Photo by Cameron Cress on Unsplash

Montana Moments

I was lucky enough to grow up in a small town by the name of Whitefish, Montana. It was a magical place filled with such beauty and awe. It was a very formative time in my life and was filled with the most special friends who helped to influence who I am today. Don’t get me wrong, there were difficult times as well during these years, but the amount of awesome heavily out-weighed the negative.

We moved to Whitefish when I was 8 years old from Calgary, Alberta. I was born in Canada, but my father was the CEO of a goldmine by the name of Wharf Resources in South Dakota and he needed to be in the US much of the time so we up and moved to our holiday home. I remember being rather nervous at the time, wondering what it was going to be like living in this quiet little railway town.

In preparation for school to start my mum took me to the local dress shop, which was really a clothing store for women, by the name of The Village Shop. She picked out what I was to wear on my first day and thought that I looked quite well put together. What I actually looked like was a 8 year old girl in a 30 year olds clothing! But she was happy and I knew no better. Off I went on my first day, luckily I had met a few neighbours and had a friend to stand by my side and show me the ropes. That first day I remember a girl coming up to me and saying “where are you from, Canaaadia or somefin’?”. I thought to myself, oh boy where am I? Funnily enough, this young girl would later become a good friend!

My first year or so was a little rough trying to settle into this new way of life. I had been attending a French immersion school in Canada and now everything was in English so I found myself quite behind the others. I also found some rather strange family practices with my first good friend. I thought these things were the norm there, but apparently these acts were particular to this family. My friends younger brother who was 5 years old at the time was still breast feeding. As I saw him run up to his mother and lift her shirt while I was over for a sleep over I thought, hmmm that’s interesting and different. I also remember seeing her father in the bathroom, as he had left the door open, and he was having a pee on his knees. Again, hmmm that’s different. There were other things as well that I later went home to share with my parents. Welcome to Montana!

By the time I was going into seventh grade I had made a new best friend and we had made some family friends, some of which were also Canadian. Things were starting to settle in and I was learning the ropes. Things that were the norm in Whitefish at the time:

1. Driving with an open beer, a shotgun in the seat next to you and your dog at your side
2. Skipping school to go huntin’,fishin’ or ski-in’
3. Driving by the time you were 14 years old as kids that lived or worked on farms needed to help their parents
4. Betting on various creature races, such as beetles or turtles, at the local bar while ingesting copious amounts of alcohol. I was not doing this quite yet but heard many a story from my parents and siblings who came to visit.
5. Police officers escorting drunk drivers home. Not pulling them over or putting them in jail, no. Actually driving behind them to ensure they got home ok from the local bar.

I’m sure you can imagine what ensued with some of those cultural norms in place. We had a BLAST! From the time I was 11 or 12 years old I remember going to parties with my parents at their good friends homes or at our own home. These were not little dinner party gatherings, these were full on raging parties. Us kids at the time thought this is great! Loud music, loads of good food and our parents completely occupied so we can do whatever we want for as long as we want! That included things like daring each other to jump off a very high roof into the snow bank at the base of the house. Or pulling each other on boogie boards behind the car on the highway at high speeds purposely trying to toss each other into the snowy ditch. Staying up until the wee hours of the morning stuffing our faces with junk food and playing with the Ouija board completely terrifying ourselves.

As I got into high school the experimentation on my part started to expand. There were regular “keggers” out in the woods where we would hopefully not be discovered. Kids would pull up in their big trucks, blast some top hits from the 1980’s, light a massive fire and the insanity would ensue. We typically were not only drinking we were smoking weed or imbibing in other consumables as well. This would lead to some of the most ridiculous conversations and situations. Some of which I still remember with fondness today.

As driving with an open beer in the car was acceptable at the time, this made kids driving while drinking acceptable in our eyes. One particular school dance called, MORP (Prom backwards), a bunch of us decided to have a little party before going to the dance. This included drinking quite a few concoctions with Vodka in the car prior to going into the school. There was a big group of us who partook in this activity. We thought we were having a great time and so sneaky! Little did we know it was observed that we were drunk and stoned so the police were called who then looked in our cars and found open bottles of liquor. We were all taken to the police station and sat to await our fate. We told each other to suck on pennies as that would lower the alcohol levels. Not sure where we got that idea?! Some of my friends were quite concerned that we had been caught doing this at school and worried about what their parents would do for punishment. I didn’t feel too worried. My big loud father turned up a little later. I heard his booming voice out in the lobby making jokes with the officers. I was called out to go with him. He was drunk as a skunk!!! He and my mum had been out to dinner with my aunt who was in town visiting at the time and they had a rather good time. Did the officers question my father or consider if I should get in the car with him. No, of course not this was Montana!

