Poker Face

The sign usually appears early in the week on community message boards throughout the county:

Poker Run. 

Brockway Supper Club. 

1:00. p.m. 

Saturday.

$5 per hand.

On open winters, which we haven't had  in quite some time, the poker run would involve 4-wheelers.  But when the snow has set in with drifts several feet in height, the snowmobiles come out in full force.

The game goes like this:  You put in your $5 and every one who is participating draws one card at the Supper Club and your draw is written down.  The group heads out across the prairie, heading to a neighboring farm to the north, where they draw another card.  The person who lives there jots down those card number results and sends them along with the last member of the snowmobiling group.  Repeat that last step 3 times and every one has a hand of five.  Best hand by poker standards wins.

They traveled 42 miles in all on a cold and blustery day. 

I wouldn't let Little Man go along for the first part of the trip because the windchill had the potential to be brutal.  He was not impressed.

He faked a nap and then talked me in to dressing him so that he could join Danish Cowboy for the last leg of the journey on the five miles back to Brockway.  It took the group a long while to get to our place.

It turned out to be a very long while filled with staring out the window and opening windows briefly to listen for the whining sound of the machines.

I even ventured outside a couple of times to look for the group off to the west.  Empty hay wagons, cows and cold were all that I could see.

When at last the group did arrive, they came inside, briefly warmed up, and drew their last set of cards.  Little man donned the rest of his snowmobile gear and eagerly went outside with the group of 20 or so people crazy enough to brave the elements.

Little Lady and I did not go along for this segment of the ride because (1) we only we have one snowmobile, (2) did you look at that windhill chart?, and

(3) two-stroke engines, blue smoke, and an obnoxious whine aren't really my thing.  But Danish Cowboy raises a good point:  it would be interesting to see my snowshoes cover 42 miles in one afternoon to try and gather my five cards before the sun went down.

The group that does this is pretty hardy, but they were helped along with some schnapps and the promise of warmth and a meal at the supper club when they returned.  I suppose that the $63 promised to the winner also made a difference because wow...$63. 

Winters get kind of long around here so we have to do things like this to keep our sanity.  On a nicer day, there could have been well over 50 participants.  Good friends, beautiful scenery, schnapps, the promise of $63.  My little boy thought he was pretty cool and I got a bit of girly time with the little lady.  We all met up at the Supper club for an evening of warmth, food and friends.

The cold had worn out all of the participants and we were home by quarter after six.  Snowmobiles flying across the prairie in the dark give off quite a glow, even from miles away.  Danish Cowboy traveled home with our neighbor and the little guy did, too.  He fell asleep just before they reached our place.  We all settled in for another round of snow and wind on Sunday and with it the likelihood of another poker run before the winter releases its grip.

Orville

I've met a lot of interesting people since moving to this place in 2003. 

None is quite as interesting as my friend Orville, though.

A gardener known for the biggest cabbages at the fair, a sculptor, a keeper of chickens, a World War II vet, a jokester:  he is a man so satisfied with the beauty that every day life brings.  He comes in to my office every few days and we update each other on our gardens in the summer, the garden catalogs that we've received in the winter and the progress of our indoor seedling starts in the spring.  He gave me some cotton seeds that his son had sent him from Arizona earlier this year and encouraged me to plant them.  His repeated description of their emergence (like a beautiful butterfly emerging from its cocoon and slowly spreading its wings) helps me remember to stop and enjoy everyday changes in the living things around me.

I finally got a tour of his home and garden on the outskirts of town.  It is dotted with sculptures like these, mostly in the shape of dinosaurs and most of them with hose and sprinkler fittings on the tail and back. Ingenious!

His proudest sculpture though is of a World War II soldier.  McCone County is home to a high proportion of WWII vets compared to the rest of the country.  As Orville tells it, our neighbor Merlin helped to win the Atlantic theatre on the beaches of France.  Orville helped to win the Pacific theatre.  Just look in any history book.  The sculpture is dedicated to his friend Merlin (still farming and join the coffee club every afternoon) and a friend who perished during the war.

We spent an hour wandering around his garden, looking at his handmade concrete and stone raised garden beds and the unique vegetables he was raising.  I stole more than one cherry tomato from the vines.

