Hughes Central

Marjorie and Lee Cowan
By: Gary Cowan, January, 2006

"Marj." (as she wrote her name) was born April 11, 1913, in Meadow Creek (later McAllister), Madison County, Montana, and died June 20, 1994, in Livingston, Park County, Montana. She graduated from Whatcom High School, Bellingham, Washington, class of 1930, after which she worked as a legal secretary at a law firm in Bellingham. She married Robert Lee Cowan on December 6, 1932, in Butte, Montana. Lee Cowan was born July 6, 1911, in Park County, Montana, and died July 13, 1994, in Livingston, Park County, Montana. Marj. and Lee were ranchers in the Shields Valley, Park County, Montana, from their marriage until 1949. Thereafter, they lived in Livingston, Montana, for some years, during which Lee worked for the Park Electric Coop. Next, they returned to ranching, in the Yellowstone Valley, Park County, Montana, and (briefly) in the Madison Valley, Madison County, Montana. In 1964, Marj. and Lee bought a small house on 5 acres in the Yellowstone Valley, Park County, Montana. By then, Lee was working seasonally for the National Park Service, and Marj. and Lee spent summers first at Big Hole National Battlefield, Montana, and afterwards in Yellowstone Park, Wyoming. Marj. and Lee were the parents of Gary (1934 - ), Deane (1941 - 2004), and Lexi (1953 - ).

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FOREWORD

BY: BOB (R.R.) HUGHES My sister, Marjorie, wrote many more articles than have been assembled into this web page. For several years she was a contributing columnist for the The Livingston Enterprise and later for the Montana Standard.  This compilation consists of the articles that have come into my possession over the years. The earliest, or first, piece that was published, to my knowledge, is the free verse tribute to president John F. Kennedy, at the bottom of this page.

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The Livingston Enterprise, May 4, 1967

A Letter From Marj...

By: MARGE COWAN

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first in a series of articles written by Marge Cowan, long time Park County resident, who spends the summer months in Yellowstone Park where her husband, Lee, works for the government. She will keep The Enterprise readers informed of the trials, tribulations and adventures of the people who work in the Park.)

Dear Editor

May 1, 1967, the carefully prepared for day when Lee, my husband, reports for work at South District, Yellowstone Park, and we are bogged down already just above the Peace Arch in Gardiner. We left our home on Mill Creek this morning at 5:30 daylight losing time (Lee is not about to change his idea of what time it is just because of a national law.) We headed south in the teeth of the blizzard we expect each day in this backward spring. The roads were like lard on a door knob, and the little hill out of Gardiner has us temporarily out of commission. Not even a "young" truck with new tires could hack these roads with a house trailer in tow, and ours is 20 years old with slick tires, so Lee is chaining up. I am reading in the car rather than stand with him as he lies in the wet snow under the truck and listen to phrases I have heard for 34 years. Just now, though, I stuck my head out and yelled, "Hear that meadowlark, Lee?" I rolled the window back up at his esthetic reply of, "Yeah, I hear the misguided May 2nd - We arrived a Lake at noon and Lee went to work for Uncle Sam at 1 p.m. They need all the people they can get for snow removal, sanding, etc., and he is running a sanding truck.

Joan Merryman, a pal from last summer, had us eat lunch with her and then she and I took a tour of the big snow country. Our assignment is Grant Village and we will be parked at Lake only until they can find the water main at this outpost almost 8,000 feet up. The road is plowed entirely through to Cody so we knew we could safely inspect our future home sites. We went through another blizzard of the black sky and blinding snow type and then I walked into the space plowed out for Cowan's little silver home in the West. I looked up and up past the white walls to the sky. I felt like the last one to die in a Polar expedition. If a dog had happened by I fear I might have looked upon him as a sandwich instead of my best friend.

No TV monster is as inexorable as the soft white hand in Yellowstone Park that keeps getting larger and larger and stronger and stronger. It is stupendously beautiful in appearance but I thought of my fright and terror if I had been living in the new apartment building here at Grant Village as it

slowly squeezed until the north wall caved in and the picture window lay in splinters on the soggy once-shiny floor.

When we got back to Lake we were greeted by our Park County neighbors, Ernie Stockburger, Danny Schleicher and Bill Whithorn. They shook our hands as if we had not seen them "Outside" only last week and looked at us red-faced. This was not from embarrassment, this is the color of us snow people.

May 3rd: Lee ate his supper and was called immediately back to work last night as snow plowing and sanding to South Gate must be continous. He returned to the trailer at one a.m. When Joan and I got home she was apprised that her husband, a member if the day road crew, was detained as a tragic wreck had occurred during the blizzard we had traveled in to Grant Village. One girl was killed and several people hurt. We shivered a little thinking how it could have been us as it was only a few miles from where we turned in to the employee's area.

Yes, the tourists are already here. I stood with a group unloading from a Y. P. bus and heard a remark I truly admired. As they looked out over the great white nothing that was once Yellowstone Lake, one said, "Hey, man they aint NOBODY gonna call that a half-vast view".

Sincerely,

Marj. Cowan

Livingston Enterprise, Wed. May 10, 1967

A LetterFrom Marj...

DEAR EDITOR: 

May 7, Sunday—Here I am at Lake again after a visit home on Mill Creek. We expected to move lock, stock and trailer to Grant Village today, so Lee, my husband, could start work in the morning. However, he is detained in this area as truck drivers are needed in the snow removal on Dunraven Pass. The cute Sunday ranger admitting us early this morning at the North Entrance turned out to be Billy Harris, son of Dr. and Mrs. W. E. Harris. Weekdays he is a teacher at Gardiner. His wife Judy (Harmon) teaches at Mammoth.

Jim Fisher has moved to Grant Village and will batch in one of the apartments until his wife Alice joins him when school is out. One son is being graduated from the 8th grade and the other from high school. Joan and Jim Merriman have also moved and two or three others, so Grant Village is no longer the deserted polar area of a few days ago.

Last week before going home I decided to go on past the Village as the road is well plowed and maintained and take a look at Lewis Lake, one of my favorite summer scenes. I never did find it. It was gone. The great white hand of the high country had wiped it off the map. Suddenly I felt alone and uninvited in this vast snowland. In spite of quite a few tourists whizzing by, I turned my little car smack around in the middle of the road and high-tailed it back to Lake. The light snow over there of from three to ten feet looked good, especially when trimmed with women busily walking about the employee's section. I proceeded homeward then, but took a moment to admire the dry land around Dragon's Mouth and listen to its reassuring belches which never stop, rain or snow, or dark of night.

The rest of the trip down country that day was uneventful except that two grizzlies loped across the road in front of me and in Hayden Valley a majestic buffalo was ponderously fording the river. Every now and then he stopped to conjecture or whatever buffalo do when they stand and nod. Then on one frosted cup cake hill I saw a family come sliding merrily down on children's sleds. I call including sleds real vacation planning.

Since we did not have to move today and had an afternoon on our hands we went to Cody via East Entrance. (I made the statement in my Ietter last week that Cody was South Entrance. My typewritcr is about as old as I am and if it doesn't quit making those senile mistakes, it's gotta go!)

We traveled the beautiful Sylvan Pass, stepping on it a little between two signs that read, "Do not stop for the next two miles. Dangerous slide area." We stopped a minute, though, to say ''Hi" to Ernie Stoekburger, Dave Gualtrey and another worker we did not know. They were loading a boulder on a truck. They probably thought it would look better heaved over the bank than on a tourist.

The road was excellent clear through and we felt odd indeed to see a cloud of dust around the Buffalo Bill Reservoir. We thought anything blowing about in the air had to be white.

I f you have not seen the historical center at Cody, make the trip. Look at the cave man they just dug up. Ugh! He is worse than the ones in the Salt Lake City museum with his bony feet sticking up covered with a horrible hide parka. He even had stringy black hair. He had a loving heart though. Amongst his death dealing rock knives and toad-stabbers was a darling toy bow and arrow for a child.

I have never in my life seen many real jewels, so my mouth hung open as I gazed at the pieces given to Buffalo Bill by the crowned heads of Europe. Lee thought they were from the dime store and wandered away to look at old guns.

May 8, Monday—Last night after we returned from Cody, Danny Schleicher paid a neighborly call and he and Lee exchanged bear stories. If the summer visitors could have listened they would never again feed, pet or set their kids on one of the critters. Last summer Lee saw a man sharing his beer with a bear standing upright at his side. The wife ran to the car shrieking "Harvey, you quit that" or words to that effect, but Harvey and the bear companionably finished thc beer, then both ambled off on their separate ways. It was Harvey's lucky day, that's all, or else the old saying "There is no love like that of one drunk for another" held true.

Bill Whithorn and Cliff Thompson went by our window returning from their weekend at home. Cliff's mother, Mrs. Effie Thompson, has been seriously ill and was recently dismissed from the Memorial hospital. Effie is a Park County pioneer and her many friends wish her well.

May 8, Monday evening—I am home again to take care of my eighth grade daughter since her big sister has now returned after surgery to her school room at Gardiner. I visited her and her fourth graders this afternoon and talked with Doris Berg, the principal. Her husband, Vic, was called to Thumb and is quartered at the bunkhouse while he works on snow removal. I also chatted with Roberta Hepburn and found that she and Ralph are to live at Madison Junction this year and will soon be moving.

When I left Lake this morning it was 52 degrees above and summer was in the air. ~This is a big change from the 2 above of last week and I have a word of advice for you low-country folks - Start building arks!

Respectfully,

Marj Cowan

(The Livingston Enterprise, Thursday, May 18, 1967)

A Letter from Marj...

DEAR EDITOR;

May 12, - I did not get to go to Yellowstone this morning because this is the week of the eighth grade graduation festivities and we have a graduate in our family. However, I have the news, Lee brought it down with him and I shall repeat it word for word. All lies and mistakes this week are his!

Monday, May 8 - Plow snow with Blue (Evans) on Dunraven Pass. Settled to five feet.

Tuesday- On Sylvan Pass. Trying to bring down avalanche with 75 mm. fire. Was not successful. Got away from a boulder by running like heck.

Wednesday - Snowplow at Canyon Village with Blue. Snow about five feet. Snowed hard all day.

Thursday - Worked with Frances (Wright) and Danny (Schleicher) on road to South Gate. Snow settling. Saw Ed Marchington (Livingston resident) at Lake Monday. He just came and is in bunkhouse. Lake still froze over.

Moved trailer Saturday.
Being a woman, I don't think that is enough news. You're going to get more of some kind or another, so here goes. For 20 years I have tried to sell household hints. For 20 years I have been rejected, one editor even suggesting that I was perhaps not ready for this field. According to the writing course I was then studying, selling household hints was the first step to take, so his message came through loud and clear. This, however, did not end my yearning, and now at long last I have some readers in my power! Move over, Alice and Heloise, you may be in trouble.

Hint Number l: We are always warned to squeeze our hand washables out in a towel and not wring them, correct? OK, So wrap them in several thicknesses of towel, place them on a chair and sit on them. If you are under 120 pounds rock back and forth. If you weigh 130, plop up and down a few times. If you weigh 200, just relax. Now unwrap the garments and find they are well squeezed. Hang them up to dry. If you only wrapped them in one thickness of towel, go stand over the furnace.

Hint Number 2: Fill plastic jugs with water and freeze them. Send them to the field with the haymen or take them on trips. On a hot day, by the time the men are ready for a drink, they have delicious cold water. (In all probability you will not need to do this year. The men can lick ice off the trees and plants.)

Also, when on a trip, do you have trouble watering the two to five-year-olds.? Most of you know it is not a good idea to constantly ask Daddy to stop, particularly just so water won't get spilled. So each morning before starting out, fill small plastic bottles (dish soap type) with water. They must have squeeze

tips and good snapdown lids. The little squirts of water from these are just right for the little squirts in the back seat. If you have only one child along (this

won't work for two or more because of the love of children for water warfare) and he is the scholarly, responsible type, let him be in charge of his own water supply. It may help him develop leadership so he can be a business tycoon at the early age of 23 such as the one I read about in the A to Z column in this paper. Of course it is possible this will happen only to early Bird type boys!

Third and last helpful hint: I have tried for 34 years to get the best of odiferous dish cloths and sponges. Almost new ones will develop this unlovely trait. I have bleached them, sudsed them, thrown them on the floor and jumped on them - I have not done this last since the early 1940's - all to no avail. They would immediately regress to smelling like Dump No. 3. At last I found the answer. Simply rinse them for a full minute under running water, either hot or cold, and they smell as they should. Repeat when B. O. sets in again.

One more thing: Eating and laughing with friends makes you forget better than anything that you haven't been able to jump on the smelly dishrag since the early 1940's. I found this out long ago and had it reaffirmed Saturday at a party in the home of Bill and Naomi Keyes. Those who arrived at the party wounded by 50 or more years of stabs from the "slings and arrows of circumstances" left with aches eased or replaced by pleasanter ones, I am sure. And who wouldn't rather drink bromo-seltzer than wipe away tears?

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

(The Livingston Enterprise, Thursday, May 25th, 1967)

A Letter from Marj...

DEAR EDITOR:

We returned late Monday from Grant Village this week after only a short visit with Lee, my husband. He and Danny Schleicher are opening the road to the Village and Lake dump. The only way we could see him was to follow his tracks. One goes up the old, unused road to Old Faithful to find this savory area. I had a Marine lieutenant with me as well as my teenage Lexi. I was glad for the presence of the lieutenant as we got stuck. The entrance to the poorly opened road was filled with slush, so I said, "Hit her, Lieutenant." He gave me an astonished glance but it must be that even brawny Marines don't defy their mothers-in-law, so he hit it. We stopped soon and forever.

The last I saw of him and Lexi for awhile was when they were trudging up the snow filled road to find Lee to pull us out. I waited in the car and rolled up the windows as the bear have been out quite awhile and no one ever offers to eat the porridge of the family that lives at this dump. Their last name is Grizzly. I only hoped that my defenseless son-in-law and daughter smelled too fresh to be taken for bear breakfast as the only weapon they had was a stick carried by skinny Lexi.

They were soon back riding with Lee in a truck. After an hour of shoveling and pushing we were free of the "slush" pile I had gotten us into and we proceeded homeward. Lee said the snow at the garbage area had settled to a mere sprinkle of about a foot and now they are plowing out loops at the Village. Soon the visitors can pitch their tents and level up their trailers and campers. The last glimpse I had last summer of this beautiful area, I saw about four hundred campers. It is right on the Lake and one can camp either in the forest or in a city-like atmosphere of mapped out streets and fire hydrants.

We talked to Red Payne at Lake. He and Etta had moved their trailer up about a week ago and he is on snow removal. Etta returned to Livingston to open her rock shop on Park road where the handmade gifts are fashioned with a lovely precision.

The fellows at Lake were trying to find Dr. G. J. Moffitt of the Livingston Clonic. He had gone up to open the Lake Hospital and was getting anxious to see out his office windows. They were using shovels and a snow machine. It worked well in the cold mornings when the snow was sort of dry but by afternoon when the sun became hot and the snow slushy, all it could do was weakly regurgitate ice cubes. Consequently much of the removal was by dint of shovel and elbow grease.

;At Gardiner I learned that Lloyd Winkle would soon be off Bear Tooth and at his job as foreman at Canyon. The high pass to Red Lodge will be open by Friday.

When I got home to Mill Creek I had a visit with some real Park County old timers., Mr. and Mrs Ralph Lyall of Old Chico. I asked Ralph if in all his years of working in the Park had he seen such a snowfall as this year.

His answer was long and interesting. He said, "When I was 16 years old I started to work in Yellowstone for the government. The next year, 1914, I went to work for Yellowstone Western as a coach driver. Y. W. was the outfit that hauled tourists from West Yellowstone to South. They had a long line of coaches and hauled four to five hundred people with a soldier in the lead and one as rear guard. There were several other outfits hauling people including the Wylie Transport."

In salty language he denounced the latter company for the reason that "They were the ones that got us into all the trouble they could. Once they accused us of breaking down the Trout Creek bridge and we hadn't even been over it."

He went on with his story. "It was in 1914 the snow was so heavy. The road from South Gate to Thumb was at best only a trail and one day a blizzard started in on top of all the others that already had everything covered with from six to twenty feet of snow. The boss got worried and told my brother Oscar and me to get six horses and a wagon ready and get going to keep the road open. We were at the Lewis River camp about six miles from South Gate so we started out. It was a risky business but we were just kids and waded right into it. We even took time off to follow six deer that werre filing past on the side of the road. We got in line behind 'em and marched right along until we got tired and decided to get back to business. We could have touched the rump of the "wheeler" at any time but didn't as he could have probably gotten turned around to hook us good".

We camped at Trout Creek that first night and my brother Oscar and one of the guys - his name was George - got in a fight. Oscar won all the rounds and the decision and never stirred out of his tracks. The snow was so deep he just rocked back and forth and punched. George showed more action. He kept going down in front of Oscar. He would get back up and lie back down no matter what his original plans might have been. Finally he had quite a slot mashed down for himself. At the end of the fight he laid in it quite awhile to rest and think, I guess, because when he got up the fight was over."

The next day we got to Thumb and put our horses in the livery stable. There was a big one south of where the general store now stands. It would hold over a hundred horses. In the night I had to get up and shake the waddin' out of the kid that was with us. He was supposed to get wood and he was too lazy to dig around in the snow so was chopping the horse stalls out of the barn."

"We started for Lewis River camp again the next day. When we finally got there the boss met us quite a ways downs the road and there was a hard packed trail behind him. He had paced up and down most of the time thinking we had abandoned him and made our way on out the Park out of the danger area."

Ralph finished his story by saying, "You know what became of Oscar, my brother? Why he went to California and become a multi-millionaire!" I forgot to ask him the source of all the riches because he was busy telling how "Just lately Oscar gave Billy Graham, that preacher, a swell mansion to pitch camp in when he's in California."

Many people have called me to say they liked my household hints so I feel that I cannot withhold another great one. Here goes: Save your dry bread in a thick non-leaking plastic bag or in double thinner ones. When you want crumbs fasten the bag or bags securely. I use a straight pin. Put the bag on the floor and ramp it like it was grapes in Italy. If you have have large feet a firm tromp or two will do it but if you are petite, you had better plan a short and crumby one-spot march.

Respectfully

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, June l, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

DEAR EDITOR;

GRANT VILLAGE, Yellowstone Park? May 29   Howdy, Podner, from the North Country where the snow is going, going, and in some places gone all over the roads. Digging trenches down the sides of the highways to divert streams intent on crossing over is one of the main activities at this time. Recently, Danny Schleicher and Mr. Kocher caught Dog Head Creek in the act and made new channels. Other road crew people are trying to keep up with the pot holes.

In the Village employee's area where we live, tall, swaying, trees threatening the trailers are being cut and hauled away. These lovely lodge pole pines often stand alone. If removed from their brethren, with whom they are always closely grouped, their roots systems do not hold and the winds bring them down.

Today the snow removal crew is shoveling out the beautiful new marina opposite the one now serving the Village. The visitor's center is repaired and ready to open. The soft white hand of the snow country squeezed the eaves a bit too firmly.

