Fall has Arrived in Billings

For the last two mornings I shiver at 6 am when I take Maggie out "to do her duty." That is MtheD below right, soon after a grooming, which is why she has the neckerchief around her neck. This is the look she has when she is trying to get you to do something, but you have to guess what it is, not too difficult as there are only a few things that are on the mind of a dog it seems to me.

I love this time of year for many reasons. Not only does it seem like the beginning of a new year because of all those years in school I suppose, but we get to wear sweaters which are my favorite pieces of clothing. And you get to layer items of clothing, looking very rugged and western if that is what you want.



And the edges of things appear to be sharper than usual. Maybe it is the position of the sun, lower toward the horizon, that does this, but it makes my photographer eyes light up. The natural world just looks different this time of year, more fat and fecund maybe. Of course, my surroundings then have their effect on me. Even a construction site has a different look to it. See right. Perkins Restaurant in the background.


Tearing down the old Cobb Field hasn't started yet, other than what Time has already done, but it will soon I am told. The new field is already underway, not sure what the new field will be named. The picture on the left in from the corner of 17th and Poly Drive, taken from my car window. I like the colors of autumn too.




Carol and I attended the last game there. We couldn't find a seat, it rained some of the time, and we lost each other in the concession area. Eventually we escaped to Perkins for our usual supper. The picture to the right was taken on Memorial Day a few years ago.

Going for a Drive in BigHorn Canyon

Friends Bernard and M'lis invited us to a cookout in BigHorn Canyon. They have a pontoon boat which goes plenty fast for us. The four of us headed for Hardin and Yellowtail Dam on Monday after the heavy weekend traffic.


We arrived at the marina about 11am, and spent probably 4-5 hours lazing around the Canyon.















We had an excellent picnic lunch complete with hamburgers with all the fixings, did a little fishing, the last not very successful as we forgot the hooks, and just enjoyed each other and God's handiwork in putting together this not so solid earth. Maggie the Dog accompanied us without a problem.

















These are difficult to move around to where I want them. I am going to let them stay where they are. Bernard driving the boat to the left and M'lis to the right. A good time was had by all.

Pictures from before and after a life

Today the Hustisford Hilltoppers, class of 1957, celebrated the 50th anniversary of their graduation from Hustisford High School at the Iron Ridge Inn, with a very nice gathering and meal. By the way, the Hilltoppers are no longer the Hilltoppers, but rather the Falcons. Even the school is absent these days. Yes, that is true, because I remember driving up the hill toward the school and not seeing it. Shocking!



The way I remember it there were 20 of us parading across the stage then, and 19 actually graduated (see the newspaper clipping left, saved of course, by my mother) but nowadays they count all those who started in 1953 and would have graduated 4 years later but for unforeseen cirumstances, which they say raises the number to 26, of which 16 showed up to celebrate.

That is Shirley Wolters and Janice Will above right. They have some other names nowadays but it is easier to use their maiden names. Do we still use the term "maiden?"

There were two premature deaths that we all knew of, and I suppose they are celebrating as well; several could not be located, and of course, a few contrarians whom no one has seen for a long time were not really expected to show up.

Though recent events, like breakfast, may escape us, we all seemed to have some memories that were tucked away for a long time. Odd how those thoughts get stored only to be recalled when some visual or other stimulus comes along.








We were all pleasantly surprised at the good memory of Harry Kuehl, who writes a little poetry these days and managed to remember a few things about each of us that we thought had been forgotten. He remembered that Carol cried at our graduation and that I played the trombone.

I couldn't resist, please forgive me, putting in these old pictures scattered about (again courtesy of my mother's saving habit). Just like on TV the older pictures are black and white and the more recent are colored. Or don't we use that word anymore?

Yes, we did shoot free throws underhand in the olden days. And Carol and I went to a high school prom a long time ago, and I still remember kissing her for the first time. She even remembers where!

For those whose memories need jogging, in the picture to the right, that is me on the left, Janice Will now Mintzlaff in the middle, and Jack Schlicht on the right. I don't remember the name of the operetta but it was certainly directed by one of our favorite teachers, Harold Johnson.