After this incident it was deemed that the group of kids would need to be suspended from school for a week and also attend alcohol classes to understand our mistakes and the dangers of drinking. My boyfriend and I at the time thought this was pretty great. We went skiing all week! The classes that we took were rather interesting. They were led my a man who I think was called Frank Kirkoff (spelling?). Well you can imagine what name we came up with for him, Frank Jerk-off. Also he had an unfortunate affliction of having a lazy eye that looked like it was crossed with the other. My father found the whole thing quite funny and had a hard time sitting in meetings with me and Frank without laughing. I remember a school meeting at this time quite well. It was with the school administrators and several parents. One parent stood up and said something like “this never would have happened if there was not so much drinking at the Farmer’s house!”. Well my father did not like that and he stood up to let them have it. I wish I could remember what he said, I just remember thinking — GO DAD!

It was in fact true that my house, “the Farmer’s house”, was the place to be for good times. I was the fourth child, my parents had been there, done that. They knew what was going to happen with teenagers so they encouraged us to be home and be as safe as we could be. There were many a bonfire on the beach outside of our house or parties when mum and dad were out or away.

One particular party I will never forget took place on the 4th of July. My parents were away for the weekend and it was a rainy one. Typically there were fireworks down on the city beach but this night due to the rain that was not going to be much fun. It got out that there was a party at the Farmer’s house. Before I knew it there must have been close to 100 people at my house! The music was pounding, the booze was flowing and I had imbibed in way too many substances to really know what was going on. Being a completely irresponsible teenager, I agreed to get in our family speed boat with a group of kids while leaving the party raging at my house. We were going to drive down to another guys house on the lake and have a hot tub. Well the guy driving the boat decided to whip some donuts and before we knew it my good friend had flown across the boat and bashed her head on the side board. We quickly realized that a large golf ball was forming on the side of her head and rushed back to my house. Once she came to I went and got her one of my dads strong back pills to take with a beer!? Super idea, I know. Somehow the night went on. She was inebriated enough not to really notice what was going on with her — she had a serious concussion! The next day she got very ill and could have died. I look back on that and think how stupid and insane we were?!

One other memory that really sticks out in my memory is driving while being completely high on mushrooms. There were four of us in the car and we had Led Zeppelin blasting at top notch while speeding down the twisting highway to the end of the lake. As I was driving I was seeing a spectacular light show with many formations coming at me quickly. I remember laughing thinking what a trip it was! Once we got to the end of the lake we parked the car and sparked a joint. As we sat there we started to hear a loud rumbling and soon realized it was a train. The sound got louder and louder and the light began to approach. We sat stunned wondering what the hell is that thing?! It became apparent that it was a train and I could not remember where I had parked the car— was I on the tracks? Well you would think that we would have moved the car or gotten out but no we sat there terrified just waiting… Thankfully it turned out we were not on the tracks and we laughed our faces off at the thrill of it all. Crazy times!

The friends that I made at this time are still some of my closest bestest friends that I will ever have. They are like soul mates who saw all of the good times and all of the bad times with me. They know me inside and out and I them. Although I know these were not normal times for most kids growing up nor always safe, I am so thankful for the experiences I had. I had some serious fun. It was unstructured, it was wild and thrilling and I was finding myself. This time, the people and these experiences made me who I am today and I would not give any of that up for the world!

Thinking about my kids growing up today, I would not want them driving while inebriated in any way or intentionally putting themselves or others in harms way. However, I do know that they will experiment with things just as I did and I want them to know that they can talk to me about it. I am a firm believer that the more you try to control and restrict your kids the more they will rebel against you. So I will aim to be honest with them and hope that they can be honest with me. I will give them the freedom to roam, to explore, to have a blast and to learn as my parents did for me. Let the good times roll, safely!