Distinctly Montana Magazine

www.DistinctlyMontana.com 85 So I can imagine them in their beds, thankful that's not them out there spinning their tires. If they didn't want to come out and help, instead preferring the warmth of their covers, who could blame them? And I've never been to Colorado or Vermont or Maine or New Hampshire, but I can certainly imagine them doing just that: drawing their covers tighter around themselves and trying to shut out the noise of my helpless flailing. But here in Montana, here in the hinterlands, God bless them, they came one by one out of their apartments and helped. Some were in their plaid pajama bottoms, one in sweatpants, and one had even bothered to dress in snow pants. It took ten or fifteen min- utes to get the Crown Victoria over the small hill that led out of the complex's lot, but they did it without complaint. I'm no historian, but I'd like to think that it's part of the same predisposition for neighborliness that kept a lot of bellies full in the homesteading days. There's a bit of family lore that, five gen- erations back, when the Cahills first arrived on the Hi-Line, we were saved from starvation by a family with a plot some four or five miles away. Unfortunately, nobody remembers the name of the family. They escaped from the sweatshops and meat-pack- ing hellscape of Chicago, taking advantage of the Homestead Act to get a little spread up north. But they knew about as much about ranching as I do about being the Prince of Monaco. Their first winter there was a complete bust—they didn't have anything in the larder and only a handful of mean, rail-thin cows to their name. The Cahills could easily have been wiped off the face of the earth that first cold snap were it not for the neighbors. They brought a wagon through the snow and gave them salt pork and biscuits, enough to get them through the worst of it. Without their kindness and understanding, I wouldn't be here now, pressing the pedal to the metal and gunning my engines in the Safeway parking lot. Sure, giving a push to a car stuck in snow isn't quite as tricky as loading up your buckboard and driving through a blizzard to the neighboring homestead, but it's demonstrative of the same spir- it and willingness to help each other out. It's a recognition that we're all in this boat together. And that the boat is full of snow. I'm not one to prophesy, but I feel pretty secure in saying that the day Montanans stop helping one another and no longer feel that simple camaraderie towards those who need a little help will be the day that Montana isn't worth a damn anymore. I think that day is a long, long way off.

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