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Day 1 |
Probing America: High Tech on Back Roads Day Three Butte, Montana, to Billings, Montana June 26, 1992
Here we are, high atop the flat lands of Billings with a stunning view of the Conoco refinery from our eleventh floor Sheraton Hotel room. The scenery from Butte to Billings is fantastic. One may think that "Big Sky" is corny, but there is no question that it is right on! Just spectacular, and this morning whoever is in charge threw in a little lighting for good measure. There is, even for some world travelers, a slight tingle as the car passes under the freeway sign declaring the particular spot to be the "Continental Divide". We could hardly wait for a river to see if it was true. Midway between horrible Butte and smelly Billings (the refinery has a tall stack which belches fire and farts gas) is Bozeman, where Montana State University rests. The population number about 27,000 without students, and is clean, neat, full of nice shops and eating places. Just as a college town should be. We expected to see Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland Judy come skipping down across the quad on their way to visit Judge Hardy. We walked for nearly an hour, through the small downtown section with many buildings dating from the late 1890s, to an old well maintained neighborhood, on through to the campus. The campus was clean, as noted, as were the students. Unbelievable, for anyone conditioned on west coast institutions of higher education in a post hip culture.
About the only civilization observable between Bozeman and Billings is the small town of Big Timber. When the sandwich shop lady in Bozeman suggested it for lunch, one of us thought it would be something akin to the Nut Tree north of San Francisco. No, it is a small Montana town. We ate at the Grand Hotel, and it is. Very restored. Very nice, in spite of the fact that the dominating wall piece is the head of a huge, slobbering steer noted to be the head steer of the 1989 great Montana cattle run. The waitress filled in local details. She raises sheep, her husband is a private land appraiser. They chose Big Timber. We asked her where she grew up. She said everywhere, and we responded knowingly, "Army brat"? "Exon brat", she replied. Her two sons, aged about 9 and 10 moseyed into the bar of the hotel while we were eating, and she asked what was up, and they said they were going home to fix lunch, and she said climb up on a stool and eat here. They did and we observed a parent who has this marvelous ability to interact with kids about their concerns, (in this case their team's baseball game which had been rescheduled for the ridiculous hour of 8:00 AM) in one breath totally agreeing that they had been done wrong and it was unfair, and in the next convincing them that the early morning hour was probably to their team's advantage. We liked this waitress so well and she seemed so savvy, we decided to pop the big question, "How is this town going: for Bush, Clinton, or Perot?" There was absolutely no hesitation when she said, "The whole state of Montana is going to go for Perot!" And that's how that plays in Big Sky Country. This is a busy weekend for Billings. There are several important business conferences in town; the mix of cowboy boots and heavy working boots stands out. Today, tomorrow and Sunday the local (one assumes) descendent of Chief Sitting Bull of the Sioux and General George "Whoop" Armstrong Custer of the US Calvary reenact their encounter on the Little Bighorn Battlefield. Sunday there is the annual Zoo Grass musical in the park, featuring important groups including Three Dog Night and the Marshall Tucker Band. What is really curling people's toes, is tomorrow night's Garth Brook's concert! Fans from as far away as L.A. and Texas are trying to buy tickets, which according to our source, sold out 15 minutes after the ticket agency opened its doors.
Our source is a striking, well different looking, bartender in Jake's, just kitty corner from the Sheraton. We vowed to do a walking tour of Billings, but the heat and boredom of the business district soon won, and we retreated to Jake's for a couple of beers. One was a Bridgeport, which is brewed in Portland, and when we noted same to the blond, she said, "Yeah! I lived there for a while. I graduated from Montana State in television, and I had to go somewhere for opportunities, and so it happened to be Portland." "I modeled with Jerome Kersey and Kevin Duckworth. They are okay. You know the Blazers are my team, have been for four years. Just because they lost to the Chicago Bulls doesn't make any difference. She talked more and then moved on to other customers. She managed to maintain 8 or 9 conversations simultaneously, never slighting anyone. One of us wondered if the Blazer stuff was bullshit. The other said, "No. Absolutely, not. I know about these things." |
