Philipsburg is one of my
favorite small towns in Montana. I love
the sky-held mountain valley in which the town is nestled. You feel like you can touch the clouds from
Main Street there. Sapphires and ghost
towns can be found all around. The town
still feels “Old West” through and through.
On Monday, that girl and
I stopped in Philipsburg on our drive back to Helena. We spent a couple hours poking around the
various tourist shops along the 1800’s Main Street and engaging in conversation
with locals.
One of the shop owners
shared her story of arrival here in Montana.
Reluctantly, the shop
owner, a woman not yet approaching middle age, admitted that she’d moved to
Montana from a particular state along the Gulf Coast.
“My daughter was
miserable there,” she said. “She could
not tolerate salt water, she was allergic to orange trees, to the grasses
growing down there…to just about anything else you can imagine. All she did was cry. She cried all the time. When she was three, we decided we had to
move. My husband, my daughter, and I
started traveling to places. We went all over.
Canada. The West Coast. Colorado.
Idaho. Wyoming. State after state. Our daughter never stopped crying. Finally, we took a trip to Montana. Our plane landed in Helena near midnight
before we drove to a resort where we were going to stay.”
The woman paused for just
a moment, gathering thoughts and emotions.
“Our daughter stopped crying the minute we landed in Montana. We were here for ten days and she never
cried. Once, while we were here, we stopped
at a bar and took her inside to buy her a soft drink. When we stepped inside, she said, ‘I like the
music!’ It was country music. That trip changed everything. We went home and made a long term plan move
here. Now, this is home.”
--Mitchell
Hegman
That family was obviously meant to be in Montana. I've seen that sort of thing happen in my work as a realtor in Hawaii. Many want to live in Hawaii but not all are "called" and are meant to live in Hawaii.
ReplyDeleteI think this happens in many places. That said, Hawaii and Montana are particular in their allure.
ReplyDelete