Progress Claims Old Home Town

  By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

May 5, 1963

  I MADE a sentimental journey to my native west last week, met some old friends, made some new ones, and returned home more sad than rejuvenated. Montana wasn't the same. Only the Rockies were the same. Great Falls was a galloping metropolis of more than 60,000, twice the size it had been when I'd left it in 1944.

   Even Choteau had caught the fever. Growth and change had robbed me of my home town and I was a stranger in it. It had cast off its pioneer, placid runtiness and grown up. Its brawling, cowtown past had disappeared. It was busy. It had traffic. You could no longer park with your eyes shut.

   THE OLD-TIMERS had passed on. My contemporaries--and few of them remained--now were the greybeards. The Royal Theater now was the Montana Power Co. building. The old stone grade school had come down, even as the old brick high school had years earlier.

   The shortcut I once took to this latter seat of learning was gone, too. The once unencumbered expanse now contained the town hospital. Our spacious old barn lot was gone. So was the barn. So, in fact, was the house. It had been moved around the corner and, stripped of front porch, now faced south on "Division St." Who would have guessed, back in the stagecoach days, that any street but Main would ever be worthy of a name?

   THE VACANT lots where we played ball no longer existed. There was no clear view of the woods off to the west along the Teton. New houses stood in the way.

   It was the same to the southeast. Years ago the road through this area led to the cemetery. It also now led to new homes and a new church. And further east, on the "bench" were the golf course and the airport.

   My wife and I headed north, after chatting a while with some old friends, and interest quickened. Less than a mile ahead would be the white house my folks had moved into when I was still in high school, the showplace of  Choteau's "suburbia."

   It stood on high ground in  majestic isolation and was our special pride. Meadow and field stretched generously away in all directions. It stands in isolation no longer. It has the company of ramblers--new and attractive interlopers.

   THE APPROACH along the highway to the south was less attractive. It was scarred by a chaotic agony of rubble--shanties, signboards, old trucks and the evidence of an embryo auto graveyard.

   I wanted to stop, take the path through the meadow to the house as I'd done so often long ago, push open the kitchen door and hang my hat in the little closet off the kitchen.

   But, pressed for time, we hurried on toward my brother's place in the mountains. Anyway, the house I knew was but a slice of memory. There was no little closet off the kitchen now. The whole interior had been changed.

   The new ramblers, the country club, the hospital--they all shouted of change--from old languor to new hustle, change from days of abundant time to days of pressing urgency. I dislike having this place of  memory slip away, but one must yield to the inevitable. I don't like to, though, and wish it weren't necessary.

Copyright 2021 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.                                                                                                   

An Incident Involving a Horse

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

Of the editorial page staff

Published February 25, 1961

   THIS PIECE should be reserved for Own Your Own Horse week, National Saddle and Bridle week or Be Kind to Old Paint week. But I don't know when any of these observances fall and haven't the energy to find out. I have an irrepressible urge to write about horses, however, and one horse in particular.

   Old Fox went to the glue works long ago and was past his prime when Pop bought him about 1910 to transport us about the countryside on Sunday afternoons and for hunting and fishing trips. He was an unpredictable beast and reluctant to pull a buggy unless he was headed home. He could be gentle as a kitten, but had these benevolent seizures only occasionally. His moods usually ranged from mean to impossible.

   IN THIS WAY he resembled his master. In fairness to my sire, however, he was gentle oftener than the horse was. When both got mean simultaneously they created a scene that sent kids and chickens scurrying from the barnyard.

   Old Fox was a flinty-eyed sorrel about 17 hands high. There was a big knot behind his left ear where a previous owner had belted him one with a club. The abuse the old horse got before he came to us perhaps explained his suspicion of the human race.

   Pop didn't let his children ride Old Fox until they'd done their apprenticeship on a buckskin pony which arrived one day complete with saddle and bridle and guaranteed to be gentle. Baldy was gentle to the point of immobility. Due to the infirmities of age he could not be pushed into more than a leisurely walk and unless the rider had the strength to pull his nose out of the grass by the roadside and quirt him diligently he wouldn't move at all.

   Pop finally consented to let my brother, a more daring spirit than I, get up on Old Fox. The horse was on his good behavior, for a wonder, and galloped around the back lot with an air of sardonic amusement. The first time my older sister got on his back, however, he pitched her into the rutabagas.

   THE MOST memorable scene starring Old Fox was brought on by another horse, the fictional "Black Beauty." Pop read a couple of chapters of the book each evening to the family and finally was mellowed into one of the most foolhardy acts of his life.

   Black Beauty made quite a point of the evils of bridle blinders, those leather shields which cut off the wearer's lateral vision. They were a dirty trick, Black Beauty said in effect. A horse had as much right to untrammeled vision as a person. A straight-ahead-only view wasn't enough.

   So Pop cut the blinders off the bridle. The following Sunday afternoon he hitched the horse to the buggy and we all got aboard for the shortest ride in history. It ended almost as soon as it began.

   POP CLUCKED at his charger and Old Fox groaned into motion. Then, out of the tail of his eyes, he saw the buggy following him and exploded. His fright was appalling to behold--particularly to those in the buggy. After a couple of fast trips around the lot, accompanied by terrified snorts, he bucked his way free to our vast relief.

   Then Pop, livid with fury and intent on disciplinary action, grabbed the whip and headed for the horse. Mother restrained him. She said he shouldn't hold Old Fox responsible for something he'd brought on himself. If he insisted on blaming a horse, she said, he should blame Black Beauty.

   Pop saw the point and spared his horse, but he got revenge on Black Beauty. He read no more of the book. None of us had the courage to suggest that he go on with the story.

Copyright 2021 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.