The snow where I live is now sinking into dirty faced drifts and the rain pouring down is helping to assure their early departure. Some change from a few days ago when a bear stood on a drift contemplating the jump to the top of Areva and Ray Packer's trailer. He was chased away with pan lids and shrieks before he made the leap.

The ice on the Lake is still in an agony of indecision. It is loose now, the edges generally showing blue water. The huge center mass washes from side to side in its 100 square  mile territory. Any day now the whole sheet will sink, as I was told it was beginning to crack clear across. When this occurs, down it goes and this is the happy day the lucky persons in the various pools guessing the right day collect the fat rewards.

Mable and Walter Mast arrived last week from their travels in Arizona. They planned to wait until conditions here were more propitious but declare the snow easy to live with compared to the sand storm in which they were caught at Page, Arizona. Their trailer rocked so menacingly they pulled out the minute it was safe. With windows tightly closed everything was still covered with fine grit, Mable reports. There is not a speck of dust at Grant Village, I assure you.

Beryl Payne, Livingston, and Wilfred Lewis, Gardiner, are among the new arrivals on the work force at Lake. Wilfred's wife and daughter from Wisconsin will join him soon. Bill Hahn, Livingston, is working out of Lake with Montana Power, and Bill and Eunice Gibson from Clyde Park are assigned to the Canyon area. Mr. and Mrs. Mark Hargis, Clyde Park, are at Lake.

South District is sad this week because of the death of Evelyn Wolfe's husband, Marvin, 40. He was a pilot at Casper, Wyo., and crashed Thursday morning. Evelyn is bookkeeper for this section of the Park. Her assistant, Joan Merriman, is carrying on at the office in her absence.

Our son in law, Lyle, Marine first Lieutenant, has left us. This morning he and his wife, our daughter Deane, departed from our home on hIill Creek for Cam LeJune, North Carolina. He will pick up his gear and report to Camp Butler, Okinawa, July 1, flying from there to Vietnam. Deane will return for summer school at Bozeman and to teach this fall in Gardiner.

Saturday evening, relatives gathered at the Cave in Livingston with Lieutenant Johnson and Deane for a farewell dinner. Present were Bert and Patti Gibson and daughter Sue, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Paddock from Bozeman (Anna Johnson's sister) and the Cowan family, including little sister Lexi. Lee, Lexi, and I afterwards traveled on to Yellowstone, arriving at the ghastly hour of 2:30 Sunday morning as Lee had to report for work at eight. Other members of Lyle's family met Sunday noon at Mill Creek for a farewell picnic. Invited were Len and Jerry Arthur and Bruce of Wilsal. Anna and Jack Paddock and Fay and Peg Johnson, an aunt and uncle of the Three Forks area.

I have something to tell parents, wives, and others close to boys in the combat zones of Vietnam. Our son in law is in the Marine Infantry and his chances of returning home unscathed are in the balance.

I said to him, "Lyle, many people are bitter and angry about the maiming and killing of American boys in lands far removed. Many of us wish only to defend our own shores since our attempts to help other countys do not appear too successful. What, as a professional fighting man, is your opinion.?"

He answered, "I want to remind you of this. The bulk of the remaining world resources lies untapped in underdeveloped countries. Any power, whether it be capitalistic, communistic or any ideology, taking over a least three fourths of these backward countries, starves out the rest of the world. The loser is deprived the right of world trade. It can do no buying or selling. It can have no share in needed goods. If America is the loser, no matter what her military strength, and becomes thus weakened, we will have no market for exports, we will not be allowed to import. The greater power will soon be on our shores waging war and breaking down our last defenses."

"If the human experiment is to survive at least for awhile longer, the world powers must be maintained at a semblance of balance. America has no right to exploit other countries to extremes nor to impose her way of living on them to extremes. Neither has Russia nor any other power. The ideal thing is to exist side by side in peace with other forms of government, but men being what they are, this perhaps will never be. All fighting men can do is to attempt to keep their country in the running. In the light of this I am willing to carry out what I consider my duty".

With a lump in my throat, I close.

Respectfully,

Marj Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, June 8, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

Dear Editor:

\

June 5, Mill Creek. We couldn't go to "Jellystone" this week with father and husband Lee, because of Suzy. Uncle Sam won't let her in his national parks. She is, I admit, a victim of bad breath and dandruff, and she doesn't speak intelligently at all times, but who does, including Congress and me, and we're accepted in parks. And she is using Scope and Head and Shoulders. Regardless of this, Uncles bans all human Beagles like Suzy and other four-legged friends of little girls. I am not mad. I see his reasoning. What if two million dogs had toured the Park last year? Or several thousand lived there with employees?

We have a plan, though. We are training her to walk upright. In a pair of tight pants or a mini-skirt she is not unlike sights I have seen lately, inasmuch as she has big eyes and long ears falling limply to her shoulders. Later, we may buy her a small guitar. Until then, she, the cats, goldfish, puppies chipmunks, and hamsters we house do pose an occasional problem. This is not to mention our biggest friends, the horses.

On the way here June l from Grant Village we noted Yellowstone Lake was blue. This meant the ice is gone, Wednesday, May 31. Water could be seen everywhere on the surface but it was gray. I took this to mean it had sunk in just below the surface. Thursday it had gone clear down and the sparkling blue, typical of this superb lake, had appeared.

Memorial Day we drove from Grant Village to McAllister, Madison County. Other Park County people there were Mrs. Bert (Patti) Gibson, Mrs. Tom Dunn, Mr. and Mrs. Guy Gibson, Mrs. Madge Walker and son Tavner. Patti and Madge are Switzer cousins from the Ennis and Jeffers area. Switzer and Jeffers are names synonymous with the settling of that country.

Guy and Florence Gibson were also Madison Valley pioneers. Guy's mother, Ellen Gibson, first opened the post office on North Meadow Creek at a place called Washington Bar in the early 1900's. In 1920 Guy and his family moved into the Chadbourn area of Shields River so they are old timers here too.

Sandra Christiansen McKeown is employed at Canyon, I learned when in McAllister. She is the daughter of Virginia and Paul Christiansen of the Sixty-Three Guest Ranch and is a graduate of Park High School. She recently lived near McAllister and has just returned from a visit in New York.

On the trip from West Yellowstone to Ennis we passed the ranch of Don and Coleen Strong. They moved from Billings this spring to the Granger hay and cattle ranch near Cameron. Coleen is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jim Dunn of Fleshman Creek and Don is the son of Mrs. D. A. Strong, Livingston. Both are Park High School graduates. Jack Dunn with his wife, the former Olga Carson, and children, will arrive by plane Saturday for a visit with Mr. and Mrs. Dunn. Colleen and Don and other relatives, Jack and Olga are also Park High graduates and Jack is a chemical engineer at Loveland, Colorado.

Upon returning to South District, Tuesday. we stopped to tour Firehole Lake area. The cold air was so steam filled we could hardly find the place. If you haven't been off the main trail lately to see this, you should. It is a surprising thermal display. Mabel and Wast Mast said they found it surprising the Saturday before. It was raining and snowing and when they got there they heard yells and shrieks. They peered through the steam and storm with some trepidation and found the yells and shrieks emitting from some college kids. They were in swimming! The water is a perfect temperature for a Saturday bath, as far as that goes.

I have had more calls for household hints. At last I am finding my place in the literary. OK, fellas, here's one for you. You already know you must remove old, blistered paint before applying new. So what do you do when your wire, paint-scraping brush becomes dull? Simply run it back and forth across that thing on which you sharpen knives and sickles. Bob Crawford told me this and he knows his painting and repairing. He also knows the name of the "thing".

I promised Mary Smith of Safeway that I would be thinking of you girls too, so here's one for you. Have you a piece of furniture that is unsteady on its pins or making holes in the rug? Until you can get its leg lengthened or dulled, here is what to do. Shove a cork coaster under the offending member - you know, one of those you set under drinks. Not having any of those handy, your old garters can help. Glue the rubber button part to the bottom of the teetering leg.

With that I will button this up and snap off to my work. See you next week from Grant Village.

Respectfully,

Marj Cowan

The Livington Enterprise, June 14.1967

A Letter from Marj...

DEAR EDITOR;

Grant Village, June 12, 1967. - Suzy Beagle is visiting Dave Colmey this week so Lexi and I are in Yellowstone with Lee, the boss of our household. We could hardly forget her weeping brown eyes as we left her but there are no kinder hands than those of Dr. Dave nor those of Margaret Moore who needs no identifying. Pat Streblow, daughter of Bert and Helen, also assists at the veterinary hospital and which of us could ask for better friends?

This is, of course only a temporary arrangement. Does there happen to be anywhere in this audience a lonesome and loving boy or girl whose mother would allow him or her to keep a human Beagle? This would be from Saturday to Thursday of each week until school starts. If you loved Suzy and she learned to love you, she would become as a little sister. She knows what people say and after getting acquainted, is obedient to one's every wish. After I think that over, I would say she becomes more than a little sister. Have you, boys and girls, ever seen one of these latter obedient to your every wish.

Last night we went to Flag Ranch located between South entrance and Teton. The deep, majestic, Lewis River Canyon is something to see with the wild water tumbling in its depths.

At Flag Ranch in the most beautiful of settings, there are 125 guest cabins, a huge store, a long string of dude horses plus every other attraction.

Before you come to this, drive off the highway a mile or so into the lovely mountain meadow-lands and find Huckleberry swimming pool where amongst other things, you can rent a sleeping bag for 50 cents. Wildlife abounds here including many birds, even some of those English-type ones in mini-skirts.

I hope for my own peace of mind I can soon find this type of chick attractive. All I can manage so far is pity that the less than beautiful specimens think that their "Twiggy" or stove pipe legs bared to the thighs, with knees like doorknobs, are something everybody wants to see every hour of the day and night. To my notion, a young girl in a pretty outfit is the loveliest thing ever put on this earth. Perhaps the day will yet come when I can admire them on the streets or anywhere, without outfits. If I do manage this, will I then be able to accept the grandmother birds now beginning to loom up in mini-skirts" Again. I dunno.

The snow and ice have at last reluctantly released Lewis Lake from their iron grip, and those delicious pan size brown trout are being caught there and on Lewis River.

A few trailer spaces are plowed out in the camp grounds and are occupied by intrepid Texans or most any other "furriner" you could mention. If they don't like the places opened by the snow plows, they shovel their own, and the snow is still about two feet deep up there. They always seem to be whistling and working in their T shirts. How come us natives most always seem to be grumbling and wearing ear flaps.

There are boiling hot pools in the thermal area of West Thumb. Last year Ellie Stockburger, Kathy Ellison, Lexi and I walked at least a mile seeing something new every minute. Besides the really deep and awesome pools, some said to be the deepest in the Park, there is the edge of the Lake. I can never understand this. There are boiling hot pools and pots of water on the very edge, back a ways from the edge and right out in it. There is one perfect "aching bone soaker" at the end of a ledge extending out into the lake. Just room enough to sit and stretch out luxuriously and admire the brilliant orange and green of your little pool. When you got out your hide would probably come off like the feathers of a scalded chicken, but outside of that, it would be perfect for anyone's back yard.

We have three times followed the trail of "Occassional Geyser." This spelling is Uncle Sam's, not mine, and the trail must be as wrong as the spelling, as we can't even find a hole likely to house such a thing. We did find one tiny hole though, innocent enough in appearance, but with some bad habits. We thought it a woodchuck home until we stuck our heads down close and heard peevish growlings and thuds. Pretty soon a little rock shot out. Just one more lesson for us tourists who just won't heed the warning signs. This might possibly have been its last barrage, however, as it sighed most despairingly as we left.

Don and Lucile Richards of Gardiner stopped by yesterday for a chat. They were in camp visiting Archie and Grace Richards who lately arrived from South Dakota for Archie to report to work. Don and Archie are brothers. Don is an employee in South District and Lucile works for the government at Mammoth. They were Livingston residents for many years.

Jim Peake has recently signed on as truck driver at Lake. Employees are coming in fast now, especially the college kids. Bob Burwell has returned to be one of Lee's helpers on the monolith packer. This big thing weighs about 14 tons and can put about that much garbage into its cavernous maw. All drivers and helpers on these are known as G men, but G. Edgar Hoover is not their boss. They get a goodly rate of pay per hour but are kidded about getting a dollar a day and all they can eat. I am not sure they consider this funny. They can come to me for comfort, though, as I do believe the bosses have to choose skilled, responsible men to run this big, complicated and most expensive machine.

Ruby Jorgenson of Livingston has the soda fountain open at Thumb and the General Store is also going full blast as of June 9. Ruby has run the fountain for years and without her the General Store wouldn't seem the same to us folks

from home. We are also glad to see Warren Fisher working at least temporarily at the store. He has the knack of making customers feel as secure as if they had their Linus blankets along. I wish this would happen in every store I go into.

Outside the window I see a small brown bear looking Lexi's sleeping trailer over. It is just the right size for a teenager or two or a homeless bear. He is probably a long yearling thrown out by his mother because a new blessed event turned up in the den where he was snuggled up to her this winter. This seems rather pitiful to me as these elder sons and daughters can't think what to do when Mama growls at them and slaps them away. They finally take the hint. Then they uncertainly wander around looking for their own bunk and board.

So with a shriek and a clanging of pan lids, I will say farewell until next time.

Respectfully,

Marj Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, June 22, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

Grant Village

Yellowstone Park

Dear Editor:

Hello from the high country where at last "the flowers are on the earth and the time of the singing bird is at hand." In the employee's court where I live, the trees sigh and sway and the trailers are sunwashed. It seems only yesterday they were rain and snow washed. In fact, it was only yesterday, There was hard rain in the morning on top of hail left over from the day before.

This is one of those rare days in June known only to Montanans. I am aware at this moment that I happen to be sitting in Wyoming, but Montana gets the credit. I can't admit that such a day could slip over into another state.

A bear just strolled by. He is skinny and mangy and doesn't act sure of himself. Wyoming can have credit for him. Actually, though, it wouldn't be fair to give Wyoming anything but a fat and emotionally secure bear. They have, I believe, a wild animal feeding program where seldom is heard a discouraging word or growl or bleat or helicopter. There the lady bear or elk probably have to diet to keep their figures as I assume they are not under an anxiety syndrome that causes their hair or fat to slip.

Toured Norris Geyser Basin the other day in the rain. Have you been there? We have many times, I thought until then when I saw it for the first time that the weird area where the mud pots fume and fuss in furious fury was Norris Geyser Basin, but that is Fountain Paint Pots, I have now learned.

Steamboat Geyser is like in, man, or getting there, anyway. People sit around up there for hours and days waiting for it to erupt. Few see it, as it is most unpredictable.

An intelligent looking lady with an intellectual looking kid was perched immovably on the hand rail. He said, "It's roaring more, Maw." She said, "Shut up and listen, this may be it." But it wasn't. It was just another of its routine outbursts. I was sure it was the big event as it roared and spat, sometimes from two vents, and the steam and water were impressive, but the lady said this happened about every minute. She said, "About three weeks ago it began to roar and the earth trembled. Some of us managed to get here and it shot 400 feet in the air. It lasted about 20 minutes. It threw rocks all over where you are standing. Some people think it is preparing for the big one again as there is more noise." Daughter Lexi and I stayed through two or three more roars and eruptions. Then we had to go. By now it may have made the earth tremble again plus the two or three people who were there by chance to see it, or it may wait until next month or next year

The whirling, bubbling pool at the foot of the hill below Steamboat gives me pause also; it is so violent. Another active geyser lies in wait below it. I sometimes wonder if the molten core of the earth is staying down there where it belongs and behaving itself. Let us hope it is not getting ready for a Happening. A hippie Happening in California probably can't compare to an earth core one.

Today a Ranger told me that a G-man (G as in garbage) driving a huge flat bed loaded with garbage, stopped at his entrance and meekly said, "May I have a litter bag?" then drove on. The ranger thought it was real humor. I did too until I found out who said it. I guess I still think it is humor. There's no law says one's husband can't be witty, is there? Or at least half way so.

Another fellow told me about the woman he saw putting food into the mouth of a bear. He was very tall and big and was standing up beside her car. She had her window down and was giving him bites. Others were grouped around taking pictures of this cute sight. For her sake I'm glad the bear didn't blow his cool. It only takes as instant for their tempers to change. If that happened, the camera enthusiasts could have gotten a blood picture in living color like we see on TV.

Well, a lonesome pine just fell over. I told you a few weeks ago these lovely lodge poles cannot stand alone. When highways and trailer spaces are carved through them the ones robbed of their brethren lean so low in the breeze they are unable to regain their stature, then they topple. The ones threatening life or limb are removed. This one fell harmlessly in my private wilderness area back of our trailer. I should imagine this is the last year I can look at my wilderness or walk in it. We will soon have about 15 trailers here where last year there were only ten. Wilderness must give way when the white man comes. So far the white men that have come have been so nice I have not minded the loss of one tree. Tonight Ted and Susie (Edith) Cox arrived from Livingston. Even the invaded Yellowstone Blackfeet, the fierce fighters, might have let them stay.

I should not like it to be forgotten that I am an ever present help to troubled housewives. This time I want to help all TOOTYWOLOS in my audience. This stands for "Tired old or tired young wives or lazy ones". Please write this down for future use. I may often help you and I wish to identify with business tycoons or bureaucrats or any other "in" group now in Washington or anywhere in the world who so deftly handles our wars and our money. As you know, their activities are in every instance labeled only with the initials of the organization's name. There are many persons amongst these. However, the only one I am anxious to meet at this time is General Dayan. Him I like well enough to invite to supper. I hope that Lady Bird feels the same way too, and that she, in the manner of all good hostesses, draws him out. I hope he explains to them all his views and methods on handling little emergencies that crop up in little nations like his.

To go back to the TOOTYWOLOS: When you are one of these and completely beat but still have to iron a shift for a daughter's date or some garment for some event immediately coming up, take your iron to the bedroom, sit down either in a chair or on the corner of your bed - you are supposed to have a plug-in somewhere handy - lay the ironing on the bed and start ironing. If the bedspread is expensive, turn it out of your way. If an every-day washable , leave as is. When you are through the garment is smooth and you have had a little rest. I even keep an old iron in a dresser drawer and grab it out for last minute pressing on the bed of closet creased clothes I am in a hurry to wear.

That word pressed makes me think that at this point I could be hard pressed in the event a survey was made to find a single reader still with me, so, so long for now.

Respectfully,

Marj Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, June 29, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

DEAR EDITOR:

Hello from where the creek roars fearsomely as the geysers and is about as safe to fool with. Today, it has appreciably lessened it fury but can yet, in my opinion, outrun a swift horse. A branch thrown in disappears in the distance within seconds. Later, the wild run-off is forgotten and its rock bones lie bared to the sun to remain thus until winter begins. We that live on this creek and love it often wish we could persuade everybody to support a program of dam building. Many old timers to whom I have talked think a series of dams up stream would be feasible. Then ranchers going about their important work of feuding us would have a reserve, and Mill Creek lovers would have water to enjoy instead of just the indecently bared bones lying there in unjustifiable indignity, and the pitiful carcasses of the fish victims.

