Blue Highways: Browning, Montana

Unfolding the Map

Rolling into Browning, Montana, William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) comments on the number of crosses marking car accidents he sees on the reservation.  If you care to reflect with me a little, I will write a bit on alcohol and alcoholism and its effects - something I'm acquainted with very personally.  Be sure to check out Browning on the map.

Book Quote

"The state of Montana had marked spots of fatal car crashes with small, pole-mounted steel crosses: one cross for every death.  Along the highway, as it traversed the Blackfeet reservation, the little white crosses piled up like tumbleweed: a single, a pair, a triple, a half dozen, a group of nine.  What began as an automobile safety campaign, the blackfoot - once among the best of Indian horsemen - had turned into roadside shrines by wiring on plastic flowers.  Somebody later told me the abundance of crosses around the reservation was 'proof' of chronic alcoholism.

"The reservation town of Browning, unlike Hopi or Navajo settlements, was pure U.S.A.: and old hamburger stand of poured concrete in the shape of a tepee but now replaced by the Whoopie Burger drive-in, the Warbonnet Lodge motel, a Radio Shack, a Tastee-Freez.  East of town I read a historical marker that said the Blackfeet had 'jealously preserved their tribal customs and traditions.'  Render therefore unto Caucasians the things which be Caucasian."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 4

Downtown Browning, Montana. Image by Robinsoncrusoe and seen at Wikipedia. Click on photo to go to host page.

Browning, Montana

One thing that has been apparent to me in the past few years is the proliferation of roadside shrines to those who have died in car-related accidents.  In New Mexico, where I live, you see these shrines all over the place, as lovingly tended by heart-broken family members and friends as grave markers.  Lately, a new type of marker has sprung up in my state - the "Ghost Bicycle."  These representations of bicycles mark a place where a bicyclist was killed by a car.

In New Mexico, we are no strangers to drunk driving.  It is the stuff of horror on the front page of our newspapers when we read about somebody driving while intoxicated, entering a freeway at high speed on the wrong side, and plowing headlong into a car or van or pickup.  It causes us to be angry at the ineffectiveness of our state government and our justice system when we read that a guy with 15 previous arrests for DWI has been picked up yet again after being pulled over by police.

It even serves as the butt of macabre jokes in our state.  Steven Michael Quezada, who is a New Mexico comedian and talk-show host and who also is a regular actor on the hit television series Breaking Bad, told a joke at an event I attended about how jet airplanes, instead of dropping an oxygen mask out of the ceiling in times of crisis, should drop a bottle of tequila instead.  After all, said Quezada, "we're from New Mexico.  We all know it's the drunks who survive the crashes."

One reason that LHM's quote hits home is that I live in a state with many Native Americans who live on pueblos and reservations.  The past history of white relations with natives, the vagaries of biology, and perpetual economic crises in Native areas have teamed up in my state and in others, like Montana, where there are native populations to create a high incidence of alcoholism.  In New Mexico, where there are lots of wide open spaces and where people have to drive long distances, especially on reservations, the chances of choosing not to drive after a longer-than-expected solo trip to the bar are much less than in a city, where one can call a taxi or take public transportation.

I don't want to give the impression that it's just native peoples in my state who suffer from the effects of alcohol.  Alcohol cuts across lines of ethnicity, gender and class.  Plenty of people from all walks of life have run into problems with alcohol and driving.  I was just talking to a friend who related the story of a person he knows who made a bad choice of having a couple of wines while on cold medicine and driving home.  She was pulled over and now faces criminal penalties, financial hardship, lawyer fees, higher insurance costs, and probation.  I too have known people who make a bad decision and have paid for it.  Nor do I have any sense of superiority over this issue.  When I was younger, it could have easily happened to me and probably should have on a couple of occasions.

It also hits home to me because I grew up in a family dominated by alcoholism.  My father's habit was to come home from work around 6:00 pm.  On bad nights he had already been to the bar.  My sister recalls watching him drive through our wooden gate as if it wasn't there after having had a few at our local bowling alley.  Once home, he would take a tall glass, put 5-6 ice cubes in it, fill the glass three-quarters of the way to the top with Early Times whiskey, and then top it off with water.  He did this 2-3 times a night.  On good nights for my sisters and I, he would pass out in his chair.  On bad nights, he would try to engage us in conversation.  On really bad nights he would molest me if my mother wasn't home.  I can remember him grabbing his gun to hunt after a few drinks and having to take his gun from him because he was so unsteady I was afraid that he might fall and accidentally shoot himself or me.  I can remember being in his truck as he drove intoxicated and wondering if I would make it home.  I really sometimes wonder how I survived my childhood.

