Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Thursday, June 21. 2007

Charles Marion Russell

Buffalo Hunt, 1897. More of his work here. (thanks, reader). Two wonderful things about Montana (among others) are Russell and A. B. Guthrie. Yes, that painting is what the Montana high plains look like. They are desert-like, since all the rain gets dumped by the weather as it rises over the Rockies, heading east.

 

Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 05:34 | Comments (41) | Trackbacks (0)

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Hey, Bird Dog,

That's two Montana pieces in one day!

It's fine if a few good self-sufficient, independent, Maggie's Farm types move here. But let's keep it a little quiet, OK?

My great grandfather came to Montana in 1879, eighteen years before that Russell painting. He had quite an adventure, hunting buffalo, deer, and antelope near the present location of Forsyth. At the time, Miles City, population 250, was the end of anything resembling civilization.

Charles
#1 Charles on 2007-06-21 18:49 (Reply)
Terrible place. Nobody should move there!!!

We love Montana. But OK, we'll give Montana a break for a while.
#2 BD on 2007-06-21 19:06 (Reply)
Come visit next time you're anywhere near the Bitterroot.

Charles
#2.1 Charles on 2007-06-21 19:51 (Reply)
I roughnecked out of Miles City back in the late 60s. Stayed in a big wooden hotel, just like the ones in the westerns, all board-built, high-ceilings. Very sparse and austere. Wish I could remember the name of it. At least two stories, coulda been three.
#3 buddy larsen on 2007-06-21 19:13 (Reply)
The wooden place you stayed is probably long gone. The old Olive Hotel is brick on the outside, but probably similar to what you remember on the inside. Wooden columns. High ceilings.

Charles
#3.1 Charles on 2007-06-21 19:56 (Reply)
When I worked on the railroad, I stayed in my share of big wooden hotels just as you describe. The spare tall rooms - sometimes a bath down the hall.

I could have taken a railroad job in Miles City, but turned it down.
#4 Skookumchuk on 2007-06-21 19:29 (Reply)
yep--the bath was down the hall. Room walls were vertical "1 x by" painted sky blue. So many springs under the mattress you coulda trambolined on it. And oh the sticky mud on the dirt country roads when it rained! Bed cover was that stuff you never see anymore, cotton quilt with all sorts of raised up fuzzy cord-like strips all over it, in geometric designs. I know that stuff has a name. Google may finally have met its match, however.
#5 buddy larsen on 2007-06-21 19:56 (Reply)
Oh God. Those roads. Paved in bottomless mud. Now the railroads had decent hotels, once upon a time. The Yogo Inn in Lewistown, the Sacagawea in Three Forks and of course the Gallatin Gateway down by Yellowstone, all three of which still exist under different ownership and are quite nice.

Oh yeah, we're not 'sposed to say nice things about Montana.
#5.1 Skookumchuk on 2007-06-21 20:04 (Reply)
Folks from the coasts are always surprised how little of Montana is paved. There are many humorous stories of folks taking the shorter route they see on a map.
#5.1.1 Charles on 2007-06-21 20:20 (Reply)
And yes, Google may have met its match.
#5.2 Skookumchuk on 2007-06-21 20:06 (Reply)
Not yet!

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=cotton+chenille&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
#5.2.1 buddy larsen on 2007-06-21 20:29 (Reply)
Hmm, Charles, if the Olive is downtown and I think a block off of the main street, and was there in the late 60s, that's probably it and i'm mis-remembering the exterior as 'old west' due to the interior being so 'old west'.

hell it wasn't even hardly 'old west' then, it was just 'old'.
:-)
#6 buddy larsen on 2007-06-21 20:11 (Reply)
The Olive is downtown. But I'm pretty sure it's right on Main Street, just past Riverside Park.
#6.1 Charles on 2007-06-21 20:27 (Reply)
Could be it--we would come in off the rigs after 12 hour tours, really dirty, and came in the back way, where we could drop the coveralls in a mud room. So my entrance was a block off Main.

Memory is fuzzy, as I had my mind on a girl (can't recall name, but strawberry blonde and late teens--a year or two younger than I) whose family IIRC owned the drugstore.

Let me hasten to add that she was of the highest character, and did not have in mind with our aquaintance anything other than, "Hello, I like your drawl, and it's amusing the way you drool."

but, ahem, if the Olive was already pretty old by the 60s, that's gotta be it. Thanks for the memory therapy, Charles!
#7 buddy larsen on 2007-06-21 20:43 (Reply)
I just looked it up. The Olive opened in 1899 as the Hotel Leighton. Changed names in 1908.

Mind on a girl. Funny how that happens to young guys.

