Every small town in this part of the world has its local “festival” which presumably is based on its identity: origins, economy, or product. Valier chooses to be “Homesteaders,” though much of the rest of the time they try to capitalize on the irrigation reservoir called “Lake Francis” to establish Valier as a fishing resort, from boats in summer or through ice in winter. (They put the fish IN and then catch the fish OUT. This is not fancy fly fishing.) Nothing could be farther apart than dryland homesteads, the most ascetic and risky of enterprises, and water-based resorts, which depend on people with time and money. Whether fishing or jet-skiing, water recreation is pretty pricey. This is gumbo country: no lolling on a sandy beach. However, we have an abundance of sun and wind.
The inevitable parade forms mostly in front of my house. The way one manages a parade is to assign the main street to the floats because they are the biggest and sort of the backbone of the theme. They organize themselves in a line, first-come, first-serve -- though humans like repetition and some entities will like to be first or last, etc. There are generally prizes for the best floats. In recent years it has become the practice to throw candy from the floats, though it’s rather dangerous since tots, once they get it into their heads what’s happening, will rush out to snatch candy from almost under the wheels of the vehicles, mostly big flatbed trailers or trucks with low visibility. This year someone threw out chocolate, which the sun soon dissolved. Either they were not thinking or desperate to get rid of the last Halloween or Easter candy so as to make more room in the freezer for fish.
The antique car show, which now includes the cars of MY youth, the Forties and Fifties, line up on a side street, and so do the horse entries, though there have been many fewer lately. Alas! These are my favorites, esp. the fine big black team from Dupuyer or the Belgian teams that compete in plowing contests.
Then the parade marshal, who normally runs Curry’s Groceries, stands at the intersection and waves forward a float (usually sponsored by a local business), then a fancy car one of which carries the parade marshall (who was at first an original homesteader but now is one of their ancient children), and then maybe a rancher with a small escort of grandchildren who talked him into riding. There hasn’t been a marching band since I moved here in 1999. Normally there is a contingent of Shriners in their flowerpot hats and their teeny runabouts, but the main Shriner of this town has moved to Conrad.
After the parade everyone repairs to the Town Park to eat gourmet roast beef sandwiches, inspect the fancy cars, and maybe cruise among the half-dozen tables with wares to sell. This year I took my bio of Bob, Bronze Inside and Out, and some copies of “Sweetgrass and Cottonwood Smoke” over in my rollaround foot locker, which doubles as a seat. I put the Hagmann quilt over my mother’s old card table and the quilt attracted as much interest as the books. This is quilting country and they know quality when they see it.
Valier is growing, rather uncomfortably, with newly built houses, empty houses sold to outsiders, and many labor renters because of the border patrol, homeland security, a new wind farm, and a beginning transmission line. The bursting of the housing bubble has only hit us glancingly -- Michel has not returned from Florida to tend his “flip” houses. The impact comes with aging infrastructure and conflicting community standards. The mayor -- totally ignoring the train wreck on the back of my block (feral dog, lost man, derelict trailer, shoulder-height grass) -- touts us as Mayberry, USA. The cops report covertly that there is a huge local drug problem among the 20-to-50 year old marginal men -- NOT the teens so much, though they hang around the outside of the circle. Our water system is collapsing. The airport is possibly creating a plume of contamination.
But on a festival day, all that is forgotten and everyone comes to walk in the park. It was a scene worthy of Seurat though I saw no parasols, bustles or top hats. Dappled shade interrupted the pointillist sun-flood on newly cut grass and everyone had permission to visit. Among the surprising people I met were:
1. A retired Blackfeet teacher from Heart Butte who bought a house here and has discovered that some lots in Valier are technically part of tribal land, originally alloted to Blackfeet individuals. If he can get this certified and recognized, he can run for the Tribal Council (council members must live on the reservation) and will qualify for some federal advantages.
2. A border patrolman and his wife who have built a new house at the east edge of town in a field where they have the advantage of being rural on one side and village on the other.
3. An artist’s wife of considerable style, whose artist husband is disabled but still manages to cast his own bronzes in Bynum where their primary home is. They bought a small A-frame here, originally built as a bachelor pad for a divorced man so he could live close to his children as they grew up. They think of it as their “cabin,” a sort of second home. (Lots of people would happily live in Bynum, which is actually closer to the mountains and the higher society of Choteau.) Their view was a buffer field of grass and the wife grieved when it was cut for hay. I get the impression these people are not from Montana.
4. Emerald (Beep) Grant and his wife, Thedis, are Blackfeet and “into” books. “A member of the Blackfeet Tribe and a historian, Thedis Berthelson Crowe provides an indigenous perspective of the Blackfoot Lodge Tales in her new introduction to this edition. Her great-great grandfather, William Russell, served as the Blackfoot interpreter for Grinnell.” (From the U of Nebrasla Press catalogue) She has a degree in history from U of Montana. Beep is interested in writing, but unsure how to begin. I told him I’d like to do some workshops in Browning, both about actual writing strategies and about how to use the Print on Demand websites, like Lulu.com. I was very encouraged that he seemed to like the idea.
5. The sheriff’s father-in-law took some time to explain his health strategies to me. He calls them “doctoring” and recommends naturopathy and chiropractors. But one of his main techniques is to rub white iodine onto his bald head! He whipped off his straw cowboy hat to show me how to do it. (He’s probably right that we all have iodine deficiencies since we’re far from the ocean. Both my South Dakota grandmother and Charlie Russell suffered from goiter.) He also had a little dispenser of Ph detecting tape in his pocket and tore me off a tab to wet with spit and then compare to a little color chart on the side of the dispenser. His diagnosis was that I need more calcium. (I thought maybe more spit would have done the job.)
Most interesting was watching the sets of age cohort kids. Older teens had managed to scorn the events, but there were sack races and raw egg tossing for little guys. A set of “tweens” lit near me to eat together and I shamelessly eavesdropped. The boys were still children, spraying silly string on each other and happy to have had dayglo (washable) paint thrown on their heads. The girls were just dipping their flip-flopped toes (ahem) into sex. I was fascinated by the interaction between one very skinny (except for her budding chest) Julia Roberts clone with a grin even wider than is currently admired in Hollywood and an older, heavier girl destined to run a family and convinced that she already knew how the world should be. Her ferocious mixture of adult quips, scornful wisdom, dire threats, and abrupt blows both fascinated and subdued the boys.
But the skinny girl wanted to talk sex: who was “hot,” who was “with” whom, just how far a girl should go, and other indiscretions, following the Mater around insisting that she respond. Hard to know whether she was boasting or begging for advice. Maybe that was the whole theme of the festival under the surface of a glorious day.
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