Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)
Are Natives More Montanan Than Thou?
Depends on what you bring to the party.By Bob Wire, 12-15-08
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I touched a nerve with last week’s column concerning the blatant proliferation of religion in country music. (I feel like if I don’t offend somebody out there, I’m just not trying hard enough.) One reader left a comment accusing me of being an idiot who must have moved here from somewhere else.
You got me, marshal! I did move here from somewhere else. Does that make me any less a Montanan than a so-called native? No, it doesn’t, no matter how many letters to the editor you write or how many condescending comments you leave on the internet. I’m getting a little fed up with Montana natives who bring nothing to the table but mealy-mouthed “I remember when…” whining, and xenophobic rants about people Californicating “their” state.
When I see one of those “NATIVE” bumper stickers, it always says two things about the person who stuck it on that vehicle. One, he is taking credit for the location of his birth. I tell you what, if you have the power to determine the place of your birth, then you are one friggin’ magic zygote.
Two, this person is telling me that he/she never had the gumption, courage or curiosity to try living anywhere else. I know Missoula natives who have lived here all their lives, and they have all the personality of a speed bump. There are exceptions, like our current mayor, who are very interesting people and give this town a lot of its personality. I also know several people who were born here, moved around, and eventually returned. They possess the perspective that stick-in-the-mud natives will never have.
Growing up a military brat, I’ve lived all over the U.S., from Florida to Hawaii, from North Carolina to South California. When I came to Missoula 15 years ago from Seattle, I’d already lived in over 35 houses or apartments. This peripatetic lifestyle came to an end, though, as soon as I pulled into town off I-90. Missoula, with its mix of good ol’ boys, hippies, tree-huggers, shit-kickers, progressives, artists, freaks, leprechauns, writers, musicians, gays, truckers, bikers and Pendleton-wrapped suburbanites, quickly proved to be a perfect adopted hometown. I immediately felt like I belonged, and I wore this town like a comfortable old leather jacket.
This unique mix of people and their contributions of culture and style are what make Missoula unique. While a hardcore East Coast attitude will generally keep a person from fitting in here, I do know several East Coast transplants who blend in nicely and bring their own flavor to the mix. Likewise, urban transplants may not last in Missoula once they catch on to its isolation and general ignorance or disdain of popular trends. But they may stick around and wind up being trendsetters themselves.
If you are a native Missoulian, you’ve witnessed a massive metamorphosis from a sleepy railroad town to a vibrant, dynamic hotbed of arts and culture. I went to college in Pocatello, a town that resisted the energy and youthful vigor of its own University. As a result, the downtown area dried up and blew away, the city never evolved, and it is still something of a backwater. Towns like Boise and Missoula, on the other hand, embraced their University cultures as well as new people and smart industry from all over, resulting in a couple of modern, thriving, exciting little Northern Rockies cities with a lot going on.
In both cities, this transformation occurred in spite of, not because of, so-called natives trying to build a barbed-wire fence around the pie to keep others from coming along and getting their piece.
No, I’m not a Missoula native, but I was crawling around on the kitchen floor of my grandmother’s North Ave. home while John Kennedy was stubbing his toe on the Cuban Missile Crisis. My dad grew up here, and his own great-grandparents homesteaded on Douglas Creek in the late 1800’s. So while I can’t claim native status, the roots of my family tree run deep into the Montana soil. I’m not interested in turning Missoula into Denver or California or Key West. I live here because I like how it feels, and the cultural climate in Missoula has allowed me to add my own brand of creativity to the mix. I’m a twisted thread in the fabric that makes up this crazy-ass town, and proud of it. No dip stick curmudgeon who never had the balls to explore anywhere outside the state’s boundaries is going to tell me that I don’t belong.
Besides, if you consider yourself a true native of Montana, feel free to tell me which tribe you belong to.
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Comments
2. I think I'm gunna go out, buy a "Native" sticker, and put it on my car.
3. I found it slightly offensive how derogatory you were towards those Montanans that were born in and have lived in Montana their whole lives. I have lived on three continents and yet I still envy those that have spent their whole lives here. Your approach just came off a bit elitist.
4. Everyone should just "chill out, dude" (Missoula lingo?). Montana is the best place on earth and we all bring something to the table.
5. I did find your analysis on Missoula interesting: the states and the places within it improve because they grow and become more inclusive. I completely agree, but there are core Montanan values that I, for one, want to continue. That doesn't mean that a xenophobic approach is in anyway permissible. I think it means that Montanans simply have an obligation to show others what we hold dear.