Had another reunion with some friends from Carroll College. Tony and Ann Serpe living in Elkhorn, he administrating, and eventually Superintending for many years; and she teaching chemistry, and lately dealing with non-traditional students listening to a different drummer. Nice people and salt of the earth. They haven't changed at all except maybe for the better. They remind me of some of the teachers I knew as a child. Tony was a year behind me at Carroll and in the same fraternity (which doesn't exist anymore) and Ann was a freshman when I was a senior. She reminded me of some of the idiosyncratic sayings of our favorite chemistry professor, AA Sunier, like "N--- in the woodpile," with not the slightest bit of malice. By the way, these are the parents of the writer of the blog Olive Knitting, Lynn Serpe, now hiding out somewhere in rural Italy.

[The reason I know the fraternity doesn't exist anymore is that Tony told me so when we visited and when Gerald and I went to Jack's funeral we slipped into Waukesha and drove around Carroll College. The original 200 McCall had been razed and now a nice new private house or two has been built on the corner.]

[Added later 3 September 2007: ". . . send not to know for whom the bell tolls, . . .": I note with sadness that the guy on the right in the operetta picture above, and in the red shirt in the picture to the right, Jack Schlicht, cashed in his chips early (30 August) a few days after our 50th celebraton. He was a friend in grade school, high school and college and taught us all about the virtue of competition whatever game you are playing. His brother taught us about courage when life gives you bad cards. His father, our school principal and superintendent, taught us about being a man and the little we know about algebra and geometry; and his mother, the original Peg whom our oldest daughter is named after her, taught us all about the way men and women should be. Requiescat in pace—all of you.] I wish I knew where these pictures go when they disappear!

The Longest Day

It wasn't 'til I saw a story in this morning's Gazette about a dog-tag being returned to a family after 67 years in the sands of Normandy's Omaha Beach that I remembered yesterday's anniversary: June 6, 1944. I was learning how to read at the time, and so I followed the news stories as best I could. I knew that my father had finally been drafted, late enough that he would not be involved in this part of the invasion of Europe. Even as a four year-old I wondered at the scale of this battle. I don't think any of the boys and men from our village were involved in the invasion.

My father's contribution to the liberation of Europe was coming down with either the mumps or the chicken pox in December 1944 while he was stationed in Italy, and thus missing the hurried transfers north for Germany's last hurrah or what the newspapers called the Battle of the Bulge.

I remember the movie, The Longest Day, from sometime in the early 60s I guess. And thinking to myself, could I have persuaded myself to do what those guys had done? I doubt it.

[Netflix still has a copy of this movie. I saw it again after some 40 years. Lots of actors no longer around played small roles; it was kind of fun picking them out. There were a lot of guys who were only famous on that day too.]

I was playing bass trombone in a Shriner dance band here in Billings in the early 90s when I struck up a conversation with Jack, who played 3rd trombone next to me. I was going on about a book written to mark the 50th anniversary of D-Day, excitedly talking about the tactics and strategy of the landings, when he casually and quietly said, "I was there." I was stunned for a moment but quickly recovered to ask silly questions about "why this" and "how come that." He finally said, "I don't know; all I remember about 8:30am on June 6, 1944 when the front end of the landing craft opened, was that it was so noisy you couldn't think, and I was desperately trying to keep from shitting my pants! I just kept going straight ahead along with the rest of the guys."

Most of those guys have probably arrived at their final destination by now.



I wonder if a battle like that will ever be fought again. You can't help but remember Shakespeare's Henry V St Crispian Day speech to his troops at Agincourt: . . . We few, we happy few, we band of brothers . . . .

That anyway is how I remember it.

Third crop of grass on Ramada Drive

When it rains, the grass grows. This is similar to a Law of Gravity here in Montana. This is now the third crop according to the guy that cuts it when it gets high enough to bother the squatting dogs, especially with the morning dew.

This is probably what happened for several years in a row back in the 19th century when people first started moving in to this area. The immigrants were tricked into coming and staying by a couple years of good rain. The prairie really does look like a grassy ocean, especially when the wind blows which is fairly often.