Could not go to Yellowstone with my husband, Lee, because things at home needed a bit pulling together, the kind in which family members are required to hang together lest one or more hang separately. Our son-in-law Saturday flew away in an airplane to combat. We know now how young wives weep, we know now how the stalwart warrior conceals emotion with straight back lips just a little crooked. Along with you others, now know actively about a deadly, vicious war fought by just few of the nation's men. So now, we, along with you others, draw together for comfort, the elder ones wishing to teach the young that prolonged crying is futile; therefore they must re-enter life and plan for the glad day of re-union. Ironically, though, sometimes I notice the lesson reverses and is taught by the young. How sorry I am at this writing for the Livingston mother for whom all lessons of this kind just ended irrevocable and forever in a plane crash.

Last week at Grant Village I played bridge with Pat Brown, Sue Grose, and Alice Fisher. This is one of the bonuses of working in National Parks, the friendships. Of course each fall as farewells are said, there is the realization this could be the last one. I have lost relationships of the greatest value in this way. Since one must be cheerful at all costs I can add I always enjoy the new ones and soon grow away from the unseen ones.

Have a bear story for you. Jellystone and bears go together, especially if yours favorite geyser chickened, meaning Steamboat of course. Actually it did anything but chicken. Soon after we went there it cast off all restraints. I heard it blow and roar most impressively. When we later got a chance to look it was gone. A dry, only slightly aggressive puddle remained and as if that were not

disappointing enough, the wild, whirling pool below it was gone. I think this is going too far and the park officials should do something.

Now for the bear, I don't know when this happened but it happened. Some fun-loving tourist boys propped open the door of one of the new washrooms and put some food on the floor. A bear soon went in, ate the food and knocked the door shut. He panicked and couldn't think how to turn the knob to get back out. What he did to the washroom before a ranger could come is still described with awe. And do you know of the befouling a scared bear can accomplish in no time at all? That is why we who live there don't even go for a short walk without shutting all windows and doors of our trailers. A small window open only a crack is enough for a claw hold, and a claw in means a bear in. If he can get away after eating you out of house and home you are lucky. If he can't, don't even go look at your trailer. Move in with someone and set a match to your former abode or roll it over the hill.

When the ranger got there and gingerly propped the door open he found the bear miserably and resignedly sitting in one of the new wash bowls just waiting. If only he had thought of this sooner.

Last week a cub was killed by traffic. When the crew went to get him off the highway, his grieving mother had taken him to the woods and was trying to bury the tiny fellow. Because we managed to walk erect and speak languages evolved higher than the ones the animals use, we think we, only, reason and suffer!

Andrew Ball and Dale Menefee, both of Park County, are now working at Lake, also Joe Sousech has recently signed in. Ted and Edith Cox were transferred from Grant Village to South Gate. If you go to visit them, as we did, stop at Moose Falls on the Lewis River. It is tremendous scenery.

See you next week from Grant Village where I can learn some more tall tales from the G-Men.

Respectfully,
Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, July 6, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

DEAR EDITOR

Hello from where the holiday of Independence is in full bloom. The rest of the nation must be forlorn and de-populated as they are all up here. The loops are bulging with campers as well as the cement areas meant only for parking. Often a wistful car-full drives around the attractive employee's area where I live in spite of "Service Road Only" signs. I am never the one to inform them that this is off limits. Their kids look too tired and the mothers too harassed. I have noticed camping mothers are never able to retreat entirely from the armies of General Dirt and General Mess to say nothing of the unrelenting attacks of Major Cook.

When we returned here from Mill Creek Saturday night, we took the Dunraven Pass route. Now there is where I would camp. Not as many visitors choose that area probably because it has no fishing or boating facilities, but it makes up in full with its majestic sweeps of scenery, its wonderful camp grounds and creeks. One could even have a snowball fight if one chose the campground at the top of the high pass. The picnic tables and benches are still "ensnowed" and the "His" is leaning dispiritedly down hill because a snow bank doesn't know yet its bullying days are over. By now the crews have cleaned this all up and straightened everything that is standing less than tall and proud in the tradition of Uncle's camp grounds.

It is mid morning and a senior G-Man just brought his vehicle to a roaring halt in front of my trailer, this being part of the route of the mighty yellow charger (garbage packer to you). He rushed off, grabbed a pair of gloves off of a shelf, shook hands heartily with me and thanked me for the night's hospitality, then roared away. I am glad no strangers were listening in as they would not have realized the circumstances were extenuating, in that this is about the 12,410 night he has spent in my home. His only regret was that we were not amidst a group of strangers. Once I got so mad at another of these little dramas, this one very public, that I hit him a few times with my fist. An ancient, bent over man tottered up and said, "Need any help, sonny?" I could tell from the laughter in this cute, old face that life still had meaning for him, and I forgot my frustration for a moment to be glad, for will we not soon walk in his moccasins and will we still be laughing?

Yesterday, a junior G-Man got himself into a different type of danger. He is from Alabama and if they have bear there they must not be grizzlies. The packer was emptying its load at one end of the dump, the flat bed at the other. A mother grizzly and her baby were feeding on the delicacies lying around between the two vehicles. The kid from Alabama paid no attention to the warning of the older men and walked up for a good look. The flat bed man knowing full well a rescue was in order, gunned his truck in preparation.

This startled the mother and she rushed the boy, actually not so much in attack as in startlement. He had two choices, either let her knock him down with heaven knows what results or jump into the pond where the garbage is pushed and buried. She made the decision and veered away into the woods with her baby at her heels. The kid was down off the hill he had climbed with such daring while the men were still yelling, "Take to the pond!"

Actually this bear is not aggressive though she did tree two "Blister Rust" boys a day or so before. They were dutifully about their work of marking shrubs when they discovered her quietly following them. After they were in their tree house, she sat underneath waiting companionably. Another worker chased her away and I did not hear whether the boys thought she was smiling or drooling as she looked up at them.

Yesterday she was chased away from her rightful dining area. She was there last year and territorial supremacy should have been hers. A big male has taken over and he is totally without charm or conscience. His face is scarred and ragged and when he stands up, lesser creatures including tall men, scurry to safety. The mother was at least foraging for her baby. He is thinking of his own stomach only, and has not one quality of a father in his big, ugly chest. He, or another boar just like him, snapped the necks of three cubs within seconds as horrified human fathers watched. And he wasn't even drinking, unless fermented garbage counts.

I know more stories about the "humped horribulus" or whatever the naturalists call them. but I guess this should do for today.

Yesterday in the incomparable sunshine, Pat Marriott, her son Scott, Edith Cox and I walked to the camper's loops to look at the visitor's register. I found no Park County names and was not surprised as probably most of us prefer a quiet picnic at home to fighting traffic that seems, when on the road, to have only a "passing" interest, as it were, in things about them.

Last week, however, Evelyn and Everett Hunter visited, also Mildred and Floyd Nelson, Howard and Mildred Carter and children and Edwin and Helen Nelson and family. Everett and Evelyn brought their boat which turned out to be not all pure pleasure. The white caps were high and menacing and knew how to make a boat buck. This sometimes comes about after one embarks on what was a happy, placid lake. The skipper kept his head and faced into the teeth of the waves until shore was attained. Nothing happened except a few extra thrills.

One of the kids along, Jimmy Dresback, declared it the best boat ride he ever had. His sister, Diana, a little older and wiser, replied, "That's because you didn't know how dangerous it was."

A fishing expedition on Lewis Lake was not so fortunate last night. Out of a party of three, only two returned.

Last week when I was talking about Mill Creek in this column, the word "feeding" in reference to the excellent work our ranch neighbors are doing, turned out "feuding." Please, fellas, it was a mistake. Put away your shootin" irons. There is a song about "some ornery neighbors down by the creek" who entirely disappeared because of a feudin'" situation, and we aint ready to die

yet, nor even to be shot at with mental guns by our neighbors whom we consider our best friends. I realize what I was talking about is not entirely popular with ranchers who need every drop of their precious water rights.We were of this profession ourselves only yesterday and we know about the touch and go situation; especially when the "touch" of expenses each year turns into more of a death grip. We are well aware of how every spear of grass, hay, and grain must be carefully nurtured or the "go" part of the money, when the fall tally comes, makes the amount you can keep either sick or already dead and buried.

Our girls, along with Hugh Peltz did some cowboy work for Orval Ellison last weekend. Orval was about the season's business of spraying cattle and moving them to mountain pasture. In conversations with these food producers and others. I have come to the conclusion that even the biggest operators and the wealthiest are making only about 3 percent on their investment. A person can make more than that buying bank certificates.

If this squeeze on farmers and ranchers continues and babies all over the world continue to be born at the present high rate, you had better freeze some sandwiches, because sooner than you think, you and the kids are going to need them.

On this hungry note, I will close until next week.

Respectfully,
Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, July 12, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

DEAR EDITOR:

Do you remember Friday about one o'clock when the rain poured and the wind made large Cadillacs tremble as well as small Opels. Lee was shopping in Livingston as this is our day off. On the way home he was going up Billman Lane to get some lettuce from Fern Pomajabo, who either frightens or cajoles all plants into marvelous fruition (this is a fact known by all of Park county, and parts of Madison, Meagher, and Sweet Grass.). We are still enjoying the delicious lettuce but it was procured at the risk of life and limb, according to Lee. He said he has seldom seen it rain and blow so hard.

When we got back to Grant Village Saturday night we heard and saw some more of this story. We noticed fallen trees everywhere and our refrigerator tray had a couple of inches of ice in it because it had defrosted and re-frozen itself. The power lines were down along with three trees that blocked the entrance to our loop. There was no power for twelve hours. This happened everywhere and Montana Power must have wished it was twins. In its secret heart, it might even wished for the sturdy REA boys, though of course this would truly have to be in its secret heart! I can't really speak for Montana Power of course. I can only speak for myself. I tenderly remember an incident when the REA boys didn't even laugh at a dumb lady who couldn't figure out how to turn on her hot water after an absence from her home. I thought this remarkable as I was raised in an atmosphere where the stupidity of women was always good for a big laugh!

Virgil Black told me that a falling tree just missed the north end of the West Thumb store. He and his helper just got it sawed and out of the way just in time to nearly drop their uppers at the sight of another forest giant hot after a visitor's car. It landed a second too late and the people weren't hurt.. Last year at Lewis Lake a tourist was killed in this manner. Those trees up there can take deadly aim, I am told.

I am looking out my window at a strange sight. The caretaker down the loop is enjoying his day off. I hope he is here to enjoy tomorrow. He is feeding a large black bear. His elderly wife just stepped close to snap a picture. They made it! They have now gone inside and the bear is now up here, inspecting my home site. They are so like tame, hungry dogs one is tempted to feed them, I admit, but a caretaker, really?

Last year a caretaker, only 21 years old and fleet of foot, tried to get a bear off a picnic table for distressed visitors. The bear got mad and Randy barely made it into his car whose occupants hospitably held a door open for him. At that he claims the bear got the seat of his pants plus the lovely picnic dinner

Ted Cox says last week a lady tourist splendidly demonstrated how to protect one's hearth and home. She returned from foray after wood to find the usual hoggish bundle of fur on the supper table. She ran screeching at the big thing with her broom. She hit him so often and so hard that he ran off and climbed to the top of a tall tree. Ted thinks he is still up there whimpering.

I wish I could find that lady. I would ask her to join a group of women I talked to lately. Their wish is to rally female forces and get enough status to take over the draft. Their first act would be to recruit every member of the administration into the Marines, preferably First Division Infantry. Those with late prescription bifocals would be given FO posts (front observer) as their corrected vision would probably stand them in good stead against the ubiquitous and deadly jungle snipers. These women think the war would be called off or won within one or two days; this would be of great benefit, they feel, to American young men and to Asians who otherwise will be counted amongst the "light casualties" we are always reading about.

Sunday evening Vern and Vennie Johnson and children Andrea and Neal visited with us. They had been to Jackson and were on their way home to their Pine Creek ranch. Vennie also had to report to work Monday as legal secretary for Arnold Huppert, Jr. She is vacation fill in. In the winter she and Vern are high school teachers. In their spare time they have built a rambling old ranch house into a country mansion. They had the finest of ground work for this project. The house was built many years ago by F. A. Bishop, father of Raymond and most of his work stands today after his death as a monument to him in its excellence.

Wednesday I played bridge in the apartments. I actually live on the wrong side of the tracks for this and I was always content to never challenge any protocol or caste system I came up against in government service or any service. Somehow, though, sooner or later , a challenge is not needed and before the wonderful summers are ended, wonderful friends are made on both sides of the tracks. In facts the tracks are not needed in the minds of really honest people, said the housewife philosopher to the executives wives as she tried hard not to say "aint" nor to tell how she used to clean chicken houses. It's not that I am ashamed to speak of the hen houses or of the snow burned cow's udders I have greased or the bum lambs I have raised. It's just that I can't cope with the utter non-comprehension!

The gals enjoying the afternoon were Pat Merryott, hostess, Pat Brown, Liz Scott, Alice Fisher, Susie Cox, Karen Thomas and Sue Gross.

I am aware you girls are by now floundering without household hints so here I am to help again. You know those horizontal slits that develop in non-run hose? Sew those together on your sewing machine. They won't do for the Purple Bubble Ball but they are okay for most other suds encounters.

Trusting that that didn't come as close to making you froth at the mouth as it did me, I remain

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, July 20, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

DEAR EDITOR;

Would you believe "A Letter from Marj." floating unclaimed over Camaranh Bay, South Vietnam?

Etha Keto phoned me to say her son Clarence wrote from Camaranh to report this and to try to find out to whom it belonged. Clarence is a M/Sgt., Com. Sqd., U.S.A.F. stationed in this area. His mother sends him the letters but this one wasn't his. He pinned it to the bulletin board asking for information. Nothing happened so he thinks the owner must have moved out..

Will any Park County wife or mother having knowledge of this please phone Etha or me? Clarence doesn't want to miss out on finding any fellow from home. He has been gone from his own family for many months. His wife and three little girls live in Macoutah, Ill., with her parents. His parents, Etha and Reino and brother, Patrolman LeRoy Keto and family, live in Livingston.

Pfc. John Gibson, 3rd Motor Transport, U.S.M.C., received these letters, but he is stationed at Fou Bai. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Bert Gibson. Another son, Greg Kneedler, is serving in the Cu Chi are in the 4th infantry, 4th Engineering Battalion, U.S.A.

On T.V. did you see the president beaming at his grandchild while the mother giggled happily and the 23 year old father stood proudly?

One mother saw this and this is what she said, "I appreciated their happiness. I was glad for them. Then I looked at my daughter watching, with desperate eyes, the rest of the news. It was recording a direct hit on the American base where her husband is in command of a company of men. He is 24 years old."

She said, "I was so bitter I wrote the president asking him for guns that fire and for enough men for the Marines. I told him I considered them undermanned and under equipped and that the VC seem to have no such problems, that they are excellent warriors fighting for their homeland against invaders, and that they are not likely to give up now or ever".

She showed me the reply. It told of the president's great compassion and of the reasons we are in Vietnam. But nowhere in the letter did it touch on supplies and numbers.

Maybe the Great White Father had better quit patting the heads of his idiot children. Maybe before 1968 he will realize they have grown up into comprehending adults who have sent sons to war, sons whose sad old eyes look incongruously out from faces still covered with the down of boyhood when their pictures flash on TV. And when the faces aren't so downy, the eyes are the same.

Maybe he will have to realize these parents, plus wives and other relatives, while true patriots, are still not likely to remain muzzled if they think their soldiers are facing a deadly enemy handicapped.

There is also war in Yellowstone, the kind I wish all mankind could fight. providing he forever engaged in none more serious. The war against mosquitoes.

All the people in the trailers valiantly fought this war just Wednesday night at a picnic in honor of Alice Fisher's birthday. All left the field with full stomachs including the enemy. Today only a few lumps remain in testimony of this skirmish and who could ask for anything more satisfactory? Lumps and itches are concessions easy to make if you look at the over-all picture.

Visitors in South District lately include Chuck and Alice Young who sail their boat out of Bridge Bay. We talked to Chub Askins and a dude in the General Store last Tuesday. Chub owns the Yellowstone Guest ranch near the mouth of Mill Creek. Mr. and Mrs. Milton Pulis and Miss Freda Cassens were guests Monday of Ted and Susie Cox and grandson, Mark Dresback. Mrs. Pulis is from Sun City, Az., and Miss Cassens from Avondale. She is a member of the air program for the children of migratory workers. She helps teach and entertain the kids whose parents are hired to harvest crops. Usually these little ones spend hot, endless hours in the family cars because they have no place to go.

Did you ever see a Meadow of elk ears? On the return here Saturday evening via Old Faithful, I screamed at Lee, "Stop quick. What are all those little animals in that field?" He stopped, looked, and said pitying, "For gosh sakes, Marj., you scared me to death. Haven't you ever seen elk cows and calves lying down before?"

Sure enough, the little animals were waggling ears. I wasn't the only dumb one. About 30 visitors were gawking and there was astonishment on many faces.

Ranger Maryott and family toured Glacier last weekend. Patty, his wife, told me the mountain goats jumped off their pinnacles and surrounded their car. I have never seen this either. These animals are ordinarily so wild. She says their coats are mangy and ugly but the many eyes peering at them through car windows were soft and brown.

How come the only animals in whom blue eyes are prevalent are us two legged ones?

Bill and Eunice Gibson stopped by the other night. Bill, who is a mechanic for Y. P. Company had been summoned from Old faithful to rescue a visitor. A bear jam without warning developed in the path of this man. He braked to sudden halt and the Oldsmobile he was towing behind his camper didn't get the message. It kept on going. This caused overturned vehicles and a mess in general.

The car towed behind the camper is another custom new to me. I have seen it a lot this year. What will the bifurcate with blue eyes prevailing think of next.?

Castle Geyser was active as we went by. The steam rose very high and most beautifully in a perpendicular column. Karen Thomas, a geologist's wife, told us despite the geysers and mud belches up here, that there is no danger of the earth's core staging a "Happening." Seeing it all the time, I dunno. However, I do trust the earth's core more than I do the above mentioned bifurcate.

John Payne, son of Henrietta and F. B., drives the Wilcoxson truck to Lake and Thumb. His helper one day last week was Terry Schnablegger. Doug Shenkle usually "rides shotgun" for him. Johnny was graduated from the University at Phoenix, Ariz.. last spring and will soon move with his wife and baby to Washington where he has a teaching position. This summer they live in Livingston with his parents.

It is raining seriously again 'way up here in the boon docks. And just when some of joints had began to loosen up. I mean knee and elbow. I haven't checked any other kind lately. Days like this we feel cut off. Still, there is always communication. I recently received messages from two old friends and they don't even know it. I read a letter written by Carolyn Alverson, Livingston, in the Billings Gazette; I heard a letter written by Jeanie Bowlds of Shields Route over KGHL.

Thank goodness for the news whether it be of light or serious import. Don't knock your newspapers, folks. I am beginning to think it is this media rather than the vote that keeps things from getting entirely out of hand.

