The Montana Club

I have been in the Montana Club dining room a total of three times in my life.  The first time, I was a sophomore in high school.  I applied for a job in the kitchen.

They didn’t hire me.

I managed entrance again some forty years later as a guest at a Rotary Club luncheon. 

Last night, that girl and I went to dinner at the Montana Club. 

The club is located on the corner of 6^th Avenue and Fuller in downtown Helena.  Until only a few months ago, the Montana Club was private and a strict dress code was in place.  At the end of last year, due to a dwindling membership, the Montana Club opened its private spaces to the public.

The Montana Club was the oldest continuously-operating private club west of the Mississippi.  The club originated in 1885 and was highly exclusive for next 132 years.

The dining room is beautiful and offers an expansive view of downtown Helena.

We both enjoyed our dinner and plan on return visits.

After dinner, we stepped downstairs and had a drink in the Rathskeller, a small lounge in the basement of the club.  A pair of guitarist were playing live music in one corner.

The name “Rathskeller” is of German origins and is a combination of “rat council” and “cellar.” A rathskeller is typically a bar or restaurant located below street level.

All in all, that girl and I had a great time.  I am posting some photographs I captured with my smarter-than-me-phone.

-- Mitchell Hegman 

My Valentine

Let’s begin again.  This time, you can be the vast sky of stars leisurely swirling above.  I will be the ocean gently undulating below.  We can meet at the horizon.  And that’s where you can hand me the moon.

-- Mitchell Hegman 

A Key to Success

One of the keys to success is setting realistic goals for yourself.  My goal for today is to take a nap before 3:00 in the afternoon.  Today, I will be a sure winner. 

-- Mitchell Hegman 

Contribution

You can’t be a superhero every day.  There will be days in which your only notable contribution might be that you managed to get to the bathroom before peeing your pants.

Celebrate those too. 

-- Mitchell Hegman 

The Zamboni

If you are anything like me, you don’t eat fully ripened bananas and figure skating confuses you.

Oh, and you never wear underwear.   But we should talk about that later.

I have been watching the Winter Olympics skating events.  I enjoy some of the spinning and jumps.  But the scoring completely confounds me.  I cannot begin to fathom the long list of rules governing the judges when scoring a program.  The skaters seem to be dropping a tenth of a point at every swish of a skate.  I am guessing there is at least a two-tenths deduction if a skater sticks a finger in his or her ear during a spin.

I am also not terribly discerning when it comes to recognizing the various elements and jumps.  I don’t know a triple axel from a double-knotted shoe lace.  If a skater under-rotates something, I know only when one of the commentators mentions it. 

The only thing I know for certain is the Zamboni.

I cheer every time I see it.

-- Mitchell Hegman 

Scissors

Samantha had always been impulsive.  It was not a great surprise when she abruptly stopped loving her husband one Sunday at 2:35 in the afternoon while sitting on a stool at her kitchen peninsula.

She allowed a pair of scissors to fall from her hand upon the startling realization she was no longer in love.  She had been using the scissors to snip recipes from a magazine.  The scissors clattered loudly against a plate.

Alerted by the clatter, her husband called out from the living room where he sat watching football:  “Are you okay in there?”

“I’m fine,” she answered.  “I have fallen out of love, that’s all.”

“Oh, I thought maybe you broke something.”

“No,” Samantha replied, “nothing like that.”

At 2:39 in the afternoon, Samantha picked up the scissors once again.  She could use them to extricate herself from her now loveless marriage.

-- Mitchell Hegman 

Miles and Miles of Miles

Some highways in Montana have miles and miles of miles.   Highway 89 between White Sulphur Springs and Interstate 90 is one of those.  Small towns whisk by—Ringling, Willsall, Clyde Park—but they are distant and tiny enough a boy could barely reach full speed on his bike if riding from one end to the other on the longest street.

Between the towns is big empty.  Open hills of grass and sagebrush.  The Castle Mountains.  The Bridger Range.  The Crazies.  Open range.

A lonely man or lonely woman might suffer to drive these miles.  The open country and the empty highway might draw too much from inside.   

I drove those miles at mid-day yesterday amid snow flurries and ground blizzards.  The storm and the snow pressed down firmly against the two-lane highway, obscuring all features beyond.  Wind dragged scarves of snow across the roadway.  I was alone on the highway.

My mind turned in on itself.  Honestly, I felt a little hollow.

Of all things, my thoughts soon turned to Sandalwood, the dog we had when I was a boy.  He had a crazy habit of barking incessantly if you drove him across a bridge.  Same for Canyon Ferry Dam.  He followed me anytime I left the house.  I sat and talked to him the night before my mother had him put down for biting someone he thought was going to harm one of us kids.

I thought of all that.

You would think fifty-some years of time would diminish your feelings for a childhood dog.

But driving Highway 89 will take you back.

I quivered a little thinking about Sandalwood.  And then I grabbed my camera and shot two photographs through the windshield of my truck as I drove.  I still had over 100 miles to go to reach Billings.

-- Mitchell Hegman