The outside tour ended with a look at his prized chickens.  Although they do lay eggs for Orville's kitchen, I got the impression they were more like friends than poultry. 

Orville might be from a different generation or two than I am, but he's kept up with the times.  I received a picture of myself posing near a sculpture before I left.  It take me weeks to get hard copies of pictures.  It took him five minutes.

I did not get a tour of the house, but took advantage of the brief time it took to print the picture to look around his office.  This wall:  pictures of a Circle, Montana gas station sign dating back to 2001.  Scattered around the gas station pictures were memories from a life well-lived.  I parted with Orville with promises to come back and explore those memories.  Stay tuned this winter!

The 12 Days of Christmas #4

The weather has finally improved to the point of being tolerable so I wandered town during my lunch hour, trying to capture a few oddities that make our town so unique. I marveled at this field corn that had no doubt survived many stops and starts balanced precariously on the edge of the combine intake as it traveled down the highway on the back of a semi. It is a feast-in-the-making for a lucky bird this winter.

At the end of Main Street there lies a yard of green farm implements, mostly older, awaiting willing takers in need of a good deal. Or, being of no more use to anyone, they sit there as potential parts donors for repair work on newer models.
The farm implements also sit in lots scattered through town and at the edge of town, so that as you drive the streets and turn the corners, there is no doubt that this is an agricultural community.

They save the shiny ones for Main Street.

Noticing my camera and my oddly out of place activities for a small town ("What is she DOING? Where is she going to put those pictures? These out-of-state girls are so ODD!" Is she WALKING? In the middle of WINTER?" is what the town natives are saying), this nice trucker pulled over to pick me up and save me from embarrassing myself further. He was hauling wheat from Brockway to Wolf Point and offered to buy me lunch. Don't tell Danish Cowboy.

The nice trucker even offered to drive me back to work so as to save myself from even further embarrassment, but I declined. Christmas had yet to be documented.
The few storefronts that we have as well as our three blocks of Main Street have all been lovingly decorated. They are simple, but it is what we have.
So every day, when I see Main Street looking like this, I am pleased when I walk out of my office and see Main Street all lit up. I am reminded of what my friend's daughter remarked about the lights of Jordan, Montana a few years ago. My friend had gone home from work, picked her daughter up, and headed up town for some groceries. Seeing the simple lights and the decorated tree in the middle of Main Street, her daughter remarked:

"Oh, Mom! Aren't they beautiful!"

Sometimes the best things in life aren't the fanciest or newest or glitziest. These lights ARE beautiful and the philosophy of a child will remind me of that forever.

Our County Fair

I like to write and while I've found that this is the best way to express myself clearly and boldly, sometimes others have said it best. Fair season is almost over and once again we are overcome with what our youth have the capability to do: "The state fair, at heart, is an agricultural expo, and farming isn't about getting rich, and farmers discuss annual income less than they practice nude meditation on beaches. Farming is about work and about there being a Right Way and a Wrong Way to do it.
You sit in the bleachers by the show ring and see this by the way the young men and women lead their immaculate cows clockwise around the grumpy, baggy-pants judge in the center.
They walk at the cow's left shoulder, hand on the halter, and keep the animal's head up, always presenting a clear profile to the judge's gaze, and when he motions them to get in line, the exhibitors stand facing their cows and keep them squared away.
You and I may have no relatives left in farming and our memory of the farm, if we have any, may be faint, but the livestock judging is meaningful to us -- husbandry is what we do,
even if we call it education or health care or management. Sport is a seductive metaphor (life as a game in which we gain victory through hard work, discipline, and visualizing success),

but the older metaphor of farming (life as hard labor that is subject to weather and quirks of blind fate and may return no reward whatsoever and don't be surprised) is still in our blood, especially those of us raised on holy scripture.
The young men and women leading cows around the show ring are relatives of Abraham and Job and the faithful father of the prodigal son. They subscribe to the Love Thy Neighbor doctrine.
They know about late-summer hailstorms.
You could learn something from these people."

From National Geographic article "Top Ten State Fair Joys" by Garrison Keillor, July 2009, Vol. 216, No.1 p. 66 (Yes, I know this isn't correct citation format, but academia is a bit removed from my life right now. Relax, English majors. Relax.)