The tide of events is not changed by Jeanie or Carolyn, nor by Marj. either, as far as that goes. But consider how it would be if there were no reports on the fields of conflict whether at Da Nang or in the United Nations. Or no fearless editors.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, July 27, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

DEAR EDITOR;

"And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." This is the sanctified day in Yellowstone Park. God also sanctified aid and succor for any needful creature or person on any day of the week. Good thing, because the mundane tasks must go on in Yellowstone as well as on ranches and in homes.

I have just heard all the Sunday sermons on the radio. We can't get KPRK here so I listen to Billings. I heard Oral Roberts, The Revival Hour, the Voice of Prophecy; I heard the Lutheran, Presbyterian and the Christian Science presentations.

From all these preachers I received helpful thoughts. From not one of these representatives of the enlightened soul of the erect mammal did a prayer issue for the young man looking at us with old eyes and lined faces from the T. V. screens during the war news. Or their hundreds of compatriots whose faces are not shown. Not one asked healing for whatever it is that causes human beings to continuously engage in murder. All wars are lonely. This must be the loneliest.

The programs to which I was listening were national. The little white church of St. John at Emigrant, Montana, does not forget. There, of a Sunday, not one soldier boy known to the congregation is omitted from audible prayer. This holds true, I am sure, of all our local churches. It holds true of the 3 o'clock service at West Thumb. (This is the only church in the Park of which I have personal knowledge.) There even the little children are taught they must each day pray for men at war.

Does this perhaps point out in one more way it is up to individuals and small groups to do something about what looks like a downhill trip for all of us. I have yet to write a letter to Congress, but maybe I will get started. I will, of course, not mention the preachers, but I might ask for a clear cut declaration of either war or peace. I might ask for a million dollars to start rat control in the Negro slums. I have read this would perhaps do more than anything to convince our colored brethren we know he is human. Or at least human in a ratio compared with other skin colors. There probably should be a judgment on this but who would judge? Would it be our Supreme Court: It is our most august body, isn't it.

My husband Lee just stopped by. He read the first paragraph and asked if "mundane" meant garbage. "Jellystone G-men" get so they ask this kind of question in voices that become more plaintive as the season advances. He also stated the aid and succor he is proffering to creatures didn't to him seem too sanctified.

He is not the only Sunday worker. In our trailer community only one man has the day off. All the others are on the job. I have read New York City quiets down a little in the summers and on Sundays. I know why. They are all here. There are from four to five hundred campers and trailers in Grant Village as of today. Many of them are from Utah as this is the Mormon holiday.

One or two are from Livingston. Lee talked to Earl Wilson yesterday. He and his wife are going to stay about two weeks. Their daughter and family, Mr. and Mrs. Ray Rudd and children of Laurel will arrive Friday to visit.

Earl recently retired from his job on the railroad and can goof off around the country now whenever he and Mrs. Wilson take a notion. Lee says from where he sits on the high seat of his 10-ton vehicle, this doesn't look too bad. He says sometimes they just sit; and most always they have a grin stretched from ear to ear. Most always, also, they have fat pocketbooks. Lee thinks this makes the ear-to-ear part come easier.

Karen and Bill Coulter and children, Cindy and Craig, from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, arrived tonight. They have pitched a tent in the yard besides their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Cox. They are on their way to Ottawa, Ontario, where Bill is minister of the Church of the Nazarene. They will visit two weeks in Montana.

Saturday, returning here from Mill Creek, we took the old Fountain Flats Freight road. To do this, watch for the sign after Madison Junction. It is beautiful, peaceful, interesting. There are a thousand trips the tourists never take in this Park, including some of us tourists from Livingston. We are going behind Bunson Peak to see Osprey Falls when we next come in the truck. This is said to be a narrow road but wonderfully worth the effort and the fast beating hearts it most always engenders.

We saw Goose and Feather Lakes and we saw a presumptuous little geyser erupting steadily right out of the edge of Firehole River well down into the water.

At Old Faithful we saw what looked to me like a million people. Among them were Nora (Connelley) Williamson and her husband Lynn. We waved and yelled but we might as well have tried in the melee to get Old Faithful itself to greet us.

This is the night for homemade ice cream. Howlands, Merrimans, and Cowans have freezers. About seven the whole trailer will begin to dip in. All guests are welcome. The mosquitoes are not welcome but they will be dipping in too.. The many sprays we use are said to be injurious but it is the common consensus of opinion that it is no worse to die of slow poisoning than of slow blood letting. Besides, I believe the fearsome slapping and spraying is having an effect, I have only 25 countable bites as of this writing.

Come and visit. The ice cream freezers are ready to roll at a moment's notice.

Respectfully

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, August 2, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

July 3l, 1967

Grant Village

Dear Editor:

Have you ever traveled Highway 236? Ranger Don Maryott tells me it must be magic path leading to Nevada and Nebraska. I just looked at the map and many hundreds of miles and three states separate the above two. Nevertheless, a visitor asked Don how to get on it. Don said, "Where do you want to go, sir?" The man said, "I don't know but I'll go ask my wife." I thought that was the pay-off and the end of the tale, typical of stories about the American husband. But the man came back into the ranger station and reported, "She says it's around here someplace and that it goes to Nevada and Nebraska." Don politely and patiently showed him the correct route and the uncorrelated position of the two states. He walked back to report to the wagon master but with no noticeable certainty of manner concerning what he had been told by the ranger.

Ranger Bob Gross went on to tell about the visitor who shoved a dollar bill at him asked for 20 five-cent stamps. Bob said, "The post office is in the store, not here in the ranger station." She said, "But I want a ranger to mail my letters."

I don't know how this story ended nor if anyone tried to probe the reasoning of this lady. Just then the small son of Ranger Maryott rushed in to say, "Come quick, Daddy, you have a customer." The "customer" was a lady from the Village with a broken ankle.

I did not know Uncle's boys under the Smoky Bear hats had to be physicians in the rough as well as pharmacists and psychiatrists, but they do. Also they constantly patrol the roads and the lake. If they did not, night as well as day, we might long for the comparative quiet of Detroit or Milwaukee.

Speaking of that, our son-in-law writes from the area of Da Nang, South Vietnam, that all Americans with B.A. degrees should join him. (The last initial stands for Achers, the first one is not for Tummy!) He writes that the slums are nice compared to where he is. He should know. He has toured the slums of Washington, D. C. and other major cities, and his wife taught the children of Hill 99 and its surroundings in a Montana city. This entailed many visits into homes of the scarred little children in her classroom and a study of the environment So he does not speak without knowledge.

Danny Schleicher visited last night and told of the sights he saw returning from Livingston. Just as he was crossing Bay Bridge a lovely launch was

preparing to go underneath. The guy at the wheel was nonchalantly standing up steering with one hand and the other arm was around, not a girl, but another fellow! All of a sudden, as Dan watched in astonishment, the boat slowly keeled over and the person held in the loving embrace fell out. Dan said, "The last I saw, the boat was still leaning over and the guy in the water was hanging to the side being dragged like a dead tuna." He did not stop to report the incident as the ranger was near plus many other boats.

Every time I ask the why of one of these stories, I get the same answer, "Who knows? Who tries to figure out a tourist?"

I just returned from a check of the Village to see if there were any Park county people. There weren't even any from Montana except one intrepid soul from Billings whom I did not know. The loops are not so cramped as last week, however, so if you want to camp, I think you might get a space. I checked both marinas looking for Dr. John Heetdirks and family from Bozeman. They are in Slip 9 at Bridge Bay for about 10 days. Most boats sail up here from Bridge Bay. It is about twenty miles and in a peaceful, sunny weather, no trip could be nicer.

Tuesday I had a good visit with a former Park County man, Bill Armstrong. He is head of maintenance for South District now but once lived on Mill Creek Flats in the same area as our last ranch. He knew all about the shallow soil and good hay and grass it can produce if you don't lie in bed more than six or seven hours out of 24. Less than that is recommended, in fact. The Armstrongs live in Mammoth and his wife Mary has just finished the remedial reading course which is getting to be a must with teachers everywhere.

I never heard of such a thing when I was a child and never did you. And all of us could stand up and read fluently. Sometimes I wish I could get in the time machine with Alley Oop and go back 40 years when things were simpler. Most kids I knew were country hicks and got lost and terrified if they shopped in Bozeman, the nearest town, but they could read. And a bigger ratio of so called uneducated mothers and fathers could help with fractions than can now, I betcha.

Yesterday I was told that my rating is slipping. It seems that Alice and Heloise are getting ahead of me as helpers of the housewife. I was deeply stirred and hope to undo some of the damage with the following: Are you of the bi-focal group who, without your glasses smaller than a breadbox? If so, how do you tweeze your eyebrows which involves removing spectacles? The solution, just turn your glasses upside down and proceed. I learned this from Oneita Broderick and it works fine. (Do not, however, let anyone catch you at this unless you have a definite gift for explanation.)

Have you gone down the stone steps to Upper Falls lately? We did Saturday. I have seen it before but completely forgot what a frightening sight it is. The tumbling, roaring tumult is a thousand flood waters gone mad. For this time of the year the Lake is still very high, thus adding to the awesome volume of water at the falls

I have one more story for you, this one about the grizzly "humped horribulus." It seems they are afraid of trucks and little Opels but fight with shovels and dozers. Lee was dozing at the dump the other day. He saw the big ugly male but paid little attention as they all run except a she the kids have named "Poopsy" who calmly goes on with lunch, no matter what happens. This one did not run. He glared at Lee and the dozer with little ugly eyes and made out as if to attack. All bull dozers are afraid of grizzlies so it left the field until the animal quieted down and resumed its quest for savory bits. The report is they are not averse to climbing into the seat with the operator. On top of their other faults they smell very bad and all operators maintain as good a distance as possible. They feel the threat of death by clawing is enough without suffocation thrown in!

Perhaps I should close before things get to really smelling.

Respectfully

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, August 9, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

Grant Village,

August 6, 1967

DEAR EDITOR:

It is again the morning of the seventh day, in Yellowstone Park as all over the world. The thunder just finished shaking the pillars of Grant Village and the rain cameth down. I wish it had cameth down on our place on Mill Creek. The grass is dry and the creek is low. The cement-type , unwatered soil in our yard defeated three people trying to plant a badminton pole. Their father, however, accomplished this in fifteen minutes. He is, in the eyes of their mother, far more astute than a lawyer from Washington, D. C., or a degree teacher or an eighth grade graduate, not only with a shovel, but with life in general. The mother does feel, though, that the children show promise and some day might compete favorably.

The thunder and the rain are now passed away as the swift ships. No swift ships are doing anything on Yellowstone Lake this morning, including passing. The clouds still hang blackly east of the sun and this is a sign. One moment the Lake's blue smile lures, the next its sharp, white teeth are bared and gnashing, all the better to eat little boats and little men.

All boaters are warned they have 20 minutes after the appearance of a cloud over a certain spot. They take for shore; they do not disregard instructions. Amongst the few who have are the few who drowned.

Visitors last week in our area included the Rev. Keel Dresback and family from Billings and John and Lois Heetricks and children from Bozeman. Keel, former pastor in the Paradise Valley Community Church, now has the Evangelical Free Church in Billings. His wife, Roberta, is the daughter of Ted and Susie Cox. The Heetricks are vacationing in their Tully Craft on Yellowstone Lake, docking at Bridge Bay. Wednesday they joined the Cowans from the new Grant Village marina. Doris and Bill Whithorn also visited the Cowans and the Howlands.

Another visitor was Gary L. Cowan from Washington D. C. Gary is a Livingston boy who loves to return home and draw in deep breaths. He says one does this sparingly in the cities where he does his work. He is now in Great Falls with his wife Dorothy and daughter, Laura Anne, visiting her parents, Mr. and Mrs. William E. Roberts. They will return soon to be with his parents, Lee and Marj., and his sisters.

From Wilsall came word that the President and Congress are being properly frightened into taking prompt action. Jerry Arthur states she has sent the letter from Marj. to Washington that demanded more men at the front lines

in Vietnam. The President must have sensed the letter was on its way, because I read in the Sunday's paper he has announced he is getting 50,000 more men over there fast, including some of the reserves! If he did this before my letter even got there, think what will happen when he gets the one Patti Gibson sent him. She sent the one expressing hope that the Administration can be recruited into the Marines, preferable First Division, and that those with new tri-focals take the Forward Observer posts. If the Administration could see its way clear for such an act of valiance, the troops could come home. This would actually be quite nice. They could immediately go to war in our own country.

It is my very real belief many of them would be capable of more than war; that they would be capable of presenting a set of values of great worth to our troubled; that the trained men experienced in what we at home know nothing of could be the teachers of how to live in a good America.

It is Monday now and I have just received word that one of my best friends was killed in a wreck last night at Emigrant. I will close.` Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise August 23, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

Grant Village

August 21, 1967

DEAR EDITOR:

Hello from the land where the chipmunks come in your house. At this time, as I sit in the dining area of my trailer, one is having a cracker repast at my feet. Irene Howland next door had one as an overnight guest. He wouldn't go out the open door when night fell, and they couldn't catch him, so they went to bed. He spent the night jumping off and on the furniture and off and on them. This is very annoying if it is cats and think how it would be if it is chipmunks. If you are soundly asleep they could get into your pajamas with you a lot easier than a cat, or they could start a nest in your ear.

Got snowed last week with children that visited, that moved, that bought colts so did not write. Alice Sarrazin from Clyde Park told me she knows people who read me before they do.Abby and they would be shook if I discontinued. Gee, I was excited! I was wishing they would write this in to you, dear editor, so I wouldn't have to. Maybe I would get promoted to a "Dear Marjie" column. I could tell all ladies how to conduct yelling matches with their husbands and never win! And I am already helping all I can with household hints.

Speaking of that reminds me that I know how to water an eighth grader who hates heat and trips and you are caught with her on both counts. (Remember I already told you how to water little kids and haymen.) I had the food cooler along with me and it had a milk carton with ice frozen in it. We were a long way between the Tastee-Freeze and the Corral at Gardiner, two spots we never miss, and she was palpably dying. I stopped the car and asked if she could make it back to the food cooler, and if she had strength left to get into it. She did and under careful direction opened the milk carton's pouring corner and tipped it up. The ice cold water draining down her did a lot of good. She was almost human the rest of the trip. As all mothers know, this is a triumph to be savored.

That was Friday. On the return here Saturday evening the man at whom I have screamed for 30 years with a paucity of results to take me on side trips, pulled off the highway into a narrow, winding, dirt road. I said, "What ya, some kind a' nut?", like they do on TV. He calmly proceeded up the unpreposing looking road and said, "You have always wanted to see Osprey Falls, haven't you?" I nodded dumbly and looked at him with awe and reverence. I had not preemptorily demanded he take me as I usually do and which had not gotten me a single side trip, I had just wistfully remarked that I knew I would never get to see Osprey Falls. Could it be that I had at last found out how to see the side roads.?

Anyway, it was a breath-taking trip and the falls are lovely. They aren't a trickle type thing either. They rear and they fall a mighty distance and the little Gardiner River has cut itself quite a canyon.

The road is something else. It is just like any other road up to the sheep or cattle camp to an old rancher and his wife, but what would my friend from Kansas say as she rode around its precipitous switch backs on the narrow, narrow road and looked down into the depths a thousand feet below. Once she told me she couldn't wait to get away from our mountains. They seem to her they were chasing her and winning the race. She was afraid one would fall on her so she took off for the plains where she was born and raised and where she could live in peace, unafraid of being crushed by a mountain intent on getting her, and perhaps rolling her into one of our awful canyons.

I figure if I ever have any eastern company I don't like I will take them to see Osprey Falls behind Bunsen Peak. If they have not died from fright they should be ready to start home.

The little one-way road comes out at the Mammoth employee's court. You wind completely around a smallish mountain and emerge below where you had been previously when you thought you were well on your way to West Thumb. I had just talked to Marke Owens who works at the Mammoth store and had wished we had time to visit her and Ellis in their trailer at the employees' court. She said he was there doing the floors and the dishes while she worked and I thought this would be a fine thing for Lee to see, but didn't think we had time. Before we were through gasping at the view and the road, there we were at their very door. We didn't stop. We were back on the highway before we realized we could have visited!

Had a Coke today with Mr. West Thumb, otherwise known as Ranger John Harmon. There are only two others in the Park with as long a service record as his. The girl serving us at the fountain looked at him admiringly and said, "Tell in the paper that he is a friend to the Savages." Willard Fisher from Gardiner, another employee, nodded his agreement to this statement.

I asked him about the new geyser that showed up near the Thumb pools. He said he saw it twice in 24 hours, and as far as he knew that was it. He said it burst forth about a month ago, shot water and steam 30 to 40 feet in the air from two vents, did it once more, then evidently called the whole thing off as a bad job.

At bridge club I learned that Dick Scott was telling a lady who queried that there never had been a geyser in the Thumb area. Just then this one shot up at his side. It is said he took off for the ranger station with his mouth open and no words coming, and that he never did finish that particular guide tour.

John Harmon is returning Monday to Okmulgee, Okla., where he is a teacher. I asked him if he would be here next year and he said, "Oh, sure, I want to keep coming for three more years until my retirement." The girl at the fountain again looked at him fondly and I did too as my husband says he is the finest of rangers and is loved by all. I thought I might as well join the crowd. Besides, he is quite handsome under his Smoky Bear hat.

This experience at the store was a pleasant one. The next one was not so good. I and the respectable matron with me couldn't get a check cashed. We had no money and needed two loaves of bread. I decided if my impeccable reputation and great fame weren't enough, maybe the check of a great newspaper firm would do. It's reputation was worth no more than mine. We would still be without bread had not George Simpson, resident manager, announced he was a friend of the main G=man at Thumb and he would initial the check of the nationally known newspaper combine being presented so pitifully by the wife without bread.

I considered stealing the bread, but didn't know for sure about this as I cannot run fast. I figured, however, that even though I should be caught, nothing too bad would happen. Surely an oldish, fattish, lady stealing bread would be given the same generous rights to get off with no sentence as are accorded these days to rapists, murderers and pillagers. Robbing human beings of life and dignity should be as great an offense, surely, as grabbing and running with a loaf of bread. Of course it is true that in my excitement I might squeeze and malform my victim. This could go against me. I don't think so, though. I learned just the other day about a girl-friend-beater who was nabbed in the act but got off with no punishment. To me, a bread squeezer is not the menace to society a girl beater is, but you never can tell what the court will think.

Rangers have just now stopped here to recruit some large men for a bear crisis in L Loop, at the Village. Large men probably means a large critter. Continued in next week's issue.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, August 29, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

(Note: The first pph of this article is cut off of micro-film copy. Wrote to Livingston Library to see if they would re-copy and send. No answer received)

Bears going in after the meat bait trip the door and can't figure out where their freedom went to. They are very upset. The off spring of the white men from the cities add to the situation by sticking their arms through the cage to hear the roar and to jump back from the side swipes.

The rangers must hurry and remove these two hazards before the little darlings lose an arm. When Lee returned from the adventure, he said it took six men to carry the sick bear. They got him in a basket litter made for humans and struggled to the truck with him. The trap is on a little trailer and is coupled with the truck for easy removal. The two bears ended up at the dump. The sick one had to be put out of his misery, but the growling one freed in the forest.

