Saturday 6th June 2009 – Cold, Cowardice and Catfish

The weather warnings are threatening snow.  There is much talk of summer being over, and it's not entirely clear that they're joking.  Last week it was in the 90's, now it's almost freezing.  Nobody expects the green to last too long.  Humidity is not the problem here, it's the wind and the chill factor.

I had wangled my way into a fishing team: I was going to spend most of the evening out on the Milk River watching the Catfish Contest.  But my courage failed me.  It wasn't just the cold, it was the mud.  The Milk River got its name from Lewis and Clark thinking it was pouring into the Missouri like milky tea.  Everyone had been telling me that I needed to kit myself out properly to spend a day on the bank.  "You wait till the weigh-in", they said, "there'll be a lot of very muddy people there". 

So when I woke up and found a cold day, I decided that uploading and reviewing video, audio and photo files was a pressing task.

 

It was sufficiently cold to hold the weigh-in indoors.  I had to walk about a mile to get there.  I could easily have got a lift, but, as usual, I had misunderstood the instructions and thought it was just a few blocks away.  So I had to walk, in the cold.

When I got there, I couldn't find my team.  Asking after them, I was pointed at the stage: they were winning.  As the weigh-in progresses, the current winners have to sit on stage until they are displaced.  My team, who had only cost $90 in the Calcutta, had caught 13.7 lbs of catfish.  The Calcutta winner was going to get about $5000 dollars: I should have bid for them.

The teams keep the fish alive in giant cold boxes, which are set out in front, waiting to be weighed.  They are dumped into a crate and weighed, then tagged to keep track of them and dumped back into big aerated tanks.  They will be returned to the river tomorrow.  Teams who caught already-tagged fish had to record where they caught them.

It was generally felt that I had no chance of winning.  "There's some big hogs out there", they said, talking of the fish still to be weighed.  And there were.  Some fish weighed more than 10 pounds.  Catfish are particularly ugly.  Their ugliness seems to be a function of their size: really, really big catfish are really, really ugly.

When a team had caught a big fish it was weighed separately, after the total catch had been weighed, then there was a lot of holding it up to be photographed.  I thought it a bit cruel to keep them out of the water so long.  "Don't worry", I was told, "they're almost impossible to kill".  And when they finally got released into the big tank, they were instantly off, at speed.

I, on the other hand, stuck around, drinking beer.

Friday 5th June 2009 – The Mysterious Piper and a Night in Calcutta

I was trying on some cowboy boots when I started to hear the pipes playing. I assumed it was just the local radio station extending the brand. The local radio station is KLAN on FM and KLTS on AM (or the other way round). They have to start with 'K' because they're in the western USA. The Glasgow station has chosen Scottish identifiers. Then one of the assistants said she just had to go and see what was going on, and it dawned on me that this was live, from outside.

Sorry about the quality of the picture. I only had my phone with me, and I couldn't entirely block the backlight. He's from Circle, MT, and had come to Glasgow for a party. He said he was self-taught, and played because he like the bagpipes. He said he just had to come out for his daily practice, and his wife was hiding in the car. The pipes really have to be played out-of-doors. He said the nearest band was a hundred miles away, and he didn't think he was good enough. He sounded good enough to me. I told him about Glasgow (MT) Octoberfest, when then have the Saskatoon Police Pipe Band down from Canada. He said he would probably come.

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Tomorrow is the Milk River Catfish Classic. Teams of two compete. The first stage of the contest is the 'Calcutta'. I'm sure you all know that the Calcutta Turf Club invented a funny way of betting for its classic Sweepstake, which was a world-wide betting craze before the Irish Hospitals Sweepstake started. Anyway, unlike normal betting, where you bet on any contestant you want, and the bookmaker works out how much of the pool goes to those betting on the winner (which, by-the-way is called 'parimutuel' betting), the Calcutta Club came up with a system where there is only one bet on each contestant. So there has to be an auction, offering each contestant in turn, to see who gets to bet.

This was done with a true American-style auctioneer, and I recorded it so I could offer you a clip. But, much to my surprise, this blogging system makes audio much more difficult than video, and I would have to have a lot of figuring out, some in the HTML I've long forgotten, so you'll just have to imagine it.

All the winning bids go into the pool, and the 'owner' of the winning team gets (I think) 40%, second gets 20%, and so on. Some of the bids were startlingly high. With 60-odd teams competing, the pool ended up at around $12,000!

Oh, and it involved an awful lot of beer.

Thursday 4th June 2009 – Flights of Fancy

Yesterday I was dreaming of having my own train. Today, my horizons have widened: I met a man with a two-plane garage. He took me up for a look round the lake and the dam. He and his neighbours have their own runway. He took me up in his treasured Aeronica Champ, a plane almost as old as me. One of his neighbours offered to take pictures.

The Champ is made mainly of cotton: honest, no kidding – cotton. As you can see, it's a 'tandem' two-seat trainer, and you can see from the occupants (that's me in the back) that it's quite small. What you can't see is that the 'stick', of which there are two, is actually just a stick. It is very lively in the turbulance.

