Distinctly Montana Magazine

DISTINCTLY MONTANA MAGAZINE • WINTER 2022-23 84 (un)Stuck Getting Montana I n Montana, we like to think that we're rugged individualists, beholden to no one. In many ways, that's true—you probably couldn't find as many people living lives of self-sufficiency in any other state, with the possible exception of Alaska. Many of us raise our own meat, hunt our own game, burn our own wood. Of course, just as many beat our own path straight to the grocery store, but that's decid- edly less picturesque. And some of us drive big giant trucks that wouldn't get stuck in snow unless they were directly under an avalanche, and even then, they could probably tunnel their way out like a big HEMI-driven earthworm. But again, many of us don't. For my part, I drive a 1992 Ford Crown Victoria generously deemed "mid-size." Trucks look down on me from their diesel thrones as they pass me in a cloud of dust and exhaust. If I so much as have a big lunch, I worry I won't be able to fit inside. Naturally, I get stuck in the snow a lot. Getting stuck in the snow eliminates any fantasies of self-suf- ficiency you ever had. It makes you feel like a baby in a stroller, only without your mother to push you. Whenever I get stuck in the snow, which is every time it snows more than about two inches, I remember the scripture, for as it says in Proverbs 19:17, "whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will re- ward them for what they have done." Thus, every time I get stuck, I say a little prayer thanking God for giving someone the opportunity to earn their path into Heaven. Because one thing is for sure—I'm sure as hell not getting out otherwise. Like the little two-fingered wave by which Montanans greet each other on our backroads and byways, helping someone whose car is stuck in the snow is an unspoken rule that governs the way we live in the Treasure State. You'd have to be a pretty cold bastard to walk past someone spinning their tires there on the side of the road. I don't doubt that someone in Montana has done just that, but if there's any cosmic justice in the world, they stubbed their toe later that day. Once, I was stuck in my apartment building's lot at 7:30 in the morning. It didn't look like that much snow, but somehow I just couldn't back out, and I was late for my job. My roommate at the time had about a half dozen cats as well as a half-ton of kitty litter at hand. I had heard once that it was useful in getting yourself unstuck, so I shoveled out space be- hind the tires and dumped a heaping portion of it onto the snow before trying to back up again. A rooster's tail of litter and snow sprayed through the air. "Well," I thought, "I guess I'll quit my job and just live in my car." Now, I've got to admit I'm not the most gregarious person you've ever met, but I'm not really the kind of guy who hangs out with his neighbors. I've never, for instance, baked them muffins and walked over to introduce myself. I've never filled a basket with fresh produce from my garden and left it at their door with a handwritten card that reads "welcome to the neigh- borhood." Hell, I don't even have a garden. in by SHERMAN CAHILL

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