We are at Mill Creek this week because it is time for the prison doors to clang on our youngest. She doesn't know if she dreads the prison doors the worst or is it nylons and dresses?

Mill Creek's last drops of blood are flowing slowly over its bared bones. When its last trickle life is gone, so is our well water; and so are the fish. Right now they are swimming to the deep pools and desperation is in their fish faces.

Last week two more trailers moved into our loop at Grant Village. They belong to Anton and Mary Ann Straiski and to Irving Treuner, all from Livingston or surrounding areas. They are government painters working on the new apartments.

Bill Shipley putted up to the park to see us Wednesday night. I, myself, had just "Opeled" home from Gardiner where Sue, Patti, Karen, Susie and I had attended a party. My gas bill was $1.30. Bill's was 30 cents. Anybody for trading an Opel for a Kawasaki?

Bill went home Thursday out West Yellowstone planning to fish along the way. Two tourists had trailed along with him on Wednesday. They were riding double on one motorcycle. They stopped suddenly to take a picture of a running bear cub. He was sorry to tell them that they had gotten a fine picture of a running dog. I guess even dog-type tourists have to have some exercise.

Clate and Mickey Olsen were in Grant Village recently to see us, but alas, it was Thursday, bridge day, and we missed them. They had managed to squeeze in a little trip to the Park amongst labors expended on rebuilding their summer home in Tom M'ner Basin and the earning of the daily dollar.

Is anybody having trouble with beavers? These master engineers cause a lot of ranchers to grind their teeth. If they don't like an irrigation dam, they can in no time at all, replace it with one they do like. And it takes the mad rancher quite awhile to tear it out. It takes him even longer to pick the rose briars out

of his cold, aching fingers. The beaver loves to bury rose bushes for foundations.

Bert Gibson told me what to do. Buy three or four bars of Fels Naptha soap. Bore holes in them and string them above the dam site just above the water. The smell of the soap, dear to laundresses, must mean sick stomach to beavers, because Bert says they are leaving his dam alone.

So long until next week.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, Sept. 13, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

Sept. 10, Grant Village

Dear Editor,

It is dark and the rain mutters here in the high places. Heretofore it whispered and murmured and we were welcome. Now it begins to warn of what happens to the trailer dwellers who stay too long.

Many have heeded. There are 25 campers where once was 500. Where we live I look into empty trailer slots where used to be lawn chairs filled with my friends.

The animals are suddenly triggered by a new anxiety. The mother bear and cubs cling to cars that pull away. They must be filled and soon. Have the cookies and marshmallows of the white man became their winter stuffing. Could the skinny, sickly bear emerging in the spring be a product of this? Should not the belly of a hibernating bear rather be replete with berries and grubs and meat.?

A moment ago I thought Lee, my husband, was to become winter stuffing for a large black one.

He stepped outside to sniff the air into the very teeth of animal. They both said something comparable to "Woof"! Lee jumped back into the trailer, the bear just jumped. Courage returned and Lee rushed out to explain that only people live here. This took place in and out amongst trailers. Suddenly the bear wanted to be chaser, not chasee. Lee made the trailer and again slammed the door. Hating to be thus vanquished, he went out and laid a club on his opponent. This turned the tide. The bear left grunting imprecations no doubt, and threats and many bear facts.

No knowledgeable person willingly goes into combat with any bear. Last week at the dump boxes were being shoved into the refuse.

Poopsy, the benevolent grizzly queen of that area, was absent. Old Ugly, a 500 pound male, was filling up, looking nervously about because he is afraid of Queen Poopsy. He is not afraid of Paul Bigelow of Livingston. Paul kicked the wrong box and the grizzly charged, growling and snapping. He missed Paul, but perhaps only because he remembered dump delicacies are easier chewing than boys.

On the return here Saturday, between Madison Junction and Old Faithful, the buffalo were on the move. Eight mighty bulls were herding cows and calves across the road. They circled restlessly and pawed dirt and the four-wheeled highway creatures fell back in respect. Maybe a grizzly would charge a buffalo bull, mad and tense with cow guarding duty, but certainly Cougar would not, nor yet a Mustang, and little Opels and VWs shrank in their tire marks or turned tail.

We also came over Two Ocean Pass or Isa. Have you done so this summer? Jim Bridger did in 1830 and described it as a lake "atop the divide spilling its waters on either side, discharging them into the Pacific and the Atlantic."

No one believed him, nor that he saw a place where "horses' hooves thundered and water rose high, roaring and hissing." Jim always told whoppers and this was considered his best.

Colter, the first man to come through here , was also considered a whopper- teller when he described an immense tar spring and a great lake whose shores bubbled and steamed. This must have smarted as he was not full of fancies like Jim.

Or perhaps like me?

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, Sept. 19, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

Sunday, Sept. 17

Grant Village

Dear Editor

This is a day when even us hermits are lonesome. Irving Treuner and his trailer disappeared while we were home on leave days, as well as two trailers of road workers from Idaho. Mary Ann and Tony Straiski are leaving Monday for Mammoth to await their new assignment. One neighbor left a lawn of green, domesticated grass, something of a contrast to the logs and wild flowers untouched in ours. Two bears were appreciative - they grazed it contentedly until they were run off. One even lay down to eat. This might mark a decadence of bear society, stemming, perhaps, from too many marshmallows and cookies or it might just have been enjoyment. I would gladly have let them finish their salad, but I live in an anti-bear league.

In the Bible are recounted four things of which a man knows not; two are the way of a man with a maid, and the high flight of the eagle, wild and free. I would add two more: the way of a white trumpeter swan and a yellow government truck. They go to roost exactly the same.

On the return here Saturday night I asked Lee what the construction was in the river. We were in the Hayden Valley along the Yellowstone. It looked like a pillar of white concrete not over 20 feet in length. It was lovely in design and lay on its side parallel with the bank.

We looked through binoculars. It was 12 white swans lined up for sleeping. Their bodies touched, the water movement did not separate them. They breasted away from the road, their tails racked up perfectly as if in a carpenter's square.

We were still discussing this amazing thing when we came upon a roosting covey of the yellow birds of the government, the second of the amazements. They were lined up with precision as wondrous as that of the swan excepting that they did not turn tail to prying eyes. Their yellow marker orbs stared fixedly at whomever looked their way.

This latter wonder is fathomable. Some fussy foreman said, "Back 'em in boys. Line up your bumpers." An inch of deviation was corrected by man and his ingenious understanding of the way of a machine.

But who can explain the beautiful swan? Why the community of just 12? They mate for life so it was likely six married pair floating and sleeping. How could they float without separating in the relaxation of their night? Was a neighbor's head tucked under neighbor's wing?

It is said a blade of grass is miracle enough but what of the graceful bird? When he trumpets as he traverses the skies, none fail to heed. The notes fall clear and perfect to the earth and it is the greatest wonder.

Less wonderful is the voice of any government bird, but when it speaks, it also is heeded. It blasts with distinction and a great exhalation of air. This is not a description of what you think. It is merely a description of the call of the 10-ton denizen of the Grant Village dump, and its lesser companions at their work of hauling and repairing.

It has power to stir the tourist, the stubborn one who does not concede its first right on the paths of oil and gravel. I was told that one lady said "Yow" and sprang into the air as it spoke to her. It was claimed she was in her tent before she fully landed, and she made no further appearance for an appreciable time. Her nerves that morning had already been "beared" and scraped as had her picnic table, and the harrowing blast was too much. (As is, no doubt, the barely acceptable pun.) If she could have known the jollity she afforded the caretakers and workmen, she would have perhaps been comforted, or have jumped in the lake.

This kind of visitor is endearing however. Those that came through in the 1870's over the tiny private road cut through by ilbert Sawtell, killed the swan and ate them. The lovely swan of whom I have sung! Now there are only a few left and may those that were fried stick in the throats of those who devoured them. Unless of course they have also fried.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, Oct. 4, 1967

A Letter from Marj...

October 2, 1967

Gardiner, Mont.

DEAR EDITOR:

The rain is muttering and the tall, yellow grass is waving, but all in different spots than last week. I wrote from Gardiner where the enveloping north hill glowers down at minuscule man. Electric Peak does something too big for me to describe. It is tinted with light but how can this be when rain clouds play over it?

Today, were she here, my friend from Kansas who knows only the plains, would be under the bed in her fright at these giants who perhaps are on the march as mountains march.

The mountain on the north looks friendly and climbable. Another opinion just received says it is ugly. To me it is reminiscent of Old Gray, the grassy mountain our trailer snuggled up against in the Big Hole National Park. There grazed the lovely, finely bred, Appaloosa ponies of the Nez Perce - 1700 of them. They did not do so when our trailer snuggled, they did so in the 1870's and countless years before that.

If you have never been there, you should make it this fall or next summer. The squaws loved the autumn sojurn in the Big Hole, as it was named by trappers. They called the area where the Park now is Is-kum-sis-lak-ik-pah, or Vale of the Picket Pin, named for the small gopher standing as straight and motionless as a soldier's picket. They laughed and sang as they stocked up on the straight, lodge pole pine to be used for winter tipis.

They did not sing the morning of August, 1877, when white soldiers fired into their sleeping village that was placed in the bend of the north fork of the Big Hole river. Ben Stein, in his new book, has written of one of the maids fled from this infamy, and of her husband, Andrew Garcia. She was White Feather, chum of Dawn or Hal-pa-win-mi, the Miss America of the Nez Perce nation.

The women, trying with their children, to get away from the rain of bullets, jumped into the river to hide in the bushes along the banks. They screamed for Dawn to come with them. She chose instead to run amongst the wounded and dying of her people to give aid until she, too, was shot down and crumpled in her beauty.

She was lucky. The maiden of whom Ben writes had her face smashed with a gun butt as she clung, begging for mercy, to the leg of a white soldier.

In the hospital, the skull of a newborn papoose was crushed with a heavy boot, and the mother and nurse were shot through the mouths.

Chief Joseph, credited with being the greatest of military strategists, in actuality scarcely ever in his life shot a gun or drew a bow. At this battle, "he was seen on the north hill with several young boys rounding up horses. He sheltered his week old baby in his arms, running with it."

Nevertheless, his greatness is not to be discounted. He could be considered the Winston Churchill of the Indian nations. In council, all listened to his wisdom. In battle his ability to mobilize his camp has seldom been surpassed. All Nez Perce gave him credit for the amazing retreat that made fools of the white armies until two converged upon him in Eastern Montana. Here he finally gave up because of his freezing, pitiful people, and because of the generous (and betrayed) promises of General Miles.

His younger brother Ol-o-kut was "leader of the young men," If you have not, you should see a picture of this red warrior. He stood tall and proud, as handsome as any movie idol, features thin and fine. Joseph also stood tall, over six feet, but with a face so etched by sorrow one turns away.

The pictured white troops were also fine of visage. The chapter written in blood at the bend of the north fork of the Big Hole river could have been perpetrated only by orders given them to take no prisoners and at their own fright at the amazing Indians who came out of a sound sleep and, with decimated forces, decisively defeated them. Or whatever it is that makes men kill men.

Today you did not expect a thumb nail history of the Nez Perce . Neither did I. To get us back to normal, let us say squaws of the county of Park who are reading the editor's mail, repair to the kitchen where the warriors in our lives expect us to be as they come home weary and nearly scalped by their brethren, the government, low prices, high prices, and everything else.

As you make the pan gravy to ameliorate the wounds of his spirit, use the pancake turner for transport of flour to pan, for the stirring, and for the scraping of gravy into bowl. I learned the efficacy of this when caught in the Yellowstone with few utensils.

If you happen to repair to the small kitchen of a vacation tipi, pour your sugar into quart orange juice bottles. They take up little room, they fill easily with a paper funnel, the sugar does not lump with dampness and pours readily into glasses, cups or pans.

With that for a bottle neck I say heap ugh until the rising of seven suns. Daughters too, as far as that goes.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, November ? 1967

A Letter From Marj.

MILL CREEK,

Nov. 4, 1967

DEAR EDITOR;

Greetings from north of the South Pole. We left the Pole yesterday at noon. I had third position in a wagon train and was told by the masters, two very large men, that if I drove erratically and got ahead of my place, my Opel would look like a stepped on tomato can. I stayed in position. The roads weren't bad and there were no bad conditions at Grant Village, the starting place. Down here, more than 3000 feet lower, the snow thick and white spreads from the plain to the mountain.

Men checking out from Park County yesterday were Ted Cox, Lee Cowan, Danny Schleicher, Red Payne, Cliff Thompson, Walt Gracie and Bil Whithorn. Ernie Stockburger will remain for two more weeks at Lake Alice. Alice Fisher went to Grant Village from their winter home at Mammoth to help Jim move out. The Village is now deserted. The great white hand of the snow country will soon take over, obliterating the lakes, squeezing the new buildings and breaking off the eaves. Do you not deplore the damage done. It make jobs early in the spring for us threadbare citizenry Aren't you glad you are such philanthropiists with your tax money? It is about now through April l5th that you will want this comfort, so I proffer it early.

It's for sure most of us could use a little comfort. I got a tiny bit when I dropped four one pound boxes of raisens into a box for boys in Vietnam. These are in most of the stores. I hoped a hungry Marine would get some of them for snacks as he stands in the rain trying to preserve his life, in many instances, with a WW II gun.

I know at least two local families who are keeping their boys from real hunger with food packages. If these can get to them, why can't enough supplies?

I do know of one fat Marine. He is trying for his wings. He wants to become a bird Marine. In his pictures he looks as if he is glad he has decided to don fine feathers and into the cage. Unless he's like George who flew the coop. I was happy for George. The closer he got to nesting the closer he looked. I guess he decided the big white cage was for the birds.

Respectfully,

Marj Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, December ? 1967

A Letter From Marj....

Dec. 27, 1967

Mill Creek

DEAR EDITOR,

Where, oh where, is that rut people after 50 are supposed to fall into? A warm, comfortable rut sounds like heaven to me. Last week I envied Joe and Virginia as they slalomed down the slopes at Sun Valley. I even bitterly resented the fat ones at Sun Valley sitting in th fat hotels playing bridge. I, myself, wanted to do these things so over whelmingly. (And by the way, I looked up that ski term - this week I am correct. Last week I had the skiers placing their right palms on their foreheads and bowing to each other! I don't know what I had them doing with that word "chussing".)

This week I envy those tucked into a comfortable rut where nothing happens but breakfast, lunch, and supper. I envy those who never again have to jump on the ornery mule of life as he lurches heavy footed over the clods appearing in the fields of our day.

Just now the revolving clothes line laden with frozen clothes snapped off. As the family watched, trembling through the window, the clothes became covered with a drift snorted onto them by a sudden howling blizzard. We have sixteen inches of snow here and it already on top of the clothes. Unbelievably, just preceding the blizzard, it was briefly warm and and had begun to rain. This added a little ice to the snow when the blizzard hit.

Our father-husband-laundress had worked hard on that long deferred washing. Only one load of white clothes had turned strangely blue in his hands and they were hung quite creditably if a bit unconventionally.

Now it is later and the clothes that wouldn't fit on the basement line are in the bathtub. Frozen clothes in the bathtub pose a problem as big to me as frozen lambs and calves did in our ranch days.

The reason could be that I lie abed with three pillows at my head and a few at my leg, a leg that has been broken, re-made and plated and screwed together by the magical team of surgeon and nurses at the Ennis Hospital. I can crutch feeble about but can't even pick up a frozen wash cloth. However, my intrepid 80 year old mother is here and a house with the roof blown off would not disconcert her; to say nothing of a brave 14-year-old living in our house who clumps about with a cast. (When mothers have surgery is is always well for a horse to fall on at least one of the children.)

Then, too, I have a triumph to comfort me. No one else came from from the hospital in 18 days. I was promised a minimum of four weeks.

Perhaps I can still make a better ride on the ornery mule than I thought.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, January 5, 1968

A Letter From Marj...

Mill Creek,

January 3, 1968

DEAR EDITOR:

A new year, and all that has changed at our house is a calandar. I would swear that the weather is the same as in 1967. Last night it was 20 below here, now it is 20 above and soon will be spring. That is, until this evening, when the forecast is for snow and north wind. Four walls might not a prison make, nor lron bars a cage, but snow drifts do. Now, however, we are plowed out until the next big blow. We're lucky, Patty Vink can't even get out to catch the bus for high school.

These conditions make for happy New Year's Eves, though. I have not heard of one wreck in this vicinity. Nobody could get out, except Bob and Linda Blakeslice. Also Richie and Doris Pirtz and Duane an Ruth Neal managed it, and three or four other couples up in this country. They went Chico and had a fine if not large evening. On the way home Bob and Linda got stuck soon after they started up their lane. They began their brisk after midnight walk to their home. Pretty soon they came upon two of the family horses. They jumped on them and finished the journey safe and sound. Of course it was spring that night too. - 20 above and only a slight blizzard heading out of the north, south, east and west.

Bob said the only thing that got out of control was his kids. They were mad because mommy and daddy had not brought hats and whistles as promised. They got them yesterdaywhen the county plowed Bob's bus out preparatory to hauling students this morning and the pickup could be gotten on up the lane.

Number one daughter, Deane, flew all over Montana trying to get landed and back to her fourth grade at Gardiner. She had been in San Francisco visiting Susan Gibson, daughter of Bert and Patti. Susan teaches classes of little kids who need remedial reading.

Deane was supposed to arrive at Belgrade. She finally arrived at Billings. The plane had waited awhile at Salt Lake, had been in Missoula long enough for the passengers to make it to the rest areas to throw up, (the flight had been what is called rough) and then landed in Billings. From then on it was easy to get to Livingston if you didn't mind a long walk. The trains were loaded and the buses uncertain as to whether to travel the skating rink road. They did though and arrived on time. And the fourth grade teacher only missed one day.

I have told two stories to illustrate that the pioneer stock is not all dead. And in all instances of that kind we hear of man's kindness to his brothers. OK then, why are we kind as individuals and wily, greedy, and murderous as nations? And why are old men allowed to wage wars which young men fight.?

Maybe the way to stop this and the waste of our best young men is to let the youth administrate. The old men would then get a chance to try out a DMZ and ambush type life. Of course this would have to include Kosygin and everybody, not just the hawks and birds of our own nation.

The Livingston Enterprise, January 12, 1968

A Letter From Marj...

Jan. 11, 1968

Mill Creek

DEAR EDITOR

Did you ever expose yourself to television for hours and days at a time? If you have your might be getting minute doses of radiation. I know one young couple who snatch their infant away when she crawls too close in her interest in the noises and falling bodies. These are educated people who get their information from the latest research.

Along with the radiation you might learn why Claptain Kangaroo endures while others drop by the wayside. His program is appealing and varied. Can this be said of adult programs? Once a week murders them. What if they had to appear every day like Captain. Once a year would be plenty for a lot of them.

The children's commercials were also less nauseating. No tall, handsome man sprang in the door to "collect your Secret," nothing "one little millimeter" longer showed up; old ladies did not sing coyly of "plaidier plaid," and and there are no doves in the Captain's kitchen. There are little zoo and farm animals ________ ever, and Tony the _________ _________ witty commercials. The _________ of the cartoons is a______________. (Illegible words on microfilm copy. )

I would advocate _________ families arise an hour ___________see a good program. they go to bed an hour _______ so the kids can miss a ________killings acted out in gruesome detail.