You'd think after dealing with that in my childhood that I'd be a teetotaler.  You'd think that I'd give up alcohol after also learning that my biological father (my father that I write of above was my adoptive father) was an alcoholic whose death was likely caused by years of drinking.  I've weighed these things over in my mind especially wondering if there is a genetic trait.  Yet my own relationship to alcohol has been complicated.  I like a good crafted beer like an IPA with my dinner even as I deplore what alcohol has done to people I know and love.  I love a good glass of wine, especially a meaty red, once in a while.  Occasionally, I'll have a little hard liquor like a good Irish whiskey (my wife's dad's favorite sure to be served this upcoming holiday), a good sipping tequila, or a smooth Kentucky bourbon.  Once in awhile if I'm feeling safe I'll even allow myself to be a little intoxicated. 

I guess I treat alcohol like a partly feral cat, similar to one that I grew up with and which seems to be a metaphor in my life.  This cat, ironically named Sweetie, would rub up against me and purr her invitation to pet and rub her.  She seemed to enjoy the petting, until with no notice she would turn, hiss and slash my arm with her claws and run.  I've decided that it is best to treat anything or anyone that seems so inviting, so enjoyable and promises pleasure and euphoria with a bit of healthy skepticism and take small doses.  If I get too involved and get slashed and hurt, well, I have nobody else to blame because I know full well the consequences.  We all know that such pleasures, like alcohol, can mess you up and make you dependent, addicted and can ultimately ruin your life if you let them.  The key for me, and one that I've normally been very good at, is to be very aware of my limits, and never cross them.

Musical Interlude

I'm going to give you a rare double shot of music, Littourati.  I have a song in my collection by the Barenaked Ladies, Alcohol from their album Stunt, which sounds like a fun, upbeat party song but if you read the lyrics it shows the complication and sadness that comes with alcohol.  The second is a more straight up song that could be about any addiction by Metallica.  While I never completely jumped on the Metallica bandwagon, their brand of heavy metal was very hard driving and very profound which is why they are considered so highly by their fans.  This song I've included is called Sad but True from their album Metallica.

If you want to know more about Browning

Blackfeet Community College
Blackfeet Nation
Browning Chamber of Commerce
Town of Browning
Wikipedia: Browning

Next up: Cut Bank, Montana

Blue Highways: Klickitat, Washington

Unfolding the Map

We join William Least Heat-Moon for a barbecue with the three hang-gliders in Klickitat, Washington.  Hang-gliding is described as an addiction to risk, to put it all on the line, but to not push the envelope too far.  Sound familiarly like keeping things in balance?  I explore a little from my own experience why it seems that people from small towns might take more risks.  To locate Klickitat, fly to the map!

Book Quote

"Alba Bartholomew lived in Klickitat, a company town of seven hundred in the narrow vale of the Klickitat River.  His little frame house was like the others on the street except for the windsock blowing on the roof.  He worked at the St. Regis sawmill, where he ran a stacker.  It wasn't the most interesting of jobs.  The mill got much of its timber from the Yakima Reservation twelve miles north.  St. Regis was the reason for Klickitat, and when the Yakima's big ponderosa were gone, people feared the company would pull out and Klickitat would go the way of Liberty Bond.

"'....I think the real answer to why we fly is because it's addictive.  It's a buzz to put everything on the line.  Whenever we go up, we're subconsciously asking the most important question in the world - asking it real loud - 'Is this the day I die?'"

Blue Highways: Part 6, Chapter 8

Klickitat, Washington welcome sign. Photo by a Klickitat resident and in the public domain on Wikimedia Commons. Click on photo to go to site.

Klickitat, Washington

I'm making a little bit of a correlation in this post.  As I learned in my statistics classes, correlation is not causation.  However, one can make a few intriguing suggestions about how things may work through examining correlations.

My correlation, which I am highlighting with my pairing of the two quotes above, might or might not be apparent.  This chapter of Blue Highways is all about three guys who hang-glide.  LHM sees them, meets them, and is invited to the home of one in Klickitat to talk more about hang-gliding. I find it very interesting that LHM describes the town of Klickitat as small and with nothing much besides a dependency on a lumber mill which, if his words are any indication, may close down in some unknown but not too far off future.  (Note: the lumber mill has been closed since 1994)

Just a few paragraphs down the page, one of the hang-gliding guys talks about flying as an addiction, and the thrill of risking oneself to the point of questioning whether the risk will be the last action one ever takes.