Of course, when the grass grows, then our four-footed bovine friends graze all night long into the early morning. Maggie the Dog loves to protect her turf from these critters. They pay no attention to her attention. Her courage waxes and wanes, sort of like her human masters.


You know that late spring and summer has arrived in Billings with certainty when there is a ballgame at Cobb Field almost every night, and often during the day as well. When the Royals play the Scarlets there is usually a fairly full house. On 2 June the Royals beat the Scarlets 2-1, the first loss of the young season for the Scarlets. All of the runs scored because of some critical errors. Both pitchers did well.


Oops, the picture I uploaded was from earlier in the game. Trust me, the Visitors, i.e. the Scarlets scored a run in the top of the 7th and the Royals scored two runs in the bottom of the 8th.

Long Weekend in early May 07

To the right is our backyard crab apple tree in full bloom for perhaps a week or so per year. It''s only other trick is to produce tiny little apples that make the birds tipsy so they fly into our windows.

One time we found 4 dead birds in a row in front of our garage entrance. We feared some hooligan mischief until we observed the marks of 4 live birds on the windows of our bedroom just above the garage door.

They must have been in formation as they crashed headfirst into the window.



Friday evening: Saw The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial at Billings Studio Theatre. This was well done by almost everyone on stage. It did require some suspension of disbelief in contemporary ways of viewing our military. And it did focus our attention on some of the problems of all-out war with civilians (or those who should have remained civilians) acting as warriors.


Saturday afternoon: Invited to attend Rocky Mountain College 125th Graduation by our friends and neighbors, Jim and Sandy Almond. In addition to about 200 graduates, including about 20 or so physician assistants, there were faculty and friends and of course, the relatives of the graduates.

That's Jim getting his colored scarf to the left, and serving as the President of the Board below. He is a hard worker in whatever he does.






You know you are aging, YKYAA, when you begin to attend graduations featuring your friends' receiving honorary degrees. The scarves were very colorful. Some useful advice was given by the speakers but I don't think the intended hearers were listening.





Sunday: Church in the morning as usual. We saw and heard Bellissimo, a very good bell-ringing group at St Pius (below) in the afternoon. I'm nor sure why they moved from the United Methodist next to the Alberta Bair. They did a little entertaining along with some pretty good ringing. The sounds were good in this place, as they bounced around a good deal.



















Monday: Memorial service for neighbor who died very slowly from Alzheimer's dementia. Ten years is a long time for that sort of problem. YKYAA . . . (see above).



























This was a long weekend in May. I almost forgot about Saturday evening at the Olive Garden with our friend Lynda. That is her very tasty strawberry dacquiri above.

Patron saint of bloggers

St Jerome, protector of sarcastic bloggers, pray for us!

• 
• Couldn't resist lifting this from the Happy Catholic blog.
  

Season of Dietz: Adventures@Venture Theatre, Billings MT

We went to another one of Steven Dietz's plays at our favorite downtown theatre last night. Of course I am speaking of Venture Theatre, the offspring of Mace Archer and Lysa Fox with some help from others.

Last week it was "Last of the Boys" and this week it was "Lonely Planet," (the stage setting is to the right for LP). The latter is a slightly dated two person dialogue with occasional soliloquies more or less directed at the audience by one or the other of the players. There were at least two memorable lines: one was "Lovers are easy, friends are hard;" and the other was about the usefulness and ubiquity of irony in these latter days which I have unfortunately forgotten.

This must have been written at the height of the HIV/AIDS hysteria, maybe in the late 80s, [first staged in the early 90s] though curiously enough, the players used fairly contemporary cellular phones.

Reminded me of La Boheme but not of course sung, and there was a fair amount of whining about the morbidity and mortality that afflict us all, whether we sodomize or not. By the way, are we still allowed to use that word, the "s" word I mean? I don't remember that from La Boheme, though I might have missed something because of my lack of French. In any event, it was entertaining and instructive, reminding us of things about ourselves that maybe we had forgotten.


Having seen three or four Dietz plays in the past few months, I feel fairly safe in lauding his rough and tumble way of treating time, its passing, and how memories stick in our minds in a sometimes unpredictable fashion. Whenever I get a whiff of barnyard, if I close my eyes I get flashbacks to my grandfather's dairy farm some 50 or 60 years ago.