I was soon through with TV so real Samuel and Kings. These chapters are violent enough. What if those soldiers had been taught all the fine points of murder since they crawled upon the floor? There wouldn't have been a Hebrew left to tell the tale. Sometimes they became few enough as it was.

In "Wild Heritage" I learned no specie makes war but man and one type of ant. All I want is peace. This is what you want. The desire is supposed to be univeraal and we werre shown the way of brotherly love. Why, then, the paradox.?

Maybe the building of destructive weaponry is the drive that caused our specie to rise high above all others. Without it, the big brain would not be. This conclusion would not be reassuring. But it is reassuring to recall the history of the carpenter from Nazareth.

Respectfully,

Marj Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, January 19, 1968

A Letter From Marj

Jan. 18, 1968

Mill Creek,

DEAR EDITOR

Jeannette Rankin is marching again. Some may laugh and think, "It is time that old girl kept her nose out of things." They should read her biography.

She defied a Congress and a world to vote against World War ll , a war the United States couldn't wait to enter, in the 1940's she repeated this unpopular act. She does not believe that young men should kill each other for the schemes of older ones. She said, "I would send the old men to war and leave the young at home to propagate."

Recently the son of MSU Coach Sweeney said to me, "Your generation sends us to be killed in and undeclared war, yet you will not let us vote. He is 18 years old.

I did not answer. What would you have said? "You are too immature, too inexperienced to vote:" Alas, he is neither. And he could have retorted, "But I'm not too immature, too inexperienced to die or to maimed for life, is that it?"

Lately, because of my husband's summer job in Yellowstone Park, I have become acquainted several college under graduates. Most were responsible young men working diligently towards an education and idealistic goals.. A few were, in my opinion, wasting precious time trying out marijuana and indiscriminate love, but to a man, they knew more of economics, politics, sociology, government, and the humanities, than I do.

Thinking of this, you might say to Coach Sweeney's son, "Ok, perhaps educated, responsible, young people should be given the vote. What of the ill-informed, the drop-out, the delinquent, the hippie?"

He could suggest that young people be given some sort of test before receiving the ballot. Probably only the serious would bother to take it in the first place. Then he might tell you the hippie movement is now considered a failure though it is the only movement in decades to be founded on the principles of brotherly love.

It is failing because enough of it's intellectuals now see that "blowing your mind" with LSD also blows your genes and probably mutates your children even if all your trips have been "good".

They also see, it is said, that this is a competitive world and food does not fall from the skies just because you feel loving.

And he might say, were you to mention the new flaunting of old moral laws as a point against him: "Let mothers teach their daughters high values. Let mothers teach their daughters that high values and promiscuity are irreconcilable and the two can't live together in one human soul.."

Would you say the lad whom I am quoting is immature? If I weren't on crutches, I think, as a start, I would join Jeanette.

Sincerely, Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, January 31,1968

A Letter From Marj

Mill Creek,

January 30, 1968

DEAR EDITOR

This week we cremated a member of the family. This was hard to do as this was a member that had been trampled under foot for about 50 years and had never hollered. It was a Wilton Velvet rug purchased in 1919. I wonder if a carpet purchased in 1968 will last until 2018? After the cremation, I felt uncertain. It had only a few worn spots and its soft pinks and reds were undimmed. Should I have asked George if he could use it on a floor of the museum? Too late now. It went straight up in the air to rug heaven.

We had no trouble finding a safe place fore the bonfire. This morning we could even have used the front porch. We don't have all the wind up here so the first snow is still with us on top of an icy floor. The people up the creek from us in even more sheltered spots, get no wind. Bess Malcolm said they used to step over their yard fence on level snow. Now they walk downhill to step over it.

Two neighbors from up country called this morning. Wayne Fuller wanted to know about getting out past here to go to Bozeman. Peg Allen is today selling the fine bulls she showed at the Fair. Wayne should be there to help since he helped bring them up.

Paul Rigler wanted to know if he could get to the highway. He and his brother David are pallbearers for Mr. Watt. David, who lives higher yet, can get to Paul's on horseback, but can they get down this lane?

I'm not a road judge. I could only describe what happened this morning to a bus driver who lives here. He left the bus at Warfield's last night. This morning about 6:15 he started out our lane and down the road. He was out by our gate quite awhile in the dark of such earliness going back and forth. Finally he got turned around, and returned home. The snow was knee to thigh high and hard crusted to the extent that he fell through every step. This makes tough walking. Besides there's a cow moose over there. I kept thinking, "What can run fast in deep snow?" and the answer wasn't Lee.

Later he called from town. He had made it. Bill IV and Bill V had started shoveling the bus out bright and early. I mean dark and early. The still had to chain up, besides using Bill's tractor. Lee picked up his own passengers plus Kathy Ellison, Chris Warfield and others who should ride down the old highway with Bob Blakeslee. Bob and bus made it to school around 10:30 with the snow plow leading the way.

Don't decide on a trip on old 89 for a few days. Don't decide on any trips unless you have a dog sled or snow cat. A snow cat just went by unmolested by traffic on a road that is supposed to be for cars and trucks. Besides the snowmobile, a tractor went by occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Somebody. Two horses also went by occupied by two young men. Could that be Paul and David fulfilling their trust?

Haven't seen such a winter since I went to school in the Madison Valley. We used to arrive there by 9 or 9:30 through snows and winds bigger than us. The little kids, including me, would cry until recess with pain in toes and fingers. Then back home at night to cry again for awhile. My father always made one concession. If it got over 20 below, he would haul us on the hayrack or sled, the snow covered team spraying us with sneezes.

Before we were allowed to miss a day, we had to come up with real evidence such as pneumonia or at least a bad chest rattle. In nicer weather, if we couldn"t produce pneumonia, we had to do something conclusive like throwing up.

Was them the good old days or wasn't they: At least there were few drop outs in McAllister grade school.

Respectfully,

Marj Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, February 26,1968

A Letter From Marj

Mill Creek,

Feb. 23, 1968

DEAR EDITOR,

Too much importance is given to running off at the head in what is known as small talk, a social grace. Or so I always thought. Until lately when a man visited us and wouldn't talk. After the hello he sat as if stricken dumb, answering only yes or no when trapped. Finally one his family brightly said, "How come you aren't making this scene:" (Translated, "Don't you dig us?") "Have made the scene. Never talk much," he said. "Wish I lived in Africa. Tribes there who visit each other never say hello. Just sit down together, their presence testimony to their regard."

The afternoon grew tenser. Finally the great African chief wanted to talk.; The afternoon was immediately much more comfortable and I knew lip flap does have a definite place. In fact, it's delightful, more delightful than just a bunch of presences, though those, too, I must say, have their place in any group.

Then Johnny Hudecek stopped in to exchange chin music. This is fun as he is field representative for the Peavey Company and gets around. I thanked him for the good ice cream spoon he had given me. He said, "I should also have brought you one of the seam rippers I have been giving the gals. They sure like 'em. I didn't have nearly enough to meet the demand."

If the visit is a long one it takes more than a seam ripper or ice cream spoon to keep the gathering from deteriorating into an African afternoon. So what does one talk about?

The war news is so hurtful to us as a family we try to stay away from it. The government is thought by many people to be out of its tree because of the war and riots and a long list of other things we have learned our guests can become red-faced and entirely forgetful of the social graces if they get to talking about the 300,000 murdered, thousands of these our own fine boys. One even started yelling one day that we are more barbaric than Kruschev when he tanked out the Hungarian revolution. That only cost 3000 lives. Then there's the rabid guest who wants to use the atonm bomb abroad and machine guns in our own streets. So lets not mention the war.

Mention the big mountains and clean skies. Then someone will describe what has happened to the loveliness of the skies in Los Angeles and Seattle. You never see them, they say. You just breathe in a thick, dark air that makes you cough and this extends for miles inland. From there the conversation goes to rivers befouled, or good earth devoured by pavement, and if you have a visitor from Mars, he's liable to tell you how the atmosphere up there is thickened and contaminated by jet planes and what ascends from our cities. So get off this subject. We get enough static without him joining in, too.

Fern, of the green house and the green thumb comes along and tells about the 3000 petunias she just planted and the 6000 she still has to plant. Maybe we had better observe a moment of silence to think about petunias, so far untouched by bullets or pollution and waving brightly wherever planted, whether by me, you, Fern, or Lady Bird.

Respectfully,

Marj Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, Thursday, June 6, 1968

A Letter from Marj...

GRANT VILLAGE

May 31, 1968

How are things down there at sea level? Up here amongst the clouds snow banks still stare us in the face, but I think their chances of being with us much longer are getting sloppier. We have had two days of sunshine and night temperatures not below 25 degreees. One unattractive morning not long ago it was - 5. For a moment or two I wondered how come I followed such weather around.

The camp grounds are opening late this year and where do the campers and trailers go? I don't know, but there are lots of them. They are an intrepid breed and seem to manage.

The sun has brought out many visitors and many bear. They seem almost interchangeable, in one instance, literally. Somewhere a bear is wandering around with a fingertip inside him. I heard that a lady was feeding him through a crack in her car window. He couldn't tell where the cookie left off and the finger began so he bit off both.

Grizzlies and cubs have been crossing the roads. Veteran employees will stop to gawk at their tracks in the snow. They are about the size of a whole wild cat and more dangerous, there being four per bear. A black bear hibernated last winter beneath the Thumb cafeteria. She is now out and about with two tiny children. They are very cute and everyone tries to get a glimpse but the mother usually hides them before going out to hail cars for snacks.

Last week at Calcite City, Jim Fisher and sons Warren and Willard plus a college friend of Warren's, had to rescue a couple of young people from a bear who wanted more than snacks. He had requisitioned their Volkswagon. They retreated and stood mournfully by the side of the road. They stopped Jim and family and asked for help.

Jim is foreman at Grant Village and has spent many years in the Park. He knows bears and was not too alarmed at this situation. They are not usually offensive unless given a reason, and this almost always concerns food.

They took the strangers into their car, drove to the VW and jumped out to scare the bear away. He had torn the windshield wipers off and was in full possession. They ran at him yelling and waving. He ran at them neither yelling or waving. Nor was he laughing or smiling. Warren, at a rather loud request of his father, jumped into their Mustang while the bear chased Jim around it. Warren started up slowly with bear on one side, father, brother and friend on the other. He proceeded down the road at a speed enabling the men to trot alongside with the car as a shield. This perplexed the bear to the extent that he gave up on the fun and games and ambled away.

The young couple repossessed their car and continued their vacation. They will evermore heed all Park warnings, I should imagine, and ironically enough, in this instance not snacks nor yet fingers had even been proffered.

Next week the postoffice at Thumb will be open. Then we can have ice cream and mail letters, two items so far on the uncertain list. Music teacher Jim Snyder and Doug Shenkle will deliver the popsicles this year. They are both from Livingston.

Fishing is great. The West Yellowtone radio announcer stated that a l0 lb., 9 oz. trout was caught in Hebgen Lake. In its mouth was its lunch, a one pound fish. Then I read in The Enterprise that Scotty Reid dragged out a big one also carrying its lunch around. The Hebgen Lake big one was mounted. I never heard whether they ate the bonus fish or put it back where they found it.

Respectfully,

Marj Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, June 20, 1968

A Letter from Marj...

Grant Village (Yellowstone Park)

June 17, 1968

All is quiet on the Village front and also on the Western front at Thumb. In fact it must all be desolation of spirit according to the sad story of a college student eating lunch here today. "There's a bunch of sick chicks at the fountain, and a bunch of ding-a-lings everywhere else," he said in his foreign tongue. Then, lapsing into English he quoth, "Oh. well, I earn more here and it takes a lot of money to go to pre-med," the while he mostly chewed.

In another week he will be telling us about the slick chicks and the swingin' cats he has met and how glad he is he didn't flake off before digging the scene.

These swinging Park savages contrast a little with those of 1916. I know because I talked with two girls of that era who had so much fun at Fishing Bridge that they will never forget it as long as they live. "Oh," they sighed, "If you only knew how exciting it was to ride with the soldiers who were on the water wagon detail." It seems two or three of these handsome brutes took a tank wagon to the river daily to get water for the camp which at that time constituted Fishing Bridge. The girl savages who were cute enough got invited along. The two I know, now Mattie Grobe and Helen Cox, were cute enough and they were invited.

This adventure and the many others they had, are considered square by the above mentioned young man, but sadly enough the excited maxi-skirted girls of of 1916 seemed in their reports happier than he is. There was a war going on then too, but it might have been in another world, I suppose, for all the effect it had on soldiers on patrol in Yellowstone and the summer savages. News coming in on the wings of wagon wheels is not by the minute nor yet hourly.

All the teenagers I know are slick chicks, not sick, and many of them are horse lovers. For them I have a household hint or would it be horsehold? The flies torment your horses on warm days, don't they? OK, our horse trainer, Lexi, learned from an old cowboy who really knows his business that bacon grease rubbed lightly on the areas most attacked, repels the tormentors.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

Livingston Enterprise, Aug. 8, 1968

A Letter from Marj...

Grant Village

Aug. 6, 1968

DEAR EDITOR,

The only news I know today is that there is a young, hungry, grizzly around here. Perhaps you have heard that the old plan of dumping garbage so the bears have access to it is out. The new plan burns the garbage in incinerators and returns the grizzlies to their natural habitat deep in the woods. Some of them haven't gotten the message. I figure people on crutches will go first, then children and old men, so I'm not venturing far into the woods any more even though the birdwatchers excitedly told me they saw 28 marbled godwits on a nearby sandpit. Gosh, what I wouldn't do to see a godwit. Anything, I guess, except become a grizzly sandwich.

A caretaker asked me rather plaintively if I thought the godwits were related to halfwits. He says every now and then he encounters what appears to be one of this genus judging by the questions asked of him as he makes his rounds. While I was laughing, he said, "I guess not. The ones I am talking about are more likely plastered than marbled."

Actually the campers and visitors aren't too scared. They are used to petting a bear and putting kids on their backs for cute pictures to take home so why should a silvery one with a humped back be any different? Besides, these silver ones are not interested in socializing,- they only want to eat and beat it if they can just find something suitable for a sandwich.

After writing the above, some guys interrupted me by roaring up on motorcycles. I thought, "Well if the grizzlies don't get a person up here, the Hells Angels will." I braced myself for the trailer to rock up and down this being what "turned on" the last bunch of hippies on cycles that toured the campground. The boat did rock from a polite knock rather from the trailer jack being turned. I opened the door and there stood Bill Shipley and Bill Dunagan from Livingston.

They said they weren't angels of any kind,- yet anyway. They were just two happy trail-bikers, fishing and touring and picking the bugs out of their teeth, the happiest one, of course, having to use the most toothpicks. This seemed to be Bill Shipley. Bill Dunagan had had only one cycle ride previous to

this rather extensive one, and he said he was not grinning into any wind. He was kept busy recounting to himself how to change gears in heavy traffic. Also at this time of the morning they were too cold to grin. They had slept on the ground near Fishing Bridge and were still chilled. And riding through the stiff breeze motorcycles engender doesn't seem to warm one, especially at high altitude where winter lurks during every night.

I turned on the heat, made coffee and swept up what bugs had fallen off the chattering teeth. They soon resumed their tour and must have made it home ok. The only road casualty I heard about that day was a trailer that jackknifed and overturned a couple of miles from Thumb. You should have seen it. It looked like Paul Bunyan or some of his heavy footed relatives had stepped right in the middle of it.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise

A Letter from Marj...

Grant Village

August 25, 1968

DEAR EDITOR:

I hope you aren't shivering as we are. For two mornings, when I in my early morning stupefaction, peered at the thermometer, it was 29 degrees. I announced 24 degrees to the household, But he knew about the stupefaction so checked for himself. 29 is bad enough. I can remember two days of summer only.

Nobody likes it but the Texans of which there are several couples in this loop. I thought they would pack up and depart for their own nation but they breathe in the frosty air and drawl, "Ain't this the most refreshin' thing?"

One lady has one of those $130 tricycles for exercising. She pedals up and down the loop and back and forth, looking beatific though her nose is red. Thursday after it rained she created a definite slush hazard which she mitigated by warning, "Y'all stay back naow."

Texans are racists. They like us Yankees and we like them, but they hang together no matter whether they are from Houston or the more northerly "Foat Wuth". Do not mention even the most remote criticism to one concerning the other. They will smile at you warmly while somehow you feel an ice cube sliding down your shirt.

These new friends are fun but happiness is the old friends. Amongst those visiting the Cowans and Coxes here in recent weeks are Aileen, Virginia and Jack Ward; Judy, Carl, and Lee Johnson; Roberta and Ralph Hepburn; Bob and Dorothy Youngberg and Dorlores and Jack Held of Clyde Park; Marie, Wayne and Ruth Dargon of Pine Creek; Nina Killorn, Mark and David Dresbeck; Bill Martin and his family from Hardin. Mr. and Mrs. Martin are both from Livingston. Bill says his mother, Virginia, now lives with him in Hardin.

Do you hear anything down in that country about Ursus Horribulus? (If I know that's grizzly, you oughta, I figure.) They are still trying to find something to eat. They hate and fear men and don't come near them only under duress. Duress now is garbage going up in smoke rather than into luscious dumps. So they haunt the camps. Then the Rangers, plus the larger of the G-men or caretakers, tranquilize them, load them and give them rides to remoter areas. They are the offspring of two or three generations of garbage fed Ursus, so they consider the dumps their habitat, not knowing too much about the deep woods. Their return is usually right on the heels of the rangers.

I am not an authority, but I feel their existance might be threatened by a new breed now haunting the highways and pine trees. It could be called Camperus Numerous. If a grizzly were to commit the ultimate sin up here it

would probably be to one of this genus because it is so accessible and so vulnerable. The minority group would have to take the rap, wouldn't it.

This would be sad. Have you seen the Craighead movie? The grace, majesty and beauty of the minority group is here fully depicted.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

Livingston Enterprise, September 11, 1968

A Letter from Marj...

Grant Village

Sept. 9, 1968

Dear Editor:

For some high school kids, four walls do not a prison make nor ten pounds of books to go, a ball and chain. For the student in our house, school is a stretch in the cooler, and you can almost hear the books clanking and dragging.

Last week I stayed home on Mill Creek to be there when the prison doors clanged shut, and I watched the inmate prepare for incarceration. Quite a lot happened and I know it was happening everywhere. Scraggly summer hair turned into sort of a TV coif, no-color lipstick was dragged out of a messy drawer, eyelashes got marvelously longer and horsy-smelling jeans were thrown on the closet floor to be replaced by cute mini-dresses.

When this vision returned home at night much of the glamour had disappeared and only a tired little girl came through the gate, but the mornings were inspiring to the view and somewhat outstanding.

An old friend at the high school was also astounded. He is working there until enrolling at MSU later this month. He did not seem to know who the vision was. I told his mother and we had a good laugh. She told him and the next he correcgted his error. My reward was, "Mother, it is bad enough to have to walk the last mile without you forcing the trustees to be good to me. Neither of us could think of a thing to say."