It all makes me wonder whether there is truly a correlation between two things exemplified in these paragraphs.  Might living in a small, out of the way, dependent town, lead one to be more open to risk?

Now wait a minute, you might say.  Small towns are often a bastion of conservative values.  People in small towns may live there because there is less risk.  There is often less crime, for instance, and the closeness of small communities often shield its members from other types of risk.  I wouldn't disagree.  After all, I lived in a small town that was remarkably free of issues that plagued more populated areas.

But I wouldn't necessarily agree either.  In my small town, there was little crime, but there also were people who we considered "characters" who might have been locked up in other places.  We didn't have gangs, but we did have families with reputations as fighters who'd just as soon hit you as look at you.

I've argued before, however, that as peaceful, friendly, folksy and pastoral small towns can seem and feel, they often have a dark and sometimes violent undercurrent that is less apparent than it might be in cities.  Small towns can be dark, dysfunctional places, where alcoholism, drugs, and abuse of the emotional, physical and sexual varieties are revealed if someone cares to pull back the curtains hiding them.  I wouldn't trade my small town childhood for anything, because it taught me about the best and the worst that humanity offered.

In isolated small communities, is it any wonder that someone might find risk and danger compelling?  One interesting fact that may support my argument is that small towns and rural areas are overrepresented in the US military.  In 2005, the Heritage Foundation examined U.S. Census data and found that rural areas are overrepresented in the military as compared to urban areas.  While there are most likely many factors that contribute to this statistic, including that rural areas tend to be poorer with less opportunities for employment of young people than urban areas and that there is a higher percentage of conservative-minded people who may view military service in a patriotic sense, I also think that a desire to undertake risk as a way to break free of convention might serve as an additional motivating factor.  The desires that drive young people in cities to gather at Occupy protests currently around the country, to assert themselves in a cause that they can rally around and believe in with like minded people in a structured way, may also come from the same psychological place that encourages young people in rural areas to join the military and do service.  Both choices offer a set of risks and rewards.

When I lived in a rural area, there always seemed to be a number of young people who were always willing to risk.  You probably find the same thing in cities but in small towns it stands out a lot more.  These were kids who were on the forefront of experimenting with drugs, alcohol and sex.  Of course, a lot of us did those things, but small town kids always seemed to take it one step farther.  Some of them paid dearly for their risk-taking.  Alcohol maimed and took the lives of more than one young man and woman when it was mixed with driving.  Somehow, rural areas the loss of someone young is extremely tragic because it is so noticeable, so out in the open, and the grief of parents is on display and not lost or buried in a newspaper column in the back page - it is most likely going to be on the front page of the local paper.

Despite the tragedies, we teens in small towns still too risks.  Why?  Because there was little to do in a small town on the Northern California coast, just as there was little to do after hours in a midwestern plains town, or a town in the South, or a small mountain town.  We took risks because we were young, we wanted to impress the girls/boys, and we wanted to feel like we were in control of our own destinies.  We wanted to feel like we were making our own decisions, even if they were bad decisions.

Today, as an adult of 47, I understand better the idea of risk and reward.  I could, if I wanted to, take hang-gliding lessons which would be a somewhat dangerous but understandable way of taking a risk.  I could do a parachute jump.  I could get a motorcycle to ride the open road or devote my time to mountain climbing or spelunking.  All of these are dangerous but they are considered hobbies that involve an adult's choice.  In those activities, I might still catch a little of the thrill I got by stepping outside the boundaries imposed on me as a teenager.  After all, when all is said and done, humans don't really belong in the sky any more than they belong on a speeding piece of open machinery on an asphalt road or rapelling down into the bowels of the earth.  We do it to push the envelope, to test our limits.  No matter what, we are always like children in that very few of us can ever leave anything just as it is and be content.

Musical Interlude

What's the opposite of taking risks?  Why, it's never doing anything.  As is usual, we find in LHM's travels and quotes that life is a balance, this time between risk and safety.  It's neither good to be a total risk taker.  But, as the Barenaked Ladies point out in their song Never Do Anything, neither is it healthy to never risk nor accomplish anything.

If you want to know more about Klickitat

Klickitat Horizons Community Blog
Klickitat Mineral Springs
Wikipedia: Klickitat

Next up: Dallesport, Washington