I spent the first three years of my life about 15 mi north, near a tiny town called Arlee. I drove down the gravel road and stood in the stream that used to play in. The house is still there... the current owner had little blonde kids playing in the front yard... my brother and I would have been about their ages when we moved. I chatted with him and looked at the backyard, trying to connect the scattered memories from toddlerhood with this place.
This area is all part of the Flathead Reservation. The signs say the native names for things along with the English.
Up the road is St. Ignatius, where I was born. I stopped at a tiny health clinic that I think was the spot. If so, this would have been my first view of the outside world:
I was blown away by the beauty of the desert hills and mountains in this country. I have a huge amount of affection for the high desert hills around the Deschutes River... maybe this
accounts for part of that affection?
I stayed with Doug and Antje in Dixon that night in a 1909 house they call "the Museum".
Doug's grandfather bought the farm they live on from the original homesteader back when it was first being divyed (sp?) out. Any land not claimed by the native people by the early 1900s was given away to settlers.
Doug and Antje run their farm with a small amount of help. It was definitely stepping into a different world.
This is harvest season so they didn't have a lot of time to spare. Doug and I talked while cleaning garlic. He told me about being young overseas, being 18 in the 60s...It's been a huge privilege to connect with these characters from my past as an individual.
I'm headed East to find Mieka, playing with my new harmonica. For the last several years, Missoula/Arlee/Dixon/St. Ignatius have been vague points in my history. Now they're more concrete. It feels wonderful to reconnect with the people and places here, especially as I'm about to move away from my other hometown.
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