Gulch

Scenes from a Wedding

It was shortly after the band started playing – after she had danced the customary dances with her dad and with her new husband – that Jen slipped off into the darkness beyond the stage. When she came back to the dance floor, she was no longer wearing her shimmery, copper colored wedding dress. In its place, she had on long pants, a jean jacket, a wool hat, socks and tevas.

“Going down the road, feeling bad….Going where the climate suits my clothes,” the band sang, their breath forming icy clouds in the freezing air.

In a corner of the dance floor, a line of people shadowed the dance moves of Lucho, who had been taking hip-hop dance lessons and wasn’t concerned about the lack of hip-hop music. The dancers, clad in fleece and tennis shoes, twisted and spun. They appeared to be doing a country line-dance – their elaborate twists and lack of hand placement on belt lines being the only betrayal of style. Next to them, my high school algebra teacher twirled my elementary PE teacher away from him in a classic jitterbug spin.

“Some people come here to fiddle and dance, some come here to tarry. Some come here to fiddle and dance, I come here to marry,” sang the band.

Away from the lighted tents and cabins, aside from the laughter and music, a cold Montana sky rippled with stars.

---

Brace took off his sunglasses and let the bright afternoon sun shine into his eyes. He looked down at the transcript of the ceremony that he had taped into a dictionary and then looked out at the crowd seated on the hillside before him.

Brace turned to us and continued the ceremony, “What is the meaning of marriage? In these times, when couples like yourselves have been committed to each other for 13 years, what does it mean to be married? It is said that in the right relationships, you get married in your heart and mind long before you do in any ceremony and I believe that this is true of the two of you. However, the idea of marriage, of going through a wedding ceremony is not a mere formality, it is not something done as a social construct, nor," he paused, "is it done to make your parents happy."

The crowed laughed.

"A wedding and a marriage," Brace continued, "is a public declaration of a commitment. It is one thing to be together the way you have been for the last 13 years, it is another thing entirely to publicly declare that you will always be together. And so, Will and Jen, you are here to reaffirm the bond between you and to make a lifelong commitment to each other.”

Behind my eyes, a great pressure welled up. A lack of sleep and a deep joy in having so many friends together mixed with a perfect sense of happiness about standing with Jen in the sunshine. Strong emotions waded into the warm shallows of my psyche and splashed their way to the surface. My nose began to run and I felt a tear trickle down my cheek.

Jen stood across from me, looking radiant in her dress. She looked straight into my eyes and gave my hands a squeeze.

“Ah, hell,” I thought to myself, “I’m losing it.”

Someone handed me a blue handkerchief.

---

Matt stood in front of the tables and held the mike up close to his mouth.

“The difference between getting married after thirteen months and thirteen years is that after thirteen months, on your wedding night, you go off and have a private night. After thirteen years, you sleep in an unheated cabin with a dozen of your friends.”

“Here, here!” someone yelled and everyone laughed.

---

I hurried down the hill from the bathhouse. The fall air felt crisp against my hastily shaved face. As entered the cabin, it sunk in that most people I had just seen in the short stroll were already in their dress clothes.

“Well,” Jen asked, “what do you think?”

She stood in front of me and I saw the wedding dress for the first time. She looked beautiful

“Oh,” I said. “It’s brown.”

“What!”

“Uh, I mean you look beautiful.”

Jen looked at me dubiously and then turned her attention to searching for something on the top bunk. The concrete floor beneath my feet was freezing. I dug through my backpack looking for my dress socks and belt.

“Do you have a mirror in your toiletry case?” Jen asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Can you go find a girl and ask them to bring me a mirror?” she asked and I realized that I had forgotten both my socks and belt back in town.

---

The marriage between Jen and I started on a warm afternoon, on a grassy hillside next to a small lake in Montana. While it was not held in a soaring cathedral or temple, grandiose mansion, or imposing city hall, it was held in a place and moment of extreme wealth.

That wealth came not from the beautiful Montana country side, but from the friends and family who had gathered on that hillside to witness the blooming of our marriage. Montana is not an easy place to get to – and the countryside less so – and we were deeply honored by the people who went through a considerable amount of time and energy to get there to make that day and weekend extra special for Jen and I.

And we rewarded that effort by putting people to work. Whether it was cooking breakfast, making decorations, doing Jen’s hair, giving people rides to and from town, brewing coffee, delivering the cake, cleaning up, playing with small children, lending sleeping bags, or a myriad of other chores – a great amount of work was done by a great amount of people.

So thank you to everyone that came. Thank you for not just an audience at our wedding but for being participants – thank you for turning a simple ceremony into something magnificent.

It was an amazing way to get married.

