An opening was suddenly available on Flathead Lake and I eagerly paid 18 bucks to the state to reserve a tent site next to the water. I, and what seemed like a gazillion other Americans were online looking for lake-side camping or reserved vehicle access into Glacier National Park.
The sun rose far north of east and brightened the kitchen table. I pulled the curtain closed in a vain attempt to keep the daily heat out of the farm house. By afternoon the heat would become unbearable outside and we’d seek work in the shade.
The pileated had been banging its head on the telephone pole over weeks. Its call changed tone when it drilled the metal rails on the neighboring pole as the woodpecker’s drumming permeated the thick morning air of the farm.
Off farm, a seasonal Flathead economy roared into its summertime on-position as the number of people who don’t have to go to work every day vastly outnumber the locals who serve the tourists. It’s a living. A good one for many in a western valley modernized to very expensive.
Every visiting person falls in love with Montana. A lot return. A lot buy in. That rural Montana way of life is attractive to an entire nation it seems. It’s been a long time coming, years of advertising, millions of taxpayer dollars spent promoting the Great Outdoors to metropolitans who seek online permission to traverse the Park in cars. The pandemic rush accelerated the allure of rural America to urbanites.
Montana employs over 30 full-time workers within its commerce department promoting the brand statewide, luring more tourists to open their fat wallets for our local small towns. Whatever promoters are doing seems successful from a business perspective. I recall when the valley was poor. Today’s roads and campgrounds are full-up as summertime visitation strains the local infrastructure of roads and police, water and sewer, housing and parks.
The people who live in Montana year-round gotta earn a living. Retirees gotta pay the bills. No free rides. No matter how hot the day or cold the night, the work needs to get done, I thought. I recalled back to my youth helping at the local coffee roaster and how R.C. would turn on the fans to fend off the heat that grew upstairs in the old home that he’d painstakingly converted into a nationwide roastery.
I closed my windows, left open from the prior cool night, and shut more curtains to block the sun. The fans still circulated the morning air through the farmhouse. By evening time, indoor temperatures would be higher.
Outside, morning was calling. Birds had been up for hours and the heat steady. The online weather man says that cool, wet was headed our way just in time for the first day of summer. Cool or wet doesn’t bother locals. Locals know how to dress for all sorts of weather.
I thought about my morning chores. The work that still needed to be done during this fraught time in American history. What a time to be an American. The privileges, the obligations, the opportunities and sacrifices of so many before us made it possible to live in freedom today. I was lucky, grew up during the best of America. The upcoming generation deserves the same opportunities.
It took much collaboration, decades of locals to build a world class trail system in the Flathead. Hundreds of locals worked to protect thousands of acres of the Flathead for future generations. There’s no shortcut, no my-way-or-the-highway. Maximalists and ultimatums turn people off.
We’re in this together. You know it. Your neighbor knows it. Everyone knows we gotta compromise. The only folks who disagree with compromise are status quo politicians or their ardent surrogates. Politics seems to be working rather well for some, the few yet fortunate. From a farmer’s perspective, society seems to works better when we focus on the things held in common. Basics like jobs, schools, healthcare, and public lands.
With turmoil in the streets and ruckus on social media it’s easy to see why many Montanans seek change, better leadership that believes in the power of people, a need for good jobs and small business. Everything just costs way too much and the status quo team simply don’t care.
Throw the bums out seems appropriate as I recalled how independent candidate Ross Perot said 30 years earlier that he wanted a tough crowd, with shovels in their hands, cleaning out the barn with him, until the problem is fixed.
I focused on work, snapping scapes off the garlic. The drum of the pileated returned. The morning was hot now. The weather man had promised rain over the upcoming days. He always promises rain but delivers little, I reminded myself. Or maybe the weather man got fired and AI is running the show. I hope for a gentle inch or two of rain on the farm.