Maybe we should have let her come up here to work on construction or on the road crew. All summer I noticed teenage girls were flagging traffic as oil was laid, and I learned they made the same wages as men. Then I learned there are two on construction of the new buildings about a mile from this loop. Warren Fisher works there and he said one of them worked beside him and loaded shovelful for shovelful with the men. Don't imagine she is some underprivileged person, either, working desperately for groceries. She is the boss's daughter.

Warren's folks, Jim and Alice, have moved from their longtime home at Mammoth to a Park near Flagstaff, Arizona, Willard will go to high school there and Warren will attend MSU for his second year.

Paul Wood of Livingston and Mammoth has taken Jim's place here as foreman. His wife, Edith, is a postal clerk at Mammoth. Both are old friends of most of us from Park County and everybody was glad to see their familiar faces.

Just finished having pie with the Texans in the wooded picnic space behind the trailers. One man said, "That there pie is royal diggin's, mayum." Another said, "It shorely is. It would make you jump rat up and slap your grand maw"

This kind of conversation is witty and hilarious and I always wished I had said that. I was purely proud that Mr. Dwyer of West University Place, Texas, took the time to write to you, dear Editor, concerning my stories about his countrymen. I wish that he would write again. Didn't he sound rich, handsome and educated, though?

Only three loops are open now in the huge camping area and instead of 300 large cans per day of what the affluent Americans leave behind, there are now only about 27. All of the college kids have left or are leaving. Once more there will be nothing here but silence and bewildered bear wishing they could have had a few more snacks before the blizzards chase them to bed.

One bewildered grizzly made a faux pass last Friday. He smelled and saw a nice piece of meat. He squeezed himself into the culvert where it was hanging. The prison gates clanged shut and he felt worse than the reluctant student. At least she could walk around in her new prison. He couldn't move at all because his prison was exactly his size. All he could do was turn his head. The first time I heard about the head that swayed from side to side growling in hideous warning or perhaps only in despair, it was a foot between the eyes. The last story made it a good 18 inches. Both were right. A grizzly never looks the least bit small.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, Sept. 27, 1968

A Letter from Marj...

Mill Creek

Sept. 25, 1968

DEAR EDITOR;

"Home, home the hunter from the hill". That's me. I'm home from the Continental Divide in the south end of Jellystone. Some hill. But I am no hunter and never bagged a thing. In fact, bagging is not my bag as the hippies say.

Every one of us is like this. We can't take life unless it is suffering it's way out and needs merciful help to cat or dog heaven. Or even fish heaven. When Mill Creek starts to dry up - I am not talking about this year - the kids dip the fish into buckets and take them to the river where they probably promptly die from the shock. But they at least didn't die flopping in our back yard.

We have an old cat named Vomit. He has that name for a good reason. He drools, he slobbers and nearly every day lives up to his name with absolutely no ill effects except on us. We can't get rid of him. He purrs with such loud delight when we feed or pet him that we leave him his joy. He wasn't even ours in the first place. He lived across the creek and when we moved in here he came straight over to proffer his assistance and friendship. That was four years ago. He has never seen fit to withdraw his friendship even though we have actively hinted we are well able to do without it. Maybe we can't do without that loud cheerful purring, though.

When I got home from the Park I went down to the Jumping Rainbow Ranch to see what a fish rancher looked like. All the other ranchers I know have worry wrinkles that bee jelly, hormone cream or anything else won't help. No wonder with operating costs orbiting around the moon. They all have nice trim waist lines. No problem there, - it's just those high-cost and low-return wrinkles.

The fish rancher looked good and wasn't too wrinkled. I started wondering if my cattle rancher friends could look more like him if they diversified and stocked a few Rainbow fillies, heifers, ewes or whatever they are, in ponds on their places.

Yeah, they can, and Uncle Sam will help build ponds in the interest of conservation, or blowing money or something. They could buy the trout and sell them by the pound to tourists. Some of them try for a week and never get a bite from the river but can hardly fail to catch their limit from a pond filled with hungry Rainbows.

You could also buy a fat swan to swim around on top of the fish. Or some pheasants or a wild turkey or two to roost in your bushes. If that doesn't induce them to fish your pond, advertise trout for Junior's aquarium back in the city, an item now being perfected at the ranch. Later Junior could eat them. This might not work out, though. In our house we have goldfish ready for the pan but who among us can eat Hubert, Fred or Bonnie and Clyde.

Maybe there will be no fishing left after awhile but the kind that you plant in your back yard. What changes. I knew an old man who wished he could die because he couldn't bear all this. "Change" is too meek a word. Maybe "cataclysmic" would be better.

You should read whit I did about changes. San Francisco and Los Angeles will drop into the sea this year or next to say nothing of New York. Much of the land will be inundated. This was according to Edgar Cayce, not the weather bureau.

As I read on in this happy little book I read about a town in south central Montana. It's name was LIVINGSTON. I nearly fell out of my tree. The author died in 1945 or I would have written him a letter. Anyway, he said this little town would become important as a distribution center of food for deprived areas and would become big. If nothing else, that will teach Bozeman a lesson, huh:

So don't move away. Or if you do, move up to Jellystone. It blows its mind every day and is not in danger like the un-volcanic areas. If you are going in your camper you'd better hurry as spaces are going to be limited. They better be before the Park looks like a bunch of wheeled cities.

Respectfully,

MARJ COWAN

The Livingston Enterprise, March 1969

A letter from Marj...

Mill Creek

March ll, 1969

Dear Editor:

Jello again, as Jack Benny used to say when he was selling Jello over the radio. So then my teenager says, "How do you mean, sell Jello on the radio, was he a disk jockey?" For a minute I felt older than the dead sea scrolls. But I guess there are people alive today who don't know we used to listen to Ma Perkins daytimes and Jack Benny nights just as faithfully as they now watch Smothers Brothers or Edge of Night.

Have you read "The Generous Years," by Chet Huntley? My private librarian, Madge at the Pray store, recently loaned it to me. Some of its paragraphs are sheer poetry, even worth memorizing to those who love beautiful assemblage of words.

A lot of it I didn't need to memorize. I was there. I was in the Whitehall high school when Chet was, except that he lived with his family and I worked for my board and room at the Hoey Dairy, and later for Mr. and Mrs. Mills at the dormitory mentioned in the book.

Of this era I have my own memories. At the dairy dwelt an ogre in the form of a large big-nosed lady. She was the owner and she was sure hard on dum-dums from McAllister, Montnana, who had no ideas of dairy work nor much of anything else.

This same general lack of knowledge is what left me with my most poignant memory of Chet. I was so shook at the large city of Whitehall after knowing only the two buildings at McAllister, and at entering its huge school of around 200 students, that I went around in sort of a terrified stupor.

One of the first days of school I fell all the way down a set of stairs. My feet simply were not under control; they seemed to be almost entirely on their own, and my knees had a perpetual wobble.

It was Chet who helped pick up books, papers and the fat, trembling sophomore from McAllister. He said, "You should be pulling a wagon." I never knew if he meant I was of a size to do this, or he meant it would help with the book problem. I preferred never to find out.

After this ego-destroying debacle I pretended not to know him or any of the other witnesses. Then later I buried the disgrace and got acquainted with Chet and the other kids. I remember him and Edward Alexander, another classmate, as particularly decent, conscientious boys with brilliant minds.

But they were not the lovers of the school and my admiration was directed more towards the "shieks" as the "cool cats" were known when I was 14. T'was ever thus, and why I don't know. High school girls adulate boys whom they consider sophisticated, scorning the shy, scholarly types who often become the great men of our country, or at least the excellent husbands and providers.

Be that as it may, the book made me homesick for the round, young cheeks and the shiny face of kids who lived when peace was a natural state of affairs and when none of us dreamed that the United States or her leaders had a single fault. To us, the government was inviolable like God, never to be questioned; because how does one question flawlessness and omniscience or men so noble. In fact, as I remember, we felt this way about all adults, even dairy ogres who scared us to death. No wonder our faces shone.

I have some old programs of an Operetta we put on that year. Chet had the part of Billie Wood, naval lieutenant. I was a Hawaiian girl. There were nine in the cast and a chorus. I can see them all, including Miss Wilkenson, the director. She was from some big place like Billings or Mandan, and we all gawked with wonder at her citified clothes and mannerisms. The owner of the dairy thought her legs looked like quart milk bottles upside down but we didn't.

I also remember Miss Samuelson, another teacher; the girl later known gruesomely by a whole nation as the murder victim of Winnie Ruth Judd. She was as Chet describes her, intelligent and charming. I can still see her incredible Scandanavian eyes with their long lashes and sidelong glances.

I just counted up and found this was about 40 years ago. I guess I will put my teeth in a glass and totter off to take a nap. Or maybe I'll just go to the kitchen and lap a snort of cooking sherry - then take a nap.

Respecfully,

Marj. Cowan

Livingston Enterprise, May l, 1969

A Letter from Marj...

DEAR EDITOR:

A couple of years ago, a big snow year, I wrote from Yellowstone Park, about my future home site, a trailer slot in the employee's area at Grant Village. I walked into it and looked up, and up, and past white walls and a blue slit of sky and felt like Admiral Peary, or worse, like the last starving member of that expedition that went to the Pole in 1908 and is still there. I wished a dog would come by so I could have him as my best friend, - or as a sandwich.

Well, this year is not particularly a snow year. Yet the white stuff is being cut off roofs with chain saws. The men cut it in blocks and yell "LOOK OUT BELOW" as they shove. At Grant Village it has been seven feet on the roofs and five feet on the level even after several hot, sunny days.

But amazingly enough, the roads are being opened and everything will be ready when Uncle Sam gives the go ahead. Already members of the new tribe that haunts Parks are lurking about the gates ready to spring when they are opened. They are of the special Camperus Numerous. They will joyously choose campsites and happily shovel snow that might remain in timbered sites. They are usually clad in T- shirts while the natives shovel and saw with flaps lowered, ear, that is. Just another proof that the joyous triumph over the blase. I had better add, however, if I wish to remain healthy, since my husband is one of the "band of blase", that it is the ear-flapped natives that make possible the triumph of the joyous, and a very good job they do.

Sunday, Suzy Cox and I did some exploring. We saw only buffalo, elk, wild cats and coyotes, and heard about a mother grizzly who wanted a truck to never again get between her and her children whom she had left on the other side of the road.. The truck agreed with her wholeheartedly. It cowered thankfully away, vowing, I think, never to return.

One of the silvery coyotes got ahead of us and wouldn't get out of the road. We felt bad to be chasing him as he seemed to have only one front leg.

Maybe coyotes are one-steppers or single-footers or something or maybe it was the three legged one that recently tried to eat an employee.

No kidding. It jumped down from a high snow bank right onto a man's head and thought lunch had begun. The victim escaped all right but had to have a lot of facial stitches.

It is thought that the coyote saw him moving along on the snowplow below the bank where it was sitting and thought his cap was a small, moving animal so he sprang. And this one really did have only three legs so was probably unduly starved, not being able to hunt successfully.

Before I move up there I hope it has fully decided that sprayed hairdos don't sit on top of coyote meals. The guy working on the snowplow could both hit and run while in my old age even houseflies elude me.

The only bear we saw was walking around hooking up trailers and growling about having to cook their own porridge. This is the case every spring as most wives can't move up there until the kids are out of school.

Some of these bear stopped growling long enough to play. They jumped up and down on the road where my Mustang was sitting. This was fun for them as the whole road was springy. The car went up and down most satisfactorily. I was told not to worry. If it sank too far it would be blown back out by a geyser.

This is sort of true. Once we spraddled a little geyser as we drove to Soda Butte. They have a habit of breaking out here and there. But they are small and innocuous and the patrolling rangers spot them and give them no quarter. They are immediately put back in their places in the bowels of the earth. How this is done I don't know but I have heard it is with hay bales!

All this notwithstanding, my Mustang whinnied and backed off. It didn't dig a whole road that could be used for a trampoline even if it was fun for a bunch of 50-year old bears!

Over Easter vacation Lee and I went to the Big Hole Battlefield. We used to live there and wanted to see how Uncle's new buildings looked. They are beautiful and Chief Joseph would be gratified to see the movie and hear the lecture describing what happened to him and his nation; and to look with awe, as I did, at the electric curtain that slid back to reveal the movie.

There's snow over there, too, about ear deep to Ollokut, and he was six feet two. He was Joseph's brother and leader of the young men. He was so handsome you wouldn't have believed it but he didn't get to chase many red maide ns. A marker at Bear Paw Battlefield shows where he fell, causing Joseph to finally decide they could fight no more.

In spite of the night attack at Big Hole, Ollokut and his warriors defeated the white soldiers and left them suffering in the hot sun.

The moral of this story is that if you live either in Yellowstone or Big Hole, leave your bikinis packed until you can suffer in the hot sun. And keep an eye peeled for ear flapped bear that pick on Mustangs.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, August 1969

A Letter from Marj...

Mill Creek,

August 6, 1969

DEAR EDITOR;

Every year, as though drawn by a magnet, I got to Upper Falls in Yellowstone Canyon. This year was not different. Lexi and I stopped there Wednesday. Never have I seen anything so impressive and I am sure I have said this enough times.

Lower Falls drops farther and is enough to make you wonder, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" But Upper, with its crash of waters, is for me. If you jumped in they would never even find your cowboy boots, nor yet your tibia or femur. All would be devoured by the misty teeth of this incredible water behemoth.

And it would be easy to jump in. The viewing place, though well walled, is almost on top of the mighty scene. I asked one lady how she liked it, "Interesting," she gasped. That was not an apt description; she was too tired to do better. Later I heard a guy say, "She was so scared she about passed out." A small boy, rather dirty of face, said, "She probably had to take too many baths when she was a kid." Everybody laughed but the lady, she was long gone.

Next we traveled Dunraven Pass. Have you done this lately? It is surely one of the most beautiful passes in the Park. And to take the Mt. Washburn , Lexi says, is almost as thrilling as to help take the Swainson cattle to the mountain this side of 8-mile, a trip, as far as I'm concerned should be unknown to man and maybe beast. This is, however, the opinion of one who considers the back porch high and dangerous - it has three steps.

Near the Mammoth ski area we got into a mile long bear jam. There is nothing to do but wait and we could air brakes sighing despairingly. It was nearly five and government trucks were trying to get to home base.

Ahead of us was a huge, battered station wagon, stuffed with a jolly family, the mother and dad laughing heartily at the antics of about five or six boys. When we were first stopped I leaned out the window to ask what was holding us up. I figured he should know as he was standing with field glasses in hand on the station wagon roof. "A mother bear and two cubs," he yelled back. (The other kids jumped out and disappeared.)

To make this come alive for his parents he suddenly lay prone on the roof and hung his head down above the steering wheel. Through the windshield he roared, "Groowwwwilllllll" His mother jumped, shrieked and about died laughing. Dad grinned and didn't even yell, "Get the blank offa there, you'll cave it in." That surely was the least we were expecting.

In contrast, behind us a square jawed lady was at the helm of an outsize camper and truck. She spent her time either leaning on the horn or out the window yelling, "Let's move it." And the air brakes sighed on.

After half an hour the kid on the roof whistled shrilly through his teeth. At this signal brothers appeared from everywhere and climbed in or on. At last we were going to move it. Far down the line I glimpsed the roly-poly cubs and could see a chap trying to take a picture. Alas, cars squeezing past and coming towards our line of traffic kept getting in the way. Twice he got out to yell recriminations and make unacceptable gestures. Somehow he didn't make the scene with the bad guys - they just came serenely on.

By now, two more kids were on the roof. Finally Maw hollered. "Git in, everybody, before you git ate." They all did unless you except the head of one big boy whose seat was the extreme rear floor. The head was detained by the push button window. He stuck out his tongue, rolled his eyes and made awful gargling noises. Maw and the kids nearly died laffin'. Finally someone released him. As they drove away we could see him finishing his scene of suffering with terrible contortions and leg jerks. Dad grinned and the air brakes behind us sighed, this time perhaps with hope of attaining the night's surcease from tourists, bear, garbage, potholes and all such things strange to Jellystone.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

Livingston Enterprise, August 27, 1969

A Letter from Marj...

DEAR EDITOR

The bear facts are this week that I am bearly able to find a single bear story in all of Yellowstone. They just aint doin' nothin'. The she-grizzly that used to rule the dump at Thumb has, hopefully since incinerators, gone back to the wilds with her twins. They must be bigger than she is by now and she was supposed to measure 18 inches between the eyes. Each tooth looked that size when she used to charge the G-men (garbage detail to you) when they tried to unload. She usually left them alone unless they got too close and then she would let them know she never turned down pre-lunch hors d'ouevres. They always left a cab door open and were expert at flying landings.

The black bear still hang around the Grant Village campground, growling and complaining because the new gargage cans are bear proof. They are made like letter boxes and the American tourist can now mail his affluent garbage preparatory to its removal. How can a respectable bear family get ahead with such an arrangement, or more literally, get a bear head into such a slot-like aperature? If they knew what was good for them they would forget their love for people food and repair to the woods where they can doubtless scrape together a bear living.

I can no longer tell if this is Sunday or Punday. I know you wish I would hurry up and find out.

So let's talk about tourists, ok? Last time I mentioned government air brakes. Did I ever tell you about another government instrument whose voice blasts with distinction and a great exhalation of air? I'm talking about the air horns on heavy duty machinery in the Park, and all the time you thought I was talking about Mr. Dirkson or a session of Congress. I think I told you before about when one of these horns spoke behind a lady tourist who did not immediately concede its master's right on the paths of oil and gravel. She was bending over to get wood. It is said when it spoke, she also spoke. She said "Yeowww," and sprang into the air flinging wood indiscriminately. It is also said she did not land until fully inside her tent from which she was not seen to come forth until the morning of the second day. If she could have known the jollity she afforded the caretakers she might have come forth sooner to inflict grievous wounds or mayhap jump in the lake.

Speaking of the Lake, there is the lady I told you about a couple of years ago. She asked a college boy employee where Lake Yellowstone was. He said, "You are looking at it, Ma'am." She replied, "Oh, no, that can't be. That's Lake Area. It says right there on that sign, "Approaching Lake Area.". The kid said "Oh, dear," and nothing more.

Well, tourists are only you and me away from home. Are hitchhikers you and me away from home, a long way? The following was copied from a crumpled paper in the hands of a tired, crumpled boy named Charley:

My song,

As lonesome and long

As the road winding bleak and bare.

A guy like you is a guy like me

Except my search goes on unending

For identity.

I've hitchhiked here,

I've wandered there.

Hitchikin's awful slow,

You stand all day, you stand all night,

You feel the rain, you know the snow.

I am not black, I am not white,

Yet everywhere the people stare

And do not care,

This makes me wrong?

This makes them right?

To ease my problems

And ease my pain

I wish I could hear

"Come home again."

This, I know, will never be,

There are ten at home

Not counting me.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, Thursday, Dec. 18, 1969

A Letter From Marj.