Dairy Day 2009

It all starts happening on Friday evening. Months of preparations result in the roughstock showing up at the rodeo grounds, ready to put on a great display of bucking at Saturday's rodeo.

Volunteers arrive to prepare the rodeo grounds, ensuring that the arena has a soft enough footing (but not too muddy). The food and beverage stands are stocked with the necessary provisions, the public announcement system is installed, sponsorship signs are taken out of a dusty storage room in the old Brockway railway depot and hung on the bucking chutes, and the kids enjoy the freedom of playing in an arena filled with dirt.

We get a lot of people at the rodeo from both near and far. But it is the residents of Brockway who are by and large the most excited about a day off of work. Danish Cowboy was greeted with "Happy Dairy Day!" when he called an excited neighbor on Saturday morning. It's like Christmas in July around here. The cars and horse trailers cross over the mighty Redwater and line up on the hill for a hot afternoon of socializing and cheering. (I, however, lined myself up directly on the sofa at home until about 4:00 that afternoon. Kids are the BEST excuses for avoiding hot, dusty rodeos. Besides, the fun REALLY begins after the rodeo.)
Wandering around near the bucking chutes, I am struck every time by the fact that sometimes this is Marlboro country and the cowboys appear in large numbers. But beware: there are cowboys at these rodeos, and there are preppy type people at these rodeos and often you will see the preppy type who thinks he is a cowboy. Need I go further? No matter what walk of life you live in, you KNOW this person. There are cowboys observing their competition,

cowboys warming up their horses,
and cowboys who are doing something, only I don't know what. Sometimes, sometimes, you just see the cowboy. Know what I mean?
And lest you get discouraged, there are also plenty of cowgirls at this rodeo. Modern cowgirls, on cell phones,
and cool cowgirls who aren't afraid to play with the boys AND wear hot pink. Thank you, women's rights people. There's no reason a chick shouldn't be allowed to swing a rope. I hope her and her partner kicked ass in the team roping, but do you really think I paid attention?

And of course there are the beautiful (and expensive) horses of many colors. Roans and buckskins, Paints, chestnuts and palominos. And no, please don't ask me if my horse was here. He wasn't. Read here to understand why.
The crowd tends to gather around the beverage stand and grows progressively larger as the day grows progressively hotter. "Why", do you ask? Ummm, probably because there is beer there.
Since I had my butt firmly planted on the sofa until 4:00, I was only able to get pictures of team roping. I am really sorry. But this is the true essence of the rodeo. I have lived here since 2002 and I can' t honestly say that I actually remember any of the events of a rodeo because there is just too much going on and too many people to see.
But team roping is rather eventful. A steer is released from the chute, and two horses take off after him. The header ropes the head, and the heeler ropes the heels of the back legs. When the animal is pretty much suspended in mid-air, time is called. Fastest time wins. Sounds simple, eh? You try twirling a rope. And then try getting it on something standing still. And then try riding a horse going at full tilt, zigging and zagging with a steer and then successfully roping it.
It's a long day for everyone.

But an extremely joyous one all at the same time. We see friends that we only visit with once a year and the kids get to experience a rich, albeit dirty, cultural event that in some respects is not much different from what it was 100 years ago.
And one of the best parts is that we can give the kids a fairly good rein on freedom, because around here, there's always someone that will watch out for you and your kids, and give them some love when they're feeling a little worried about the big crowd.
But when the big truck leaves, the crowd pretty much clears out of the rodeo grounds and moves to downtown Brockway for a dance and supper. The Brockway rodeo grounds are again desolate for another year, but the memories will stay alive for us all through that time.

Epilogue

Our little family of four made it to the Brockway hall for supper and a dance. We stayed out until nearly 10:00 visiting with friends and dancing the night away. Danish Cowboy and I rarely dance together anymore. Probably because we rarely go to dances, but most likely because we have two little people that enjoy a little two-step of their own. And so we twirled around the hall to the sound of live music: waltzes, polkas, and jitterbugs. We were dizzy with excitement and seeing the smiles on our kids' faces. And you know what it was like? Robert Redford gave the true essence of a country barn dance in The Horse Whisperer. The cowboys who always seem to have just the right spring in their step, the socializing, the kids twirling and two-stepping on their own. Go see the movie. Get a taste of what it feels like. And come to Brockway next year for our 100 year celebration.