I bet you didn't know aerial photography was difficult. Neither did I. But I do now. I took a lot of footage of struts, and wings, and insides of the windows. It pretty quickly became apparent that I ought to stop taking pictures of what I was doing and start doing it. Which was a good decision.

I've said before that if nobody told you, you'd be hard pushed to see the dam at all, but from the air it's as clear as anything. It was really thrilling, particularly being so low in such a small aeroplane. And pictures of me doing it were ready and waiting on a CD when I landed. I felt like the Queen.

Then we went up to Glasgow to take some pictures there. Glasgow is twenty miles north. On the way up we could see these vast farms, with little groups of buildings in the middle of nowhere. Some of them also had curious circular fields. This is to do with the irrigation method: there is a water source in the middle of the field, connected to a long, wheeled, radial pipe of sprays, which is then driven round at the perimeter.

I had been asked to take a 'cover' photo of Glasgow, which forced me to think about the primitive features of the place. Having circled for some time, it became clear that the picture was the juxtaposition of the meandering Milk River, and the brief coming together of the great Northern Railway and US Highway 2. Again, the camera would insist on focusing on the window, or the window would reflect light, or the air would change density under the wings. Maybe if I practiced I could get good at this aerial photography: or maybe not.

I was as excited as a small boy afterwards. But it hadn't quite ended. We went down to the fabulous Fort Peck Hotel for dinner, and met up with another flyer, who had been out looking for lost cattle. Apparently when the lake freezes, they can get round the fences, and aren't really missed till this time of year. Of course, the ranchers know where they're likely to have gone. He said where he found them, the cowboys would need to be on horseback to drive them out.

Wednesday 3rd June 2009 – Trains and Planes and Meteorologists

The dark forces of the universe have swirled again, and left me without any access to any funds.  I remain steadfastly cheerful: after all, I'm a Brit.  I whistle 'Scotland the Brave' steadfastly.  It is the tune of the High School Fight Song here, so nobody can tell that I'm covering up.  I even spend my last fourteen quarters on the Laundromat.  A chap has to keep up standards.

 

While I'm trying to be brave, and keep up standards, the local weather station decides to put the fear of god into me.  Did you know the temperature here can get over 110 degrees; or drop to minus 70; that it once did this in the same year; they can have hailstones as big as cricket balls; and you can see the hailstone damage from space?  They also used to have the biggest brush fires in the US, till those looneys in California decided to go for the record (actually, in all seriousness, a meteorologist goes to live with the firemen when they have a big fire, because the immediate weather predictions can be life-and-death).

      They asked me about British weather.  In the circumstances, I stiffened my upper lip and denied that we had any weather at all.  Actually, they asked me about European weather.  The two models they run on their prediction computers are the US and Europe, which can predict the future somewhat differently.  So nothing new there.

      They also demonstrated how to launch a weather balloon.  Occasionally the wind is so strong they can hit the fence, which seemed about 100 yards away.  The procedure requires them to check their shoelaces before they let go.  Apparently there is a steak dinner waiting for the first launcher to hit the radar dome.

      It's really cool to be a weather forecaster here.  They were showing me news items from Britain where Bournemouth was going to sue the forecasters for forecasting rain during the holiday weekend.  Apparently this cost Bournemouth millions.  But here, getting the weather right can be a matter of life-and-death.

 

Across the way from the weather station is Glasgow International Airport.  It is not a very busy airport, but in the short time I was there, a helicopter took off, and a small airliner (a Beech 1900) came in.  It was thoughtful of them to put on all this activity just for me.

 

Later that day …  the bar is just opposite the railroad depot, and trains rumble through constantly.  They often have to stop because it is mostly single-track operation, and this is a passing place.  But tonight, a BNSF passenger train stopped.  BNSF is the freight line.  Amtrak is the passenger one.  So I was interested.  The general  opinion in the bar was that it was the "bigwigs".  I went across and asked.  Apparently it was a vice-president and entourage making a line inspection.

         I was really impressed.  From starting the day a penniless immigrant, I had moved on to aspiring to be a meteorologist: really useful; well-respected; and lots of super toys.  But by the end of the day, I was dreaming of owning a railroad: I mean, your own train: how cool is that?

Tuesday 2nd June 2009 – Gunfight at the Valley County Museum

The respectable ladies of the Pioneer Museum of Valley County invited me round for a viewing.  They have everything from an original Assiniboine war bonnet to a T33 jet trainer.  And a whole set of respectable ladies: what more could a man desire?  Well, how about the railroad going through Glasgow?  Yes, they could do that.  And some stuff about the telegraph?  Yes, that, too. 

But the piece-de-resistence for me was the western saloon they had hidden up the back: full sized.  "go on", I said, "you go up that end and slide the glass towards me.  Right: now come through the swing doors and call me out".

"You talkin' to me?"

I've got my Stetson.  I'm losing the battle in my head against buying boots.  Now I can see I need leather chaps and a waistcoat.  Perhaps before I leave Montana I will see the wisdom of a gun.

 

Actually, it was a very civilised museum.  To commemorate the Air Force Base, which was, originally, an Air Defence (fighter) base, they had a full-sized jet fighter trainer outside.  Strategic Air Command was not represented, but a dirty great B52 might have been a bit much.