Scientific Observations

From the Past 30 Days of Field Research

North Idaho

The pale girl with dreadlocks who sat across from us in the hot springs pointed vaguely towards the hillside. “The St. John’s Wort over there is my favorite patch of St. Johns in the whole Pacific Northwest,” said the girl, whose name was Rain.

“Oh, you planted that?” asked the one-armed guy who was also sharing the hot springs. His left arm ended shortly after his elbow. He held a can of cheap beer in his right hand.

“ No, no,” Rain said, with a hint of annoyance in her voice, “it grows naturally. I just like to visit it.”

“What does it do?” The one armed guy asked.

“It relaxes you; it’s really good for the brain. It regrows myelin,” Rain stated.

“Is that so?” said the one-armed guy when she finished. He swigged his beer, transfered the can from his good arm to a nook between his stub and his body, and then used his good hand to wipe some foam away from his mouth.

Portland, OR

My friends’ newborn baby looked up at me with giant eyes.

“Wow,” I said. “She’s really small.”

“Yeah, well, that’s how they come out.”

Victoria, BC

“What type of food do you like to eat?” I asked the tall Spaniard sitting across from me in broken Spanish. We were sitting in the dark, cellar-like space of The Mint restaurant, and I squinted at the menu, trying to read it by the flickering candle light.

“Como ninos,” Jordi replied.

My mind sluggishly translated: Como - “I eat”, ninos - “children”.

Jen and I met Jordi and his wife Ester, who were from Barcelona, for the first time earlier that day. They were cousins of a friend of ours and they were on their honeymoon and traveling through North America for the first time. Owing a karmic debt to the many people who have let Jen and I sleep at their places while we traveled, we had invited them to stay with us for the night they were in Victoria.

“Uh, you eat children?” I ask hesitantly.

Jordi laughed. “No, no, comimos como ninos.” We eat like children.

“Ah”, I said and took a drink of my beer.

Montana

After the professional comedian finished her show, my aunt approached her.

“Have you ever thought about performing at funerals?” asked my aunt.

“Uh…” said the comedian, a friend of the family.

“My husband is dying, you know,” My aunt continued.

“Oh, I heard that,” replied the comedian. “I’m very sorry.”

“Well,” my aunt paused. “Think about it. You have my number.”

In Which I Remember The Middle of Nowhere

When I was not but a boy, my older brother and father used to drag me out towards Eastern Montana to go antelope hunting. If you’ve not been to Montana, it’s a lopsided state: most of the mountains and trees and people reside in the western half. As you drive east across the state the roads get emptier, the sky gets bigger, and the land gets flatter until finally you believe that you have reached the end of the world, which conveniently enough, is marked with a sign saying “Welcome to North Dakota”.

On these hunting trips, we didn’t quite go that far. Instead, we would load up our sky blue pickup truck, point it east, and drive just a little beyond the center of the state. We’d follow small highways and single lane roads until the mountains became rolling, golden hills. Our destination was a ranch near the town of Two Dot, which like many such places in Montana, gains its cityhood based on the fact that it has a bar - the “World Famous" Two Dot Bar in this case.

As we got farther away from the main roads, we’d occasionally pass large slabs of concrete that were completely surrounded by chain link fences and razor wire. There was usually a security camera mounted on a pole. These places, of course, were nuclear missile silos and were the topic of much discussion back at my schoolyard.

My schoolmates and I firmly believed that our country’s enemies had their missiles pointed at our missiles. However, after much debate and discussion, we rationalized that the Montana silos were far enough from our school that, when the enemy missiles hit them, we would not be vaporized instantly in the blast. However, our school was close enough that we would probably soak up a lot of radiation, but not close enough that the radiation would give us cool super powers. Instead, according to the detailed maps that we drew, we lived comfortably inside the “horrible mutant zone". I hoped that when nuclear war came, the extra eyes that would no doubt sprout all over my body wouldn’t need as thick glasses as my regular eyes did.

The only silo on the ranch where we hunted, though, was an old grain silo. The ranch was large, perhaps as big as some European countries or New England states. The main road led to the farmhouse which, to my continual disappointment, looked exactly like any regular split-level house found in my neighborhood. We’d pull up in front of the house and the stooped and tough looking old man who owned the place would come out and make a little small talk with my dad.

He'd tell us where he had seen antelope on the ranch and how successful other hunters had been. His tired and gruff manner intimidated me but also reminded me a bit of my grandparents. “Be sure to close the gates after you,” he’d always tell us before we drove off.