Talking about unpredictable memories reminds me of Cobb Field, old and new, and the process in between the two. The above picture was taken from the grandstand looking toward the First Interstate Building over the now absent swimming pool.

That was particularly notable in the "Last of the Boys." Mainly two Vietnam vets with their problems and how they get transmitted to others and even the next generation. Are there any Vietnam vets that are now normal? Maybe we should start a registry, just in case. In fact I know some: how come we never see them on stage?

This was one of the better plays I've seen and heard this season. That includes a few at Ashland OR. Of course, there were a few obligatory swipes at the Left's demons du jour, i.e. Republicans are evil, the USA is bad, etc but given the politicization of everything and everybody these days if those demons were not there the play might not ever be produced. These exclamations are like clearing your throat for our Leftist friends.

Mace Archer directed both plays and acted in one. He is leaving after this season. We are all saddened because he is a wizard, as an actor of course, but especially at directing younger players. He was able to give almost every player that degree of fearlessness that enabled them and their audiences to easily "suspend disbelief." Which reminds me of noticing some purple flowers during our short spring season. See below.















God gets pissed if you don't notice the color purple according to Alice Walker.

One more Dietz play is coming up in May: "Fiction": On the evidence of the earlier seen plays this one should be worth the price of admission. Watch this space.

Excellent players with pretty good play. Again, playing around with memory and the elusive idea of truth. I don't think Dietz denies the idea of truth, but only teases us with the difficulty of getting at it.

Matt M will be joining us this summer for a couple of weeks, along with his mother and brother. Matt will be attending a 2 week drama camp at the Venture Theatre.

Women are Fickle:?loose translation Cosi fan Tutti

Is there a better operetta than Mozart's Cosi fan Tutti? I doubt it. Six well-matched singers and some ensemble boys and girls and Mozart's music were enough for a miraculous happening.

This happened in Billings Montana on Friday, 23 March 2007 and Sunday, 25 March 2007 with the Rimrock Opera Company. Lovely duets, trios, quartets, quintets and sextets in addition to a couple of nice solos by all the principal singers. Director Doug Nagel did his usual outstanding job of casting more or less equal singers who blended well with each other. Lisa Lombardy sounds better than ever and Amy Logan is great as Despina with multiple disguises. A nice role for a chambermaid. Everybody is funny when they have a chance. And we all have the opportunity to learn the lesson of tolerance for our spouse's foibles. The picture to the left is from a Salzburg production of the opera buffa.


I'm very glad to have made the long trek back from watching baseball in Tucson AZ during the week to hear the opera in Billings MT. We left Tucson at 0830 on Friday, stopped in Albuquerque to visit Sharon, Leo and 14 month old Diego on Friday evening after Sharon finished her 4 th grade school teaching. We lose an hour going from AZ to NM as the latter still believes that changing to Daylight Saving Time is a good thing. Diego will be off and walking or running very soon. He is down to holding on with one finger now.

We take off from the Hotel Blue at 0730 on Saturday, encounter a snowstorm near the higher elevations of Santa Fe and really hard rain in the lower elevations of southern Colorado. We get to Denver about 1400, and then on to Casper, running into another snowstorm in southern Wyoming, arriving about 7pm, to get refreshed by the Outback Restaurant: even with a rookie waiter it was still very good.

We get in to Billings about 1130 Sunday morning, having sailed up the 25 and 90 for a thousand miles in a day and a half, just in time for Cosi fan Tutti. It was well worth the trip.

Baseball in Tucson

Son Pete and I decided to do a long road trip and take in a little spring baseball in Arizona. We had thought we were getting together with brother and uncle Russ after he had retired from the education racket. Lawyers and the music schedule in Billings effectively torpedoed the getting together as we had to leave from Billings after the St Patrick's Day Symphony Concert by Maestra Harrigan, and to be back in time for the matinee performance of Cosi fan Tutti on the following Sunday afternoon; while Russ had to do a deposition on the Tuesday after St Patrick's Day, and thus couldn't be in Tucson in time to get together for a baseball game at Tucson Electric Park, where the White Sox and the Diamondbacks do their spring training and home games. The White Sox came into the picture because Tim Mueller, son of Russ, is vice-president for the Kannapolis Intimidators in the South Atlantic League, a White Sox long season advanced A affiliate, who would (Tim, that is) be able to get us tickets for the games.