Fuzzy memory. Funny how that happens too. Though it sounds like you have some good memories.

Charles
#7.1 Charles on 2007-06-21 21:05 (Reply)
Charles--THANKs for that--1899, I was thinking the old place had to be 50 years old when I was there--so I was thinking it couldn't possibly still be there. But sho nuff, it is, and that's the place. The internet is ENDLESSLY fascinating, ain't it?
#7.1.1 buddy larsen on 2007-06-21 22:30 (Reply)
Hey. I knew the name of that bedspread. You gave a great description and the name popped right up. Then I thought of Captain and Tenille. Then I thought of Gumby. I love how the mind works. Or doesn't.

I took a pair of clean khakis to the dry cleaner and asked them to iron them. I've been lanquid so long I had to go buy a new pair and that insult to my sloth made me drop my pants at the cleaners. I picked them up and there is no crease. I look like Gumby in them.

I love Montana. BIG skies to take your breath away, and you can drive 120mph on the Interstate. :)
.
#8 Phoenix on 2007-06-21 21:36 (Reply)
But @ 120 you'll throw a rod--which is exactly what I did up there, in my '62 Caddy convertible. Why a Caddy, it was a joke--I'd been at University of Houston the semester before, and the only part-time job I could find that suited my situation at the time was a morning paper route in the ritzy Memorial area of west Houston. I sold my Volks & bought the wrecked Caddy, put it in basic running order at a friend's dad's shop, and threw the morning paper with the top down (so much easier to throw) for several months before lighting out for Wyoming & Montana. But I blew the new short block on those damn Montana autobahns, and sold the carcass for $350 and took the damn Greyhound back south when the winter came too cold to work the rigs.
#9 buddy larsen on 2007-06-21 22:24 (Reply)
the Captain and Chenille. reminds me of Tony Orlando & Dawn, which in turn reminds me of Geraldo Rivera, who reminds me of Al Capone (the safe he opened on TV when I first saw Tony, i mean Geraldo).

Now i'm stuck with Al Capone linked to Gumby, Gumby with a Thompson submachine gun mowing down the cast of Saturday Night Live on Valentine's day in that garage where we put the new short block in the Caddy. Ah, fangs for the memories....
#10 buddy larsen on 2007-06-21 22:39 (Reply)
You're a gift BL. Not, necessarily, for what you've done, but for how your able to make it relevant, with your writing.

Lets see, 'languid' appears too be the special word today:

1 : drooping or flagging from or as if from exhaustion : WEAK
2 : sluggish in character or disposition : LISTLESS
3 : lacking force or quickness of movement : SLOW

Somehow I don't see that, from the expositor that is.
#11 Luther McLeod on 2007-06-21 23:11 (Reply)
Nah, the "languid' she means is much more purple, heavy-lidded, smoky, art-deco vamp. She's up to mischief, that's fer sher.
:-D
#12 buddy larsen on 2007-06-21 23:18 (Reply)
but she used it alongside a Hemingway reference, on the old-fool Senators thread. So I wonder, "Old Men in DC"?
#13 buddy larsen on 2007-06-21 23:26 (Reply)
great wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Sea
#14 buddy larsen on 2007-06-21 23:34 (Reply)
Damn BL, smart, old Senators. Up her alley I bet :-) Though your latest , "heavy lidded" and all, gives me pause, or someumm.
#15 Luther McLeod on 2007-06-21 23:56 (Reply)
Silly. "Lanquid" was the 'doctor.com' word of today.

The word you need to fit my affaires of tickling lyin' senators' cheatin' hearts is 'indolent'. But I wouldn't be 'heavy-lidded' I don't think. I would have to turn my eyes limpid to give my countenance the gullability they need to be real men.

(If a girl does that to you, leave. You're about to get spanked. :)
.
#16 Phoenix on 2007-06-22 01:22 (Reply)
Traveling under the influence of speed: Blowing up engines.

I take my truck on long trips because it's very comfortable. It's a six-speed. I am wondering if anyone else does this.

I'm driving along as fast as the last car from New York that just passed me and I'm groovin' along all fine and dandy. I drive at night because I get to use cruise control. I95 here on the east coast is a danger. At night it's great. So, I'm driving about 300 miles and right out of the blue, I reach over to make sure I'm in fifth gear. Like maybe I might have forgotten at the last gas station to shift beyond second gear or something. No smoke burning out from my engine or anything; no chugging noises: I just have to check.