Stopping the "Californication" is very important to me and, as I'm sure you know, a lot of Montanans.
6. ".. all the states from coast to coast, You're easily the best.."
I've experienced several knee-jerk reactions right here on NewWest, when commenters automatically assume that anyone whose opinion is different from theirs must be "from somewhere else."
Here's the point:
I am annoyed by people who have lived here all their lives ONLY when they badmouth ANY and ALL newcomers just for not being natives. Boasting that you're a native is certainly your right. Take pride in it, but don't think that simply because you were born here that makes you better than me.
If you think I'm saying ALL MISSOULIANS have the personality of a speed bump, you are misconstruing my meaning. SOME of them are ignorant and provinicial. Just like anywhere.
If you're bent on taking something as an insult, I'm not gonna stop you. But if I have inadvertently offended someone who didn't deserve it, I apologize.
Personally, I am more interested in absorbing traditional Montana values while trying to fully enjoy the place where I live. I can't say I'm always successful in conveying that.
Do you think NewWest embraces that Bob?
When I say "fully enjoy(ing) the place where I live," that includes being able to express myself in creative ways. It also means being able to express my opinion (which is not necessarily the opinion of NewWest).
Since my readers regularly let me have it with both barrels, it also means I'm trying to learn to tolerate the opinions of others. ;-)
I agree with Eric that your post was coming off as a stereotype of native Montanans and I guess he said it better than I did. Remember I did said I was a "little" more intelligent than a speed bump. To me one should use a different word than "you" when they write.
Don't come to Montana and then get all bitchy when you get dry humped by a grizzly.
Can you ride a mountain bike? I say we settle this out on the trails. That is how we do it in my tribe!
Let me get my taint all powdered up with Gold Bond, and I'll meet you on the trail. I'll be the one with the cardboard helmet.
I don't live there anymore. I live in California. Almost everyone I grew up with there has a strong Love/Hate relationship with MT, including myself. You don't have to be born in MT, but you have to be raised there to really understand this, and and other "native" cultural realities. Once you start disregarding the "native" mentality, I think your argument is lost. There are aspects of MT life that out of state residents will never have. Almost every out of state resident I know could care less about this, but there are few, that have a real problem with it, and it is really more often than not, these few that are the first to turn the 'us and them' issue into an argument.
Great article.
Native Montana?
Are you all fools? The indians walked here 1st...Not the decendants of genocidal psychopaths and sociopaths running
from the overpopulated east and europe. An argument based in a
lie will always be a lie.
I do hope the rligious idiots are right...Hell will be crowded with them...
Native (a person that is born in a specified place) Montanans are proud so don't let this Bob guy tell you to be otherwise. If you have a "Native" bumber sticker who cares...at least its a statement of a fact unlike the jesus fish which at best states an opinion.
Reminds me of a campfire conversation I had with a 3rd-generation Montanan last summer. I'm a direct descendent of a Mayflower passenger which makes me 15th generation American. The 3rd Generation Montanan I sat was a 4th generation American. So we figured I was more American than he, but he was more Montanan than I. But we figured out that I had climbed more mountains than he, so I got a few points. But I've never ridden a horse so he had me there. He also beat me because I had never worked on a ranch, or seen a calf born. But I had seen the Northern Lights more than he. My father faught and was wounded on Iwo so he gave me some credit there - but his father went to grade school here so that got him some points.
He's a much better skier than I, so the nod went to him. We both throw a fly equally well - he's caught more trout but never caught a King Salmon, so we called that a tie.
Well, we never really figured out who was the better, or more reason to be proud, but we drank a lot of Cold Smoke and Double Haul, had a great conversation under the big sky, and both agreed that even though I'm more American and he's more Montanan, we're both fortunate to be living and enjoying this special place we call Montana.
The rest of the story: After putting out the fire, the many Cold Smokes made me reveal to him that even though both my kids were born in Alaska, and I lived there for many years, I was actually BORN in Connecticut. That immediately disqualified my Alaska years: we declared him the better. Sure it's better than California, but it's still Connecticut.
I wish they would drive around in Browning with those stickers.
You're not a native unless your land was stolen by white people--regardless of where you were born.
I say that because I am from here, white, and never ever refer to myself as a native. Those who do are just ignint--as opposed to ignorant. Ignint is just plain ignint.
"Native" cred, when used by white people, is code for "I'm ignint."
By the way, political lines on a map are often silly and fail to reflect regional realities and relationships. Anyone from Greater Yellowstone would understand and that is only one of many unique regions in the West.