They had a lot of stuff about the Railroad, and the naming of the town, but nothing that clarified the issue.  The truth, if it exists in documented form at all, will be found in the archives of the St Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad company records back in St Paul Minnesota.

The natural history section boasted an original Charles Russell watercolour (the wildlife park round the Fort Peck Lake is named for him).  It involved a complicated joke about Shakespeare plays, and had belonged lo a local lady involved in the original joke.

I was shown round by the President of the Museum, who had a great interest in, and knowledge of, the artefacts of the local native tribes.  It was she who told me the blood-thirsty history of the war bonnet.

I, myself, was much taken by the telegraph morse keys.  I wanted to listen to the President on her favourite subject: after all, she had been kind enough to play the Lady Known as Lou to my Dangerous Dan Magrew.  But I couldn't help the sidelong glances at the telegraph keys.  One, in particular, was not the 'press-release' type we all see in films, but the slick, fast, thumb-operated side-to-side kind used by the fastest operators.  I have been having a look on the internet, and it occurs to me that it might actually be an original vibroflex, which one website claimed would be quite valuable now.

Question is: should I go back and get them to check it out, or will that reveal that I wasn't paying the best of attention?

Monday 1st June – The Mayor, the Police, and a Ghost Town

At the big party, the Chief of Police invited me round to visit.  He has a very small complement of eight officers, and with some on leave, he was clearly having a very busy time.  We talked very briefly about co-ordinating with all the other agencies which have jurisdiction around here.  The way he explained it, it seemed quite straightforward, but I bet it isn't.

 

I saw him again later at the city council meeting.  There are six councilmen, and the mayor.  The council chamber is a room directly off the floor of the sports hall which is the Civic Centre.  I was thrilled to see the mayor had put the Glasgow, Scotland banner on the wall.  He made a little presentation of a set of pictures of old Glasgow, and a Scotties cap for me and The Lord Provost. 

He had promised a brief meeting, and so it was.  It was relatively informal, as you would expect with a council that size.

 There were two items which are clearly difficult, one to do with the rebuilding of the Milk River dyke, which has the council stuck between a rock and a hard place, with the Corps of Engineers demanding a particular actions, and the frontagers wanting to maintain their apparent rights (I say 'apparent' to gloss over where the core of the difficulty lies).  And, hovering in the background, the Federal Emergency Management Agency threatening not to help in a flood (which, in turn, means insurance companies won't offer cover). 

Although the Corps of Engineers is obviously a accountable agency, just like the others, it seems to have acquired a god-like status, a bit like our own dear BBC.   Of course the Corps are not going to sort out the frontagers: the poor old council is going to have to take the stick for that.

The second item seemed to be about covering 'lagoons', so I guess it was about sewage.  The Mayor was for going, mob-handed, to Helena (the State Capital) to confront the contractors.  There was some talk of saving costs by using video-conferencing, but I think the Mayor wanted to see the whites of their eyes.  One of the advantages of a council this size is that they can all fit into one small aeroplane.

 

In between these two meetings, I went to see the old air base.  The US Air Force used to have a huge base here.  Strangely, it seems to be about 15 miles north, in a place called St Marie.  There were road signs to point the way, but my satnav denied the existence of 'St Marie'.

It is a full-sized town, with almost nobody there.  The actual base is now maintained for test purposes by a subsidiary of Boeing, so the hangers are in good condition, dark and ominous, with "Keep Out" signs all around, but the town is simply going back to nature.  I bumped my way through empty broken streets, seeing only the occasional occupied house.  I saw a man forlornly mowing the street.  I couldn't bring myself to ask him why he was doing it.  It might have been part of some surreal theatre.

I couldn't bring myself to take any pictures either, and I'm not sure why that was.  Maybe it was because it all seemed just so sad.

I found out afterwards that, when the base closed, someone bought it, and renamed it "St Marie".  But they never managed to create a reason for people to buy the houses.  So it gradually just faded away.  Two weeks out west, and already I've seen my first ghost town.

Sunday 31st May 2009 – Safety in Small Numbers

I may have left the impression that I got helplessly drunk last night: well, as drunk as it is possible for a dedicated beer drinker to get.  It's true: I did get drunk, but not helplessly.  It is hard to imagine a safer place.  The Sheriff was there; the Chief of Police was there; a proby US Marshal from Alabama was there.  For all I know, some Fish and Game Rangers were there, and life round here doesn't come much safer than them.

I once, in a previous life, had so much to drink that I fell over in the churchyard on the way home.  But it was in that part of the churchyard where the graves slope gently up to waist height, and was more of a comfortable roll than a fall.  I'm old enough to know where I'm safe.

And here, a month into rural America, I knew it was safe enough to get that drunk.  Which is quite a compliment to this small community.  I knew they'd put me on the bus.  I knew the bus driver would see me home.

And so they did. 

They even opened my favourite bar the following lunchtime, and staffed it with my favourite barmaid, hair-of-the-horse at the ready: with a clan of commiserators there for the same reason.

What you might call 'deliverance'!