We’d follow the dirt road through a field filled with rusty farm equipment, their skeletal frames looking like the debris from some future robot war. We’d drive down the dirt road, stopping here and there to shut pasture gates behind us, until the road could no longer be called a road, having declined into two parallel trails that wound through the hills. The tracks crossed a couple of streams and here my dad would stop to put the truck into four-wheel drive, then he'd plunge the truck into the creek, and drive up the steep far bank.

After it seemed like we had driven for hours since we stopped at the farm house - crossing out of our world and into new land without civilizations or houses or anything man made - we’d reach a long valley stretched out between two tall ridges that ran parallel like frozen waves. We’d drive between these waves to the far end of the valley where another truck or two would be parked.

The owners of these trucks were other hunters, guys who worked with my dad. They were rough looking, with knives on their belts, thick wool coats and hats. They were the type of men who could look up at the sky and predict the next day’s weather accurately. “No clouds tonight,” they’d say, “It’ll be colder tomorrow, maybe a little snow in the afternoon." I had a hard time picturing them working in the office where my dad worked.

At night, we’d gather as a group around a campfire, or if it was too cold for a fire, we’d cram into a small camper that one of my dad’s friends had on the back of his truck. They’d talk about past hunting trips and tell the occasional off color joke. Away from the fire, the night sky was brilliant, filled with thousands of stars that did not exist in the sky over my house.

The next morning, the hunt began.

Pronghorn antelope are the second fastest animals in the world, they can reach speeds of up to 60 miles per hour. Only the cheetah is faster. However, that didn’t seem to stop us from believing that we could chase them down. Our hunting strategy in theory was this: get up before the sun, climb to the top of the ridge. Sit on top of the ridge until sunrise, maybe drink some hot chocolate from our thermos, and then shoot an antelope that wanders by below.

Our actual hunting experience was this: climb the ridge before dawn. When the sun finally rises, notice that there are no antelope anywhere to be seen. Climb down that ridge and then climb up the next ridge, see some small white spots way off in the distance that might be antelope or a snow patch or a rock. Run as fast as possible to the next ridge, see that it is an antelope, run to a closer ridge, watch as the antelope run away at just near the speed of light, then take a shot at their rapidly disappearing white butts. Repeat until exhausted.

Sometimes this strategy worked, a lot of the time it didn’t. That afternoon we’d reverse our path and make our way back home. We’d drive on dirt tracks until a road solidified. We’d drive past the ranch house, past the missile silos, past world famous bars in small towns. We'd drive until we reached mountains and then cities and then, eventually, we’d be home.

When I was not but a boy, my older brother and father used to drag me out towards Eastern Montana to go antelope hunting. It occurs to me that I haven’t been to the middle of nowhere in a long time. I wonder if it is still populated by animals that can run faster than cars and men who can tell things by looking at the sky. I wonder if under slabs of concrete lay silos filled with the end of the world. I wonder if, in the middle of nowhere, there is still a sea of frozen, golden hills. I wonder if I will every go back.

In Which the Meaning of the Word Gulch is Further Clarified

When I lived in Boston, I used to get a lot of bizarre questions about growing up in Montana. Do you have streets? Did you ride a horse to school? Do you know John? While Helena, my hometown, is hardly a metropolis, it is one of the bigger cities in Montana. Thus, it always annoyed me when I had to answer these questions. Yes, we had streets and more and more of them were paved every year. No, I never rode a horse to school but I did cross-country ski there a few times. And, yes, I know John. Everybody knows John.

Helena started as a little mining town on Last Chance Gulch (where the name of this blog comes from) and quickly grew into one of the richest cities in the world. While its glory days are long gone, there are still a lot of surprising things to find and do there.

When I started writing my own travel guide, I guess it was only natural that I’d eventually include my hometown in there. While MTV probably won’t be hosting Spring Break Helena anytime soon, my hometown has its share of attractions and wonders and I’m happy to list some of my favorites on my Helena Guide. Helena's a bit off the beaten path, but I’ve found that most of the places worth visiting are. Just ask John. I’m sure he’d agree.

In Which I Hope These Pictures Stand for the Last 3,000 Words I Have Not Written

My recent trip to Montana for the holidays was, well, what any holiday trip should be: sort of lazy. Thus instead of actually writing anything, I present these pictures I took while in Montana: on the right is Big Medicine, a rare white (and rather dead) buffalo that lives at the Montana Historical Society in Helena - more info on him can be found at the bottom of this page. On the right, is a photo of a big horn sheep that I took down in the Paradise Valley, about 10 miles north of Gardiner. Finally, in the center is a rather indisposed deer that was hanging out in my parents' yard.

I'll soon be returning to my semi-unregular writing schedule as well as posting a few more Montana pictures on the Paseos Photoblog.