Montana Viewpoint: 'No man is poor...'

Several years ago I paid a visit to the Mayor of Flaxville, Montana. Her honor was not only the CEO of Flaxville, she was also the Chair of the Democratic Party in Daniels County, which was the main reason for my visit in my capacity as the State Chair of the whole shebang—the Montana Democratic Party. That’s just to explain why I was there and that’s all the politics this article will contain. So, I’m in Flaxville at a pancake breakfast put on by some organization for some good cause. Flaxville, for those who are lacking in Montana geography, lies just south of the Canadian line between Scobey and Plentywood, more specifically between Madoc and Navajo, in Daniels County, all this being in the Northeast corner of Montana. Because Flaxville is not a big town, population about 60 in 2020, the meeting hall facilities are a little limited. The pancake breakfast was being held in an old school auditorium or movie theater, I forget which, which went a long way towards explaining why the floor sloped, but not so steep a slope that it was impossible to sit on a chair at a table and enjoy the meal.

I was seated next to the mayor’s father, a grain farmer from Navajo. He asked me where I was from and hearing that I was from the mountains of Western Montana he opined that I must find the Northeast part of the state pretty boring. I gave him my stock answer, “Well, people will say that there’s not much to see here, and that’s a matter of opinion, but as little as there might be to see, you can sure see a lot more of it.” So, we launched into a discussion of the beauties of our state. The area around Flaxville is not flat but rolling with buttes poking up here and there. I find it beautiful, but then I am hard pressed to think of a place anywhere in Montana that is not beautiful. And if the scenery is less than stunning, seeing it at sunrise or sunset will fix that.

The mayor’s father told me of a butte on his farm with quite a view where he liked to take his lunch when he was working his fields. “I’ll sit on the ground and eat lunch and maybe take a nap and sometimes my neighbor joins me and we’ll both take a nap.” “At night,” he said, “you can see the lights of Scobey to the west, Plentywood to the east, and way down south the lights of Poplar.”

I was touched by his story and thought of all the small pleasures that we sometimes take for granted. I am often reminded of this, the latest incident of which was when I was having a whiskey ditch with my neighbor on his back porch when he went over to the railing and “relieved” himself. “No man is poor…” I thought. Which is a quote from Scrooge McDuck (world’s richest duck) as he frolics in his three cubic acre bin of money:

“No man is poor who can do what he likes to do once in a while! And I like to dive around in my money like a porpoise! And burrow through it like a gopher! And toss it up and let it hit me on the head!”

Well, taking a nap on a hillside with a neighbor is not quite the same as wallowing in wealth, but it must be every bit as satisfying. Later that day, on my way to Plentywood I stopped off in Navajo to see if I could spot the butte he was talking about. Navajo was not hard to find, there just wasn’t much of it, just grain bins next to the abandoned Great Northern Railway line. It is pretty country, made even more memorable when you consider how tough the people who settled there had it, lured by false promises of good land with plenty of rainfall by the railroad but found instead hardships and loneliness, with suicide not uncommon, many living in uninsulated tar paper shacks in the harsh winters. But they persevered.

They’ve earned their pleasures, no matter how modest they may be.

Montana Viewpoint has appeared in weekly and online newspapers across Montana for over 25 years. Jim Elliott served sixteen years in the Montana Legislature as a state representative and state senator. He lives on his ranch in Trout Creek.