. My head went under the water and suddenly I was floating again. I had a lifejacket on. I literally thought I was going to die out there, but I didn't make any noise like those girls (I sorta keep to myself). And I found out that we didn't get the safe canoe; my wonderful youth pastor had intentionally given us the tippy canoe (Duerk, sing it with me, tippacanoe and tyler... Wllliam Henry Harrison, I know) and was amazed at how far we got before it capsized on us. Evil youth pastors.
To former 2nd Easters - this is something that came back to me recently: Hallball! Woah, I know. Was there any rule besides get it past the other two guys? Trying to capture the olympic feel of those days.
Hope all is well for everyone. My college memoir collection is presently on page 88, nearly halfway through first semester sophmore year. We'll see where we get. Bye.
You arrive at the professor's cabin to discover that you know not a soul there. That you were somewhat expecting. But it turns out, you are the only graduate student. There are two eight-year-old girls running and screaming as though a building is constantly on fire. There is a young fellow, not yet thirty, and his wife who is due in two days, and surely looks the part. There is a lesbian couple in their thirties, and one of their mothers is there, obviously the age of a grandmother. Their is an African couple there. I mean an actual African couple, no hyphenated American anywhere to be seen. There is a middle-aged chain smoker with her puppy along, and you talk to her more than anyone else besides the professor and his wife who are grandparents, and halfway through the afternoon you notice the professor is missing his left ring finger at the second knuckle. Do you feel out of place. Of course, but that's something you're used to. This is a new kind of out of place, especially when you go for a boat ride, citing the fact that you hate boats, lakes, and most anything to do with water that is deeper than you are tall. In the boat ride is chainsmoker and woman's best friend, the professor's wife (we ought to call her Marianne, and I do wonder what would have happened if I was shipwrecked with this crew), the lesbian's mom, and the two eight-year-olds, all females, and you happen to be male (just try to relate, k?) You have little you want to talk about because you spend your days stuck in your apartment reading old textbooks or going to the movies and being dragged to A Cinderella Story, something that made you turn red at the ticket counter when you paid full price for nobody but you. You try to drink a Kokanee because your brother raved about the Canadian beer, but you can't even down half of it it tastes so terrible. The brats are good, the people are pleasant, and you're not sad you came, but my, you haven't felt so queer (taking an original meaning of this word, not to be confused with anybody else that was there) in a long time, so you go home sometime before the last and first people left, driving through mountain rainstorms with your windows down without caring because it does cool things off and you probably got a sunburn while out on the lake. Does it even sound remotely familiar? Me neither. Oh, and until I get at least one complaint about my blogs, I refuse to quite posting because, for some odd reason, other people say they like them. Either assisinate those people, or give me the verbal boot.
Marty, I apologize for lacking interest in your football whatever thingie. Start a fantasy banjo league, and I'm there.
Gabe, congrats on the dread of many men but the hope of some, being smack dab in the middle of girls galore. Someday when I have some time, I'll tell you why it's a near scientific fact why my children will be female. It's really kinda interesting. I'd be terrible with boys anyway. Like I'm gonna go play catch.
Brad, so you're a fan of Catch-22? I hated that book and never finished it, but maybe a more mature mind needs to get into it. I'll have Bacheldor read it and get back to me. Well, to follow-up your response to gazebo night, did we do it a second time or am I just making things up? I thought there was a repeat, but I also think that Iraq used sarin gas on the Kurds proving they had chemical weapons, so my memory could be off on some things.
Lynnea, maybe those girls had a similar experience to my last canoe ride. My youth pastor, Ben Archer's older brother, sent me and another young fellow out in what he called the "safe canoe" since I repeatedly stated I was scared of drowning (some people say scared of water, but I know what I'm really afraid of). So we paddled for over a hundred yards until the canoe began to sway back and forth. As it began to tip over, I remembered how far we were from shore, and it struck me that I was going to drown since I knew I couldn't swim that far. My head went under the water and suddenly I was floating again. I had a lifejacket on. I literally thought I was going to die out there, but I didn't make any noise like those girls (I sorta keep to myself). And I found out that we didn't get the safe canoe; my wonderful youth pastor had intentionally given us the tippy canoe (Duerk, sing it with me, tippacanoe and tyler... Wllliam Henry Harrison, I know) and was amazed at how far we got before it capsized on us. Evil youth pastors.
To former 2nd Easters - this is something that came back to me recently: Hallball! Woah, I know. Was there any rule besides get it past the other two guys? Trying to capture the olympic feel of those days.
Hope all is well for everyone. My college memoir collection is presently on page 88, nearly halfway through first semester sophmore year. We'll see where we get. Bye.
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