THE BLACKFEET ENCOUNTER JIMMIE WELCH
Montana Writers and the Choteau School District organized a literary conference in Choteau in honor of A.B. Guthrie, Jr. who was still alive but very frail. It was the kind of event that initiated literati would fly thousands of miles to attend. Significant Western writers by the handful would be speakers. One day was set aside specifically for high school students. I asked the administration for transportation and the day off to take four of my best writers.
I was especially anxious to get them there because James Welch, Jr. would be one of the speakers and I wanted to plant firmly in the kids’ heads that they could follow his path. Also Ripley Schemm would be there. A fine poet herself, the widow of Richard Hugo had spent a year as “poet in residence” in Heart Butte where she was much beloved and got good work from the younger kids. I had read out loud The Blind Corral so we also looked forward to Ralph Beer in his big black mustache.
The kids were scared before we even started out in the GMC Jimmy with the truant officer driving. The bold author of an impassioned story about Vlad the Impaler, the Ur-Vampire, was late waking up as usual, and we had to go pound on his door. All the way down Highway 89 the student writers had panic attacks about what the Choteau kids might do to them.
When we arrived, I buzzed around saying hello and asking questions. I found Welch and towed him over to my foursome so I could brag about each of them. He was gracious and truly interested, as he always is, but the kids were mortified. As soon as he left they scolded me, sotto voce. “You’re calling attention to us! Everyone is staring!” They tried to stand with their backs together like buffalo facing wolves.
At lunch time, after incredulously inspecting the Tater Tot casserole on their plastic trays, they rose in a body, scornfully dumped the offending food into the garbage, and stalked off to find a fast food vendor. The truant officer went with them. I suspect they also picked up some cigarettes. Partly because I was provoked with them, I ended up picking an argument with a Choteau teacher who claimed she understood all about Blackfeet kids.
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from “Heartbreak Butte: the Ghetto in the Rockies” by Mary Scriver A book “published” as a blog at “Heartbreakbutte.blogspot.com” Keep hitting “Older posts” as it’s pretty long.
I’m about the same age as James Welch, Jr. would have been now, and call him “Jimmy” because it was also his father’s name and his father was Bob Scriver’s best friend all through his grade school years.