I do it enough to think I might have some mechanical retardation going on. Actually, I do have some retardation about engines. My pushmower ran out of gas this evening and I couldn't get it to restart after I filled up the tank. If I were bigger I would have thrown that string-pulling sunbitch into the woods. My new philosophy is if you can only turn something on by pulling a string, it isn't worth it.
.
#17 Phoenix on 2007-06-22 01:35 (Reply)
ha--that's funny--"retard" is actually the old term for slowing aircraft piston engine timing--spark timing--which has a cockpit control.

Lawnmower--maybe after a run-dry, it needed priming--maybe try getting a can of 'quick-start' for those occasions, and spray a little into the carb next time that happens. Everything mechanical can be fixed they say (at least that's a good working motto, LOL).
#18 buddy larsen on 2007-06-22 07:43 (Reply)
"quick-start'. Sounds like a man to me. Men just pull that string and that's it. vroom. But I wouldn't want to be one. A man, not the string. I did prime The Sunbitch. I'm wondering if it out of ohl. That's how you say it in the south. Like this: Ohl. Ai need sum ohl, Earle.

What's a 'carb'. I think bread has a lot of them.

Thanks about the spark timing info. I enjoyed it.
.
#19 Phoenix on 2007-06-22 13:12 (Reply)
i think 'earl' is New Orlreans--and Brooklyn. Odd.

In Texas, the prevalent sound rhymes with "awl", like the old paleo sewing tool.

Deep east Texas, and Louisiana (and I magine the rest of the deep south along the Gulf) outside N'Yawlinz, will add a syllable, for "aw wul".

Most yankeedom seems to say "oy'll" or "oi yull".

fascinatin' rhythms.

My ex was is from Minneapolis, and says "mirror" as "mere".

I used to laugh over that.

She, with her Minnesota sense of humor, only laughed whenever I was in great pain over something.
#20 buddy larsen on 2007-06-22 14:02 (Reply)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carburetor
#21 buddy larsen on 2007-06-22 14:05 (Reply)
i think 'quick start' is mostly Ether--tho i thuppoth you can uth it on other holidayth ath well.
#22 buddy larsen on 2007-06-22 14:09 (Reply)
Ether-Easter...okay, too corny
#23 buddy larsen on 2007-06-22 16:12 (Reply)
LOL Buddy - "great pain"...
#24 Luther McLeod on 2007-06-22 16:14 (Reply)
The doc in "Cider House Rules". He luved him sum ether.

Don't get me started on making single-syllable words into four. I headed to college in SC from the Canadian border - where I think Noah Webster lived. Perfect language. I thought I was in a foreign country.

'Come here.' "Come hee ayuh."
'Do you want some hush puppies?' "Yont sum huhhsh puhh pees?"

I'm not going to that carb site, Buhdee. I'd need some Adderall to get through the first sentence. It was a loose spark pluhg wohar.
.
#25 Phoenix on 2007-06-22 17:54 (Reply)
I'm sorry about your wife. Long ago I read a late-night talk you shared with a woman named "C" or "Char", and I remember feeling terrible at the time - for you - though I cannot recall all the particulars.

Sounds as if your wife was Tabasco for your libido and salt for your ego.
.
#26 Phoenix on 2007-06-22 18:02 (Reply)
Maybe just because no ones told you lately P. but your writing can be funny as hell. As well as overall good and serious when need be. "Tabasco..." Hilarious.
#27 Luther McLeod on 2007-06-22 18:31 (Reply)
oh, yeah--REAL funny. har de Har
#28 buddy larsen on 2007-06-22 20:23 (Reply)
just kidding--nah, I make the jokes just fer fun--y'know--"take my wife, please" (sez scandinavian comic, Svenny Youngman)
#29 buddy larsen on 2007-06-22 20:26 (Reply)
"Yont sum huhhsh puhh pees?"

Gasping laughing
:-D
#30 buddy larsen on 2007-06-22 20:29 (Reply)
I'm sorry Buddy. Not a laughing matter for sure. But you did set it up :-) After all, humor is the lube of life... Also, I admit, it took me a few seconds to interpret "puhh pees".

By the way P., be sure and torque that plug down properly, too loose you've learned, too tight and one of these days you'll pull the threads out along with the plug. And oh, they sell thread lube (anti-seize compound) that will prevent galling (when dissimilar metals are used, steel plugs, aluminum head). If no anti-seize, use a few drops of engine oil on the plug end.
#31 Luther McLeod on 2007-06-22 21:22 (Reply)
A cowboy is driving down a back road in Montana and he sees a sign in front of a restaurant:

"Happy Hour Special...
LOBSTER TAIL AND BEER"

"Lord a mighty" he says to himself, "my three favorite things!"
#32 larsen b on 2007-06-23 00:13 (Reply)

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