Even before I was told at the beginning of Scotty Zion’s funeral this morning that he and his wife, Claire, were regular attenders at Christ United Methodist Church in Great Falls, I sort of classified him with the Texas Methodists I’ve known. I’m thinking of Jim Bell, who was the minister of the Browning church when I first came and George Harper who was the minister of the Helena church when I started my ministry there. Tall, gangly, slow-speaking, earnest men, they’re Stan Lynde theologians, which means that they figure God is love and God dwells in the land. If you used to read the comic strip “Rick O’Shay,” you’ll know what I mean. Ol’ Hipshot rode his horse out along the mountain ridges on Sunday mornings. Tall, strong and smart, these men look at problems as merely opportunities. Scottie grew up on the lean east slope of the Rockies, and he never saw it as anything but an abundance.
Shorted on a proper classroom education because of a hearing deficit that went undetected until he was in his teens, Scottie ran a construction and house-moving business that operated on his deep understanding of basic physics: the lever, the screw and the wheel. He said, “We like ‘em tough!” and that didn’t mean guys who hung out in bars and got in fights (well, sometimes maybe) -- it meant hard problems to solve.
At one point Bob Scriver wanted to move his entire Museum of Montana Wildlife, the size of three barns, over to the Flathead and asked Scottie if he could do it. The building was constructed in three sections with double walls between so they could be severed with a saw, but taking them across the Rockies would be a feat. The highway is winding and several railroad bridges hang low over the road. But Scottie set to work and figured out strategies, routes and by-passes, spending his own money on the research. It never happened, but that was because Bob -- by then damaged with strokes -- couldn’t make up his mind to do it. He never paid Scottie either. He was four years older than Scottie but died in 1999.
No indecision afflicted Scottie right up to the end. Not only did his life abound with adventures, he wrote about them with vigor and truth, producing the last of four books, “The Sledge Hammer Kid,” just shortly before his death. Looking around the church, I could see the people of the stories had all turned out. They ranged from the most humble (he was especially fond of the guys off Hill 57 -- if you’ve read “Stay Away, Joe,” you’ll know what I mean -- and they WERE tough) to the current sheriff (in uniform), the former curator of the CM Russell Museum (where he was on the board), to men in what have might been “bespoke” suits (though I’m not much of a judge). There were a surprising number of older single women, or maybe it’s not surprising when you remember that Scottie truly loved women, was not intimidated or seduced by them but rather treated them as equals. His interpretation of “survival of the fittest” was that the fittest had an obligation to protect and cherish others. Hard to think of a more endearing quality than that.
The memorial folder included several quotes from Scottie’s own books. One was from “We Like ‘em Tough” and told about a boyhood friend who had been diagnosed with something that would soon kill her. He said, “Well, I put that thought out of my mind as the four of us drove happily down the road, singing at the top of our lungs. The drizzling rain made the countryside beautiful! Everything was green and new. And, there was Dodie, singing in time with the windshield wipers in a voice like an angel. We sang all the popular tunes of the time and were real disappointed when we drove up to her relative’s ranch yard. I especially remember singing, “Skies were gray that spring day we parted in the rain. . .” It seemed fitting that we sang that song as I knew I would never see her alive again.” That’s the mix of reality and transcendence that Scottie carried around in his heart.
These Texas Methodists love to sing. Both Harper and Bell wanted everyone to come to services a half-hour early so we could sing together. This service included four hymns: “Amazing Grace,” “On Eagle’s Wings,” “Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore,” and “This Is My Song” (AKA “Finlandia"). What blew me away was the second song, “On Eagle’s Wings” which the Rev. Kama Hamilton Morton presented as a “call and response,” singing a setting of the Psalms from which the words came and letting us respond from the hymnal version as a chorus. My God, that woman has pipes!
I expect even Scotty could hear her. In fact, she said he once surprised her by picking up on a sermon reference to Abraham and Sarah. You’ll remember that Sarah had a child pretty late in life, which made her laugh aloud. Scotty and Claire had two daughters with a gap of more than a decade between them, and they greeted both with full delight. Each daughter spoke this morning.
There was a chance for some of the congregation to tell stories and guys with white fringes stood up to sketch tales. A woman who grew up on the next ranch over got the biggest laugh. Scotty was helping to teach her to hunt so they found a likely spot and could see over to the next ridge where an elk was grazing. They lay down on their bellies side-by-side, so she could brace her father’s thirty-ought-six.
She shot. Puff of dust to the right of the animal. Scottie: “You might try a little more to the left.”
She shot again. Puff of dust to the left of the animal. Scottie: “I think a little more to the right.”
She shot again. This time too high. “See if you can sight a little bit lower.” All this time the animal never moved, evidently unacquainted with gunfire.
Once more she shot. Poof of dust a little bit short and low. Scottie pondered for a minute. “Okay, sis, you’ve got him surrounded. Now shoot him!”
He claimed he wished to be remembered as “He was all balls!” but the epitaph he loved most was from the neglected grave of Jessie Rowe, a fifteen-year-old girl buried with a cluster of whores at Gold Butte: “Remember me as you pass by. As you are now so once was I. As I am now, so you must be. Prepare for death and follow me!”
Of course, the only proper preparation for death is a generous and fulfilled life. It’s tough, but Scottie liked it that way.
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