So, enough of the arrogance. Each individual, native or not, brings something to the mix that is the West. Some of us are connected some are not. Wisdom does not automatically come from time on the ground but from the daily effort and reflection of living.
Michael Bartley (with a house in Colorado but most at home in the Winds and Beartooths.)
I'm a member of The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, thank you very much. I'm a 500th generation Montanan, so the rest of the johnny come latelys arguing is rather amusing..... I don't care where you grew up or come from, as long as you give me room on the river, leave gates like you found 'em, and slow down and wave to everyone on the back roads.
Let's not kid anybody Bob, there is a difference (native/ non-native. It can't be learned or absorbed, it just is and you can't and won't realize it.
The truth is that most natives appreciate outside influences. Some genuinely and some merely for entertainment purposes.
You make me laugh Bob!
Be sure and not poke your thumb in your eye when you assume that defensive posture. "Easy Marshal" another example of negative tone.
No way was that said to be insulting, just stating fact.
Don't move into a place and try to change it. If you like where you live, stay there. If you don't like where you live, why would you move to another place you don't like and try to turn it into the place you left because you didn't like it?
Good for you. Travel and exposure are plusses.
But you apparently spent precious little time in the L.A., Orange, Riverside, and S.D. County area, what you refered to as 'South California'.
There's no such thing as 'South California'. No one who's spent any time there uses the term. There's Southern California and there's SoCal and there're all those cities from Gorman and The Grapevine south to Tiajuana collectively (and rightly) called, simply, The War Zone.
Tsk, tsk.
And it's Tijuana, not Tiajuana.
Saying SoCal is like saying Frisco. Does the entire language have to be boiled down to two syllables? To me, it's a little insulting.
And here's a bombshell: I was born in Orange (don't tell anybody...).
Now that's just a joke so don't anyone take it personally. lighten up some its CHRISTMAS!
Michael
Not me, I moved here from Mars, my family still lives there.
Side note: I could of said Uranus but that would of sounded bad.
Cows have us outnumbered,thank God and raising chickens has become rural "cool".
Bud Light makes our men look like Buddha and who hasn't heard the popular bar chant " montana,land of the big thigh women!"?
How many states have lists that state "you know you are a montanan when..."? Ask a person who just moved to this state and what was recommended to them to buy;I bet the list includes a dog,an albertsons card,a shovel,camera,4 layers of long underwear,a gun,antifreeze,a down comforter, a subaru....
Living nation-wide as I have, I have noticed a certain curiosity towards what is it like to be "Montanan". As if living here, one comes from another segment of race/society.... Do we all ride horses? Grow up on ranches? fight Indians? Die walking to school in Winter? get buried by snow? do we have internet? are the sheep really nervous?do blacks live here?
Outside perceptions ,our "back-in-timeness", becomes our favorite way to joke and give the state a bit of grief, a jab in the side for those north dakotans to use,a way to say..."hey,living here isn't for everyone,so think about it carefully." However,this ruse doesn't work if folks WANT to move here to go back in time.
So, the next time you see Mr. Rancher and his wife,driving into town in his "town car"( Cadillac),with his cream stetson hat tilted just so..give him that Montana wave,because you just saw the *real deal* and it is the friendly thing to do,to wave.
And if you don't know the "wave",learn it.
Because no matter if I am 4th generation and you are 1st day, to Montana, I want this state to be known as FRIENDLY.
Waving off,
neihart kate
The Grizz are getting their asses kicked. You you self proclaimed Montanans better figure out how you're gonna overcome a 21-0 half time deficiet to a 2nd rate east coast candy ass shit team. Bob, you better write a song with Jesus in it ...Pronto Goddamnit.
I got money and Big Sky pride riding on this game!
That's hilarious. Looks like Bob didn't get that in time.
As you know my Broncos gave it up17-16. This year just wasn't ours sports wise. But you are the prince of maximum honky tonk and have been since 1979..................Merry Xmas my old friend!!!!! See you soon.
No matter how badly you want to be from MT (thanks for the family tree), cutting down real natives like my grandparents and myself with your skewed logic and backtracking (see Bob's replies to posted comments), your gross misunderstanding of Native American history and general ignorance does a diservice to both Californians and Montanans alike.
I agree w/ Lukas: "Tell me one characteristic "Montana native" trait, and I'll show you a native Montanan who doesn't have it." Everyone native in MT has their own background/history, but we our proud to call ourselves natives.
It just really sounds like since you don't have a geographical identity by way of being a milbrat, you're trying desparately to latch on by labeling and then cutting down the people and the state your're trying to identify with in the first place.
I think that's the point you were trying to make.