That old-timer looked me square in the eyes and said that I got two ears and one mouth, better use them wisely. The guidance was clear. Listen more. Be upfront and treat locals with respect. Listening and in-person townhalls are all but forgotten in modern politics. Rich and status-quo politicians assume they know best what it’s like to be a working person, suddenly living in the most unaffordable state in the nation.
Two crows cawed above as they henpecked the osprey. One cartwheeled in midair as it dive-bombed the bird of prey. The osprey moved steadily over the airspace of the farm. It wanted nothing to do with the pestering birds. It threatened one with talons. The air clear, crisp. Sound traveled far. They vanished over the tree line.
D.C. politicians keep repealing rural funding for services like assisted living and healthcare, shuttering clinics, defunding public radio and public television. D.C. don’t hear good, clearly not listening to locals. All the locals I hear from care about real life stuff like public education, day care for the kids, or being able to afford to live in a home. How much stuff costs matters. It’s the basics.
The cool morning air saturated my lungs. It felt good. Temperatures had dipped into the high thirties last evening. It was July. It felt like a season signaling change. Town was full. The tourists with fat wallets were abundant. Everywhere was a scurry to capture the last of summer.
Valley traffic has backed up for miles in and out of town at rush hour. Hordes of music lovers wore festive outfits throughout the valley, lots of boots and cowboy hats. There was money to be made and local business knew it. Summertime was bread-and-butter months. Soon the cold air of fall would arrive, the dollars depart, and kids head back to public school.
When I was a kid, the old backwoodsmen patiently reexplained why the cribs needed to be stacked level. Otherwise, the barn would collapse as we replaced the old maple sill beams which had rotted over the past hundred years of sitting on granite blocks.
We cranked the screw jacks and lifted the barn wall, slowly. The old-timer knew how to do the work. He’d worked his entire life and here he was at the end part of life, working more and explaining. His sentences short. I tried not to talk, but listen and do the work best I could.
Last week as I drove to Missoula for the inspirational memorial of Pat Williams, Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling played on the car radio. It was the 1940s and Louise White Elk was hiding in the woods with Babtiste Yellow Knife as tribal officer Charlie Kicking Woman was looking to return her back to another boarding house.
Hundreds attended the memorial. The late Congressman made a big difference in the lives of many people across Montana and America. He had listened. Always listened. Acted with courage. Put the interest of working people first. Took the time to care.
Williams conserved hundreds of thousands of acres of public land in America during his time in Congress. He accomplished big things like start funding tribal colleges across the state, created the Conservation Corps, boosted minimum wages for workers and enacted family and medical leave policies across America. One man listened. A family backed him. A community trusted him.
Driving back to the farm, I thought about how vastly different Congress acts today than just decades earlier. Today, Congressmen act scared. Unconcerned with voters, they never hold in-person townhalls to listen to anyone but lobbyist or big money donors. Politicians are scared of losing power. As if power was their key to life and happiness.
Whatever they did in D.C. and Helena made Montana the least affordable state in the nation. Those in charge don’t seem to give a damn about workers or where a family might live. Life in the Flathead is now less affordable than living in many urban cities across the nation. It’s nuts. Bunch of boneheads, care little about working family. Clearly politicians don’t listen.
Today’s Congress is obsessed with defunding healthcare, shuttering public broadcasting services like NPR and PBS, which are literal lifeboats in rural America, and closing Tribal Colleges across the state by repealing education dollars from public schools.
Listening is key. Politicians today only come around when it’s time to vote. Gotta fish a bit further from the boat, I reminded myself as if anyone was listening. Politicians should really get out and meet the people. Sure, not everyone agrees on everything. We can do better. Most everyone living here loves our state, believes in family, and wants to do better even if status-quo leadership won’t help a working person.
Back on the farmstead, I did the evening chores. A pair of pileateds silently glided above. I imagined one was the woodpecker that had been incessantly banging its beak over the last month on the old telephone pole that was likely installed during the rural electrification days of Montana. I smiled. It was a good day. I had learned new things, got to talk with old friends.