We departed Billings very early on Sunday, 18 March, headed east and then south down the 90 until we ran into the 25 in northern Wyoming (see above picture), kept the nose steadily going south til we reached Albuquerque 14 hours later (left), a little stiff as we only stopped for maybe 10 minutes to fill the gas tank and empty our bladders twice: averging a little over 70mph. We had packed sandwiches and pop for when we got hungry or thirsty. Billings to Albuquerque is about 1000 miles. We live in a big country with some awesome roads and wide open spaces. Somebody once told me that one could put the whole world's population in Texas and everybody would have enough room to live comfortably. I think we could do that in most western states.

Fine weather all the way, breezed through Denver at just after mid-day, and arrived in ABQ at around 8pm. Chowed down with Sharon and Diego (see left); the latter is noticeably more advanced than he was two months ago. He holds on with only one hand, maybe one finger now, and I know will let go very soon.

Flying Star was our restaurant of choice on Sunday evening and the Hotel Blue with their Tempurpedic beds got the nod for sleeping.

Monday morning we started at a more reasonable time, around 10am, down the 25 through some fairly rough country until we neared Las Cruces, then cut over to the 10 at Deming, and arrived in Tucson at around 5pm, which was actually 4pm because the good citizens of Arizona have deemed Daylight Saving Time a work of the Devil and will have nothing to do with it.














We were up early on Tuesday and off to the Sonora Desert Museum, a place Carol and I had visited some 15 years ago while attending a medical meeting in Tucson. It is an outdoor combination of museum, zoo and paleonteology demonstration. A really top-notch place.

Got to the Diamondbacks v. Mariners game in time to see a little Mariner BP. They must have had a split squad as Ichiro was not around. Didn't see Randy Johnson either but he is supposed to be back in AZ now. The M's did not look very effective but their fans were, of course, very nice as they are required to be.

Looked in the sports pages and found out that the University of Arizona Wildcats were playing some team from Morehead Minnesota in the evening. Our Econolodge was very close so we zipped on over to watch most of that game. The first inning looked like a typical college game but then a pitcher's duel broke out. Arizona was leading 5-4 when we tired and went to our motel. Blue Wahsabi for dinner: excellent.

Wednesday morning we drove to Phoenix, about two+ hours north of Tucson, to see the Padres v. the Brewers. Ran into dust storm on the way. I guess they need some rain. We traded in our lower deck seats for the shaded upper deck. This is the place to watch these games. We tried the Melting Pot for dinner: excellent fondue.

Thursday afternoon we saw the White Sox play the Mariners (Ichiro still missing) from very good seats right behind the WS dugout thanks to Tim Mueller. That evening we saw Love, Janis at the Arizona State Theatre in downtown Tucson. It was more of a concert than a play about Janis Joplin, one of a long line of contemporary entertainers who flare up brightly and apparently quickly and then off themselves with a variety of drugs. I liked her blues and country rock numbers but my middle ears started getting weary with the high volume of sound.

We left for Albuquerque on Friday morning, 23 March. Had dinner with Leo and Sharon and Diego at our favorite, the Flying Star, in the evening. Diego is growing fast. Stayed at the usual, Hotel Blue, once again. We left ABQ at 0800. Denver by 1400. Snow storm around Santa Fe slowed us down a little. Lots of rain the rest of the way, except for more snow in southern Wyoming. Arrived Casper at 1930 to hit the Outback Restaurant for dinner. The four hour trip from Casper to Billings on Sunday morning was uneventful. Arrived at 1130 to shower up for the opera in the afternoon.

On the way down and back we listened to Ivan Doig's House of Sky; Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana; Solzhenitsvn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451; and started listening to The Iliad. If I had to do it over again, I would request, maybe require someone to read all my books to me. I'm fairly sure there was another book that we had read to us but I forgot the name.