GOOD OL’ BOYS

When a demographic category becomes a “thing” like “Indians” or “whites” or Catholics or rez dwellers or boys at risk, the various complex components get lost. But it is those interlocking and ecological jigsaws that really make the “thing” real.

The rez in the Sixties was entirely different than it is now. Youngsters that rail against white domination are not seeing that when “Indian preference” replaced the government bureaucrats with tribal people and individual aspirations replaced outsider teachers with local people, the white town disappeared.

Another dynamic came from the white side. The most elite force among whites were the Sherburne family who came from Oklahoma where they had been on the fringe of the oil boom so eloquently explored in novels. Both whites and tribal people were deeply affected by WWII. Some white GI’s discovered they could marry enrolled women with allotments and instantly become landowners. I think of Polk, Davis, Johnson, Wellman.

The original Sherburne was attracted by the oil boom on the East Front of the Rockies, partly it’s the discovery of oil that makes the “East Front” a thing. The originating patriarch of the Sherburne family was quite different from his son, who profited greatly from allotment when the rez was divided into individual parcels assigned according to various forces like preference and pecking order. http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv24627

Once there was individual ownership of land, the trustee supervision of the Federal Indian Service could be broken by renouncing “incompetence” and the land could become collateral which became debt forfeiture. In the next generations, the Sherburne dynasty changed greatly, partly through education and partly through marriage.

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The Scrivers, whose family business was a mercantile across the town square from the Sherburne mercantile, were part of a secondary white world defined mostly by membership in the Masons who were probably a far more potent influence on the development of the frontier West than any churches. Honorable men (by their own standards) stuck together, maintained loyalty and secrecy, and kept prosperity and safety as the highest priority.

They were mostly family men. Mr. McDonald was a lawyer. I forget the name of the enrolled MD separate from the Indian Health Service, but he was one of those handsome, intelligent, well-married professionals who have impact. Many owned small businesses: hardware stores and building supplies, dress shops (but they were women), and the newspaper. The school superintendent but not the teachers.

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In each of the satellite communities that formed among the ranches along the river beds, the two old-timer towns (Heart Butte and Starr School), the three tourist towns (East Glacier, St. Mary’s, Babb) and the railroad town of Blackfoot, a kind of understood hierarchy would develop in the old way that the nomadic bands became layered from the weak and needy to the dynamic and well-connected. The post offices were often developments from trading posts whose families therefore had influence.

Two rez communities had connections into Canada One was the St. Marys valley which opened the way to Cardston, a convenient place escape MT or US law. The other was looser: Meriweather/Del Bonita where many families were rodeo-centered.

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WWII was powerful in developing a friendship network through lodges, like Veterans of Foreign War, but over the years there developed a demographic colloquially called the “good old boys” who drank together — coffee in the morning, beer at night — and argued out theories and accusations. It’s an old human form, going back to the earliest days when men gathered under trees to smoke and gossip. They’re often wrong, outdated, racist, and have a strong element of gambling, esp. about sports. Coffee shops and bars serve them in the cities.

Married women have a different pattern centered on home and ranch, especially babies whether human or not — even including plants. Sons and hired men come and go through the day in order to warm up, grab a snack, find a tool, bring the mail and carry the news people are sharing. There is no home mail delivery here. One goes to the post office or at least drives out the highway from the ranch road. The same is necessary to meet the school bus. The older women, possibly widowed, have their own “koffee klatches” among neighbors or relatives.

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All of these informal ties and channels are capable of developing good ideas and making real strides forward. But limiting talk to what is already known and speaking of the outside world as “beyond the wall”, impossible to understand, there are severe limits.

To try to guide talk away from the wonders of the muddy beach of the campground next to the “Lake Francis” impoundment of irrigation water and the fish that are planted there to support fishing, is to be a renegade. Everyone knows that the water is owned by the Canal Company and one doesn’t want to offend.

To try to talk about the planetary support of food and civilization that is represented by irrigation systems in ancient South America or Egypt or China is to make everyone’s eyes go pinwheel. To talk about the genetic drift of wheat in an effort to make them more profitable (bigger heads, stems that are solid instead of hollow and don’t grow so tall) and so are easier to harvest but trigger gluten allergies or don’t bake well — that’s to be invited to leave.

In Valier 1999 a natural island remained in the lake and big cottonwoods had grown there. Some had died, but had become a heron rookery. On the ground were seagull nests, protected by the water. A woman who came from closer to the coast where the culture privileges wildlife was upset by the treatment of the island, contacting national activist groups. So someone simply sawed down the trees. When the water was low enough to drive an ATV to the island, a local drove out to smash the nests, trashing them. Do not talk about this.