Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A M A G A Z I N E • F A L L 2 0 2 2 118 WHEN I WAS A KID, I don't remember Montanans hating California as much as they hated North Da- kota. And it wasn't so much that they were afraid of invaders, which marks the current attitude against California, but that they thought North Dakotans were dumb flatlanders. I remember that we had a big orange book called The North Dakota Joke Book, but any North Dakotan looking through it wouldn't have found much to laugh at. For instance, here's one of the wittiest: Q: Did you hear the Governor's Mansion in North Dakota burned down? A: Almost took out the whole trailer park! I thought it was funny as a kid, but I wasn't sure why. We lived in a trailer park, afterall. Sure, a lot of of them were pretty funny, and I still remember a lot of them by heart. Then I remember telling one to a kid from North Dakota who moved to Montana. One day on the schoolyard, I told him one of the jokes, a complicated little number about how there was a fancy restaurant in Minot called the Flam- ing Pit whereat they set your armpits on fire and gave you a bill. Once again, I didn't totally get it. The little guy burst into tears and ran off to tell the teacher. Apparently, he had been the butt of dozens of the jokes, and I wasn't the only one who told them to him. I was, however, the one that got in trouble. On some level, I still think the North Dakota jokes are funny—there's nothing there. But I do still think about that poor little tyke, reduced to tears because so many Montanans had to make him feel like shit be- cause he wasn't from here. Is there anything more insulting in Montana than the word "transplant?" It says volumes about the per- son against whom it's leveled. In short, it says they're not a "real Montanan." I don't know if any other state has so much at stake by being "real." Certainly it's hard to imagine a North Dakotan accusing another of not being a "real" North Dakotan—they all have to weather the same brutal winters and howling wind together. In Montana, calling someone a "transplant" sug- gests a constellation of gatekeeping possibilities. It might suggest that they're not outdoorsy enough, or that they're not hardy enough. It might mean their pickup is too small, or their fishing habits not zealous enough. It might even submit that the recipient is not knowledgeable enough about the state's geography. If you don't know where Two Dot is, you're not a "real Montanan." If you make more than X income a year, you're not a real Montanan. Western Montanan thinks that the Eastern side of the state, bereft of the dramat- ic mountain ranges to which they're accustomed, are less real. Eastern Montana, in turn, think they're the real Montana, and that Western Montana is overrun with Californian real estate developers. Maybe the most dramatic recent example is the Par- amount network's Yellowstone, a show that seems to posit that only millionaire ranch owners are the real Montana - in that show, Bozeman is as much a vil- Montanan? Who Gets to Be a Real Real GATEKEEPING THE LAST BEST PLACE by SHERMAN CAHILL

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