Dear Editor,

I have nothing to say, I told Lee this and he smartly remarked, "Since when did that stop you from running off at the head.?" Thus encouraged, here is some of the runoff:

Do you have a daughter in high school? Is she pale and grouchy and coughing in this joyous season of good cheer? Does she bring home advanced algebra and physics books and ask your help on such matters as: a motor whose output is 600 draws a small wagon. If the motor exerts 300 newtons to overcome friction, at what speed does it keep the wagon moving?

Is your aid in solving the problem noteworthy or do you just stare with your mouth open?

It doesn't matter because she soon says, "Oh never mind, I dig physics but how about this history question? I sure don't dig history." Because I can read plain works that aren't all tangled up with newts and watts I help with this.

The next question concerns something else she digs, - games, pitch-ins, school dances, and the car going down the road. Daddy gets in on this one. He starts barking like he has fleas not only because the car and the money are always going down the road but because of the pale and grouchy aura sorrounding his last born. What if he were a teacher? One told me lately that nearly every kid in school has this flu-like ailment, an ailment that needs rest, probably, - not more pitch-ins.

Do you at the last moment have to have to contrive a second formal when you thought one was enough? And none of the stores have any feather or glitter trim so you begin wondering if feathered beer cans or scalloped kitchen foil would do? You also begin wondering if kids should have a social life plus physics and advanced algebra, plus horses, dogs, cats and guppies.

Then suddenly you know what the problem is. It's not formals nor feather trim. It's you. This is the third time around and the first was in the early '50s! The enthusiasm for young people is the same but there are a few things now missing such as maybe two good legs. And something has been added, like maybe Daddy's penchant, when evening is upon us, for heading straight for his chair with a few dozes and snores thrown in.

Be that as it may, you may gird up your loins as it says in the Bible, and go to the school concert. It is so worth while you know no parent should miss a single one, nor the nor the speech contests nor any of the non athletic productions. (No one ever needs to boost the games. They are always crowded.) We make up our minds to attend everything from now on.

Well, so long for now. It's getting dark again and time to head down the road towards the action. Or to the front room to start the rocking chairs. Surely the younger parents will turn out for the doings tonight! Unless they are also going to rock, say at the supper club.

Respectfully,

MARJ. COWAN

The Livingston Enterprise, May 28, 1970

A Letter from Marj...

DEAR EDITOR:

Withdraw my name from your list of people who tell tales of grizzlies or even of little skinny black bears. I just returned from Grant Village, almost the southernmost outpost of Yellowstone Park, never saw so much as a scrawny yearling staggering around hunting enough food to bring him out of his winter's stupor.

All my Park employee friends have seen black bear and many have seen grizzlies. The snow got so deep the last two months in Yellowstone that even they've been down in low country trying to find food. Some elk have met a bad end at their hands, or teeth. I should say, but this is the natural way, the way it was before they were furnished garbage. The garbage has been withdrawn and is now fed to incinerators.

I was barreling along near Sulphur Cauldron grumbling about these things to myself when I nearly got scared out of my pant suit by creatures even bigger than Ursus Horribulus. Two buffalo bulls jumped off a cliff smack in front of my car. I've seen them close up before and been worried they might attack, but this time I was petrified. Fortunately, they were too. They acted as though they fell off the hill before they were ready and when they got their feet under them again they hastened across the road down to the river.

I was so discombobulated I then thought I saw a HORSE in the road. I screeched to another quick stop. In a minute I knew my ranch oriented mind was playing a trick on me. No horse is loose in Yellowstone ever. It was a slab sided mother moose. She had her rear towards me and was studying the road up ahead. Pretty soon down her way trotted another slab sided horse only this was her dumb looking calf. Instead of continuing to wish I would see grizzlies I began to wish for the protection of bumper to bumper summer traffic.

When it was time to leave Grant Village I decided to drive over Craig Pass to see how the swingin' city of West Yellowstone was doing. The pass had just been opened and Lee, my husband, warned me direly I might get in a blizzard on top, but it was all good road and presently the sun shone.

In the geyser area there were so many elk I quit looking and only stopped to gawk at two gangly turkeys grazing on green grass where the snow had melted. No kidding, I thought they were turkeys except that their beaks were way too long and had shovels on the end. " Just what kind of a turkey would that be, Marge?" was Lee's sarcastic question when I told him. I could see what he meant, those beaks were wrong. I have searched Park literature and don't yet know what they are.

West Yellowstone wasn't swingin'. She had curlers in her hair and was wearing a sloppy housecoat trimmed with puddles and dirty snow banks. But who wouldn't look like this before nine o'clock on a drizzly morning?

Just you wait until she changes her dress and combs out her hair; She's ready for anything. Her entertainment and hospitality are known all over the west and probably a lot of the East and Europe. There are enough motels and hotels for 10,000 people.

I got to wondering what those 10,000 people would eat so went to several grocery stores. I bought ingredients for shrimp salad and beef stew for less money than I spend at home. On the gourmet shelf of one market reposed escargot (snail to you) all dehydrated and ready to be reconstituted and put back in his shell. A jar of shells came with the unit. Ugh! I left him and his relatives there for Alfonse and Gastone who no doubt will make it across the pond sometime this summer.

I overheard a clerk ask a salesman if for heaven's sake he brought any "snoose." He said, "Yep, I sure did". He was told he would get hugs for this. It seems there hadn't been any in town for days. I guess it isn't only us Norskies who are using it these days; maybe many who are walking that Camel mile, or looking masculine in Marlboro country, are now looking for a place to expectorate.

I went to the Stagecoach Inn and gawked at the pictures by Gueverro and at the marvelous stairway in the lobby. Then I crossed the street to look at the lovely agate displayed by Mrs. Thomas in the Eagle block. This is the same location as the first Eagle store and post office of over 50 years ago.

I tried to find out if topless waitresses still bounce around at a nightclub as they did last year but no one I talked to admitted to knowing, so I wandered down to the Westgate Playmill Theater. A young kid was in the window painting backdrops so I went in to visit.

He was preparing scenery for "Guy and Dolls" and he wasn't as young as he looked. He is a professor at Ricks College, Rexburg, Idaho. His boss, Professor Lynn Benson, also of Ricks, has produced and directed plays in this little theater for seven years. This year he purchased a whole motel as quarters for his cast of college kids. Last year they played "Meellerdrammers" to 10,000 people. Professor Benson is now in New York scouting for new ideas. After "Guys and Dolls" will be "Ten Nights in a Barroom."

I got to thinking what might accost me on the way home if I didn't get there before dark, so took off. A silver-mustached ranger so immaculate and military of bearing I thought he was a general, waved me through the gate.

I saw no more frightening critters unless you count one humanus erectus on all fours at the edge of a hot pool. He was photographing a profusion of lovely yellow flowers blooming strangely amongst elk and snow banks.

Respectfully

Marj. Cowan

The Livingston Enterprise, (date n/a)

A letter from Marj-

DEAR EDITOR

The last newspaper trip I took you on through Yellowstone Park was illegal and immoral but definitely not fattening.

Have you ever seen a fat convict? Convicts would be us if you had followed me. It was in April, and we would all now be doing a stretch in a federal clink for breaking and entering barricades and snow walls. That trip was all imaginary and for fun.

The trip today is for real and takes about five miles. It will not endanger man nor beast but it might point up some of its peculiarities, ;including yours and mine.

It's early in the morning and here we go. Let's get Jim Bayne with his camera since without a camera you're like the guy hunting bear without a stick. We'll go to the marina and campground first. Look quick. There's an elk strolling right through the lower end of the trailer loop where I live at Grant Village. What's behind him? Four darling little creatures lined like a drill team with their fluffy tails straight in the air. They are baby weasels. Maybe their mother told them to get over to the showers before the 8 o'clock push. Oh, wow, what's that big thing coming through the morning fog? A moose? Nope, just Violet, a trailer court friend, carrying two sacks of laundry, probably trying to beat the weasel family or any family to the washing machines.

Let's hope she never finds out I thought she was a moose. I'll state right here that any reference I make to real people or important news is a big lie and there ain't no such animals, either news or people dead or alive. You listening, Violet?

Now we are at the marina looking for Jonathon, the sea gull. He is not Jonathon Livingston Seagull of the Reader's Digest who swooped around and finally went to heaven. He is just Jonathon and if he doesn't watch it, he won't even be able to fly over the lagoon, let alone to Heaven.

To feed him is like slopping the hogs back home. In fact, worse. All they did was smack their snouts and grunt and shove, but look at him and that fish head. I thought he would pick off a few chunks. Instead he swallows the two or three inch thing in one gulp. His eyes are bigger than his beak because it doesn't go all the way in or down. He stretches his neck and gulps and swallows until it is partly crammed past his tonsils. You won't believe this but he is now jumping up and down, landing heavily hoping to jar it farther in. He is pop-eyed and distressed and twisting around and around. This makes him dizzy and he falls on his side.

Pretty soon, flapping his wings and swallowing mightily, the lump disappears from his lower gullet. He gets up, looks sheepishly around to see who watching, glares into Jim's camera and flies heavily and lumpily away.

That's enough of hoggish Jonathon so let's look around the shore. Over to the left is another morning parade, this time goslings in single file led by their mother with their father as advance patrol. He is completely dignified and just told the old lady to stay six feet behind him and the kids exactly one foot behind her with one inch clearance between them.

All of a sudden, guess who broke the perfect pattern? He did. All of a sudden he decided on bottoms up. The mother bumped into him, the kids into her. I thought they'd get it for sure, but he just flapped his tail when he finally surfaced and shared a wiggling thing with them. Then everybody fell happily back into formation and sailed away.

The visitor center is right above us. We walk up the winding path and go through glass doors straight to some fat chairs. Sit down, everybody, and look out over the sparkling lake of the Yellowstone.

Why did you jump? Oh, I forgot to tell you these chairs are lecture chairs. As soon as you sit down a sexy, male voice says right in your ear, "You are part of the Wilderness. You hear cranes honking and shrieking, wolves doing their bit and elk bugling. For contrast you hear the destructors; the boats, planes, garbage rolling down hill. No, I made that last up. The rolling sound is a thunder storm, the roaring kind where God rolls potatoes and cannon balls and such stuff around.

The next thing at the visitor's center is a movie showing how the earth thaws and drips all over everything, then freezes up and busts, causing Yellowstone Parks, big cracks in rocks and mountains, and masses of boulders strewn around in funny shapes and sizes.

I learn that right now we are being put back in the deep freeze. I asked a ranger why, but forgot what he said except that it will be a few eons before we are frozen stiff. The whole movie showed no stiff people, or few, if any people at all. But it showed their tracks like "Melvin love Grace" cut into a lovely big tree, Melvin's artistry wounding its bark forever. I left the lecture with sort of vague feeling that maybe we won't freeze at all; that maybe some future day the sound of things rolling down hill could possibly be us Graces and Melvins if we don't lay off the art work and some of our other practices.

Now we are talking to some visitors. One says, "Where are the main geezers?" We hide grins and tell him about Old Faithful and the ones here at Thumb.

Later I looked up "geezer" and found it means an old duffer sometimes in disguise, but it didn't mention that he ever spouted water! But what the heck? This was no worse than the tourist we saw wading in a hot pool right beside a sign stating the encrustation were delicate and the water boiling. Could this one be a geezer in disguise himself up from the nether regions as the hot water seemed to be most pleasing to his bare feet!

As we go back to the campground we count cracks on the campground bridge. Edith, our tour guide at this phase, showed us how to peer through crack 21 at a raven's nest hung directly beneath. A big, black, ugly baby sat on the bunch of interwoven twigs and glared morosely at our cracked faces. The mother sat grouchily in a tree and squawked.

In minutes, in true tourist fashion, there were more rear ends in the air on the red bridge. A couple of whiskery young men stopped by to see why we were stooped in such earnest prayer and they joined in. A girl and boy, back packing through, assumed the posture. Cars stopped.

At this point we flaked off. Irate husbands in trucks might show up at any minute trying to get by, to say nothing of the ever present fuzz.

The mother raven got tired of it too and flew at our heads as we departed. I didn't blame her. Who wants the world in on his private hang-up whether made of twigs or tangled twosomes or anything tangled?

So we arrived home on the loop where any trailer contains a cup of coffee and a friendly voice. Plus a bunch of clowns who kid you about doing a gawk glide like the other million and a half.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

A letter from Marj.....

Livingston Enterprise, (date n/a)

Dear Editor,

This is a newspaper soap opera and is entitled Secret Storm the Night We Dyed. The scene is my home on Mill Creek and we is Lee, my husband, and me (I). It happened all to recently, and man, did we dye, all over the kitchen, in the oven, under the stove and deep into my new white linoleum.

There will be no funeral unless I later get to brooding and cause one. So far I am content just to breathe hard and rub lotion into my sore hands.

It all started when I was called to the phone and told Lee to take my hot plastic (note I said plastic) pail full of hot green dye off of the kitchen table where I had hastily plunked it.

Guess where he set it? I can hardly bear to tell you. On the stove right smack on the burner from which I had just removed the boiling tea kettle of water into which I would dissolve the dye. Then he tore outside for fear that I would make him do something else.

On the phone I wailed, "Oh, my God, you should see what my husband just did," this as I grabbed at the pail, or something that had been a pail. It was now only a ball and a lump and a flood of green stuff cascading over the entire house. There was at least a full gallon of concentrated green as I was going to dye a bunch of tattle gray sheets all at once in the washing machine.

The stranger on the phone to whom I was moaning turned out to be an old friend, Gatz Hjortsberg, the writer of successful novels who now lives at Pine Creek in the old Wright home which he has purchased. He wanted to come up and see the old family piano we were advertising for sale. I groaned, "Come ahead, the whole place has just become a disaster area. You can help look for bodies."

Lee was now on his knees, wiping, wringing, scrubbing and muttering, "Why can't that damn woman buy new sheets instead of dying old ones for 15 years. How in ______did I know the burner was hot?" and a lot of obscene things in case children are reading.

By the time Gatz arrived the linoleum was less jade and more of a Nile green, shading into dirty white. Everything was pretty well wiped up and off except the woodwork which would have to be repainted, and the oven which would have to be sandblasted, I guess, as dinner was cooking at the time of the green rain and a large puddle running down through the burner had baked on.

Now we come to the good part or the denouement as they say in France and maybe in Alaska too for all I know. You wonder why Secret Storm appears in the title?

With Gatz was a petite beautiful-eyed girl whom swore to myself I already knew and at whom I kept staring surreptitiously. He introduced her as Jada from New York. Finally I asked her what she did besides chair a committee for a television union. She said, " I have been an actress for a Soap Opera for about l0 years." I said, " Have I ever seen you?" She said, "Possibly, I was Amy on Secret Storm."

This about did it for the evening. I wasn't quite speechless as I do not suffer from this disease, but almost. I looked down at my green hands, looked at Lee's green pant legs, then looked again at the cute and lovable girl I had watched so many times on TV. and figured that anything I said from then on would come out green.

But who could be overcome for long in the presence of sweet, guileless Gatz who makes everyone giggle and be glad, so we had a good visit.

As the organ music fades and this chapter closes, you can see a proud old piano of 70 or so sitting in an old fashioned room at Pine Creek just right for its dark inlaid wood. It is showing all its ivory teeth, only one of which is slightly chipped - not in despair but in good spirits.

Will its missing pedal ever be found? Will Amy ever return to New York or has she learned things in Montana are really greener? Will Lee ever get out of the dog house?

Tune in this same newspaper some other time for the next exciting chapter. Or a reasonable facsimile.

Respectfully,

Marj. Cowan

A Letter From Marj.....

Livingston Enterprise, date n/a

Dear Editor:

You can't judge a book by its binding nor can you always judge what people mean by what they say. I will illustrate. All the men in Yellowstone but a few have brought out their house trailers. So now they batch together, worried wives pitying them their graphically depicted loneliness and T.V. dinners.

This goes on until the days off shopping day when I discovered more bottles of pop than usual were requested by the lonely bachelor, more snack type foods, more frying chickens and more steaks. Then their pitiable state began to leak out.

One of them in particular loves to cook and is skilled and experienced. One's husband has drawn him for a cell mate and it turns out one's husband has never had it so good, the husband who loathes cooking and who in eight years never learned to fry bacon right.

Stories begin to come out about delicious fried potatoes grated a certain way, gourmet chicken, steaks done to a medium-rare turn, and about hilarious lies and jokes bandied about with the neighboring widowers invited in to share the banquets and snacks.

To add insult to injury, one's husband queries, "Marjie, how come you don't know how to play cribbage?"

That does it. I know now I've got to think how to beef up the quiet winter evenings ahead so they will compare with this deprived life of the Grant Village bachelors. Should I dress up in heels and eye makeup and serve dinner at night instead of the usual lowly supper? Should I forego the busy housewife's uniform of saggy sweat shirt and pants for a girdle even if it kills me long before the18 hours are up? Or maybe it is the ubiquitous meat loaf that will be my undoing.

I don't see how to cure the meat loaf part of the problem especially since I blew the household budget for quite awhile ahead buying the aforementioned epicurean delights, so perhaps I had better comb my hair about 5 p.m. instead of throwing a brush at it once in the morning, ( before my eyes are open) and then feeling fresh all dayI will encourage the high school daughter to come out of her queer foreign land of loud records, day dreams, studying and boys for at least five minutes of each evening for edifying conversation with our returned hero. I will remind her that she and I are competing with a fine cook in clean government greens and that she must take off her reeking cowboy boots that are also green for a different reason. And that she must change those pants, hairy and filthy from riding bareback.

I will tell her that the guy in clean green never once said, "Daddy, I have to have $10.00 in the morning and $40.00 when my senior pictures are ready.

I fear that this latter circumstance, however, something like the meat loaf, is here to stay, a problem essentially indissouluble, as the intellectual kid said when he accidentally swallowed his agate shooter instead of a jaw breaker.

That's about enough of that. So how about this bon mot gotten off by the above teenager and her friends one recent evening when they made up jokes? Question: what has bushy eyebrows and flies? Answer: Dan Baily.

 Since Dan Baily's flies are known practically around the world this gem may achieve national prominence right along with with what Spiro is tossing off. Right on, kids.

Respectfully

Marj. Cowan

A letter from Marj.

Livingston Enterprise, (date n/a)

Dear Editor

"Flying is for the birds", I said. " A broomstick flight occasionally . Yes, no one is perfect," I said, "But airplanes, never, never, again."

That is what I said in this paper and in others and all over the place. And recently there I was again, high in the air, higher than the craziest bird would dare to go, 29000 feet to be exact for 2000 miles. The way I got on the plane this time was with pushes from my husband and occasionally from those in line behind me, deep breaths until I was dizzy and a crack on the shin from an iron step I missed when walking the last mile. This last definitely gives one something to think about and indeed dulls ones perception of any impending doom. I still have a bruise to prove it.

Inside, to avoid looking out the window I took a middle seat and muttered to Lee to accept anything going by on a stewardess's tray. I wished I has taken the advice of a fellow chicken who once said the system of about five shots in the airport bar or even Chinese acupuncture, beats what's on the trays. I think, however, I can recommend a bleeding shin just as highly.

I found I could still count. I counted ten fat ladies and three fat men. I became more and more weight conscious. "2,000 pounds right there", I groaned, "with the rest of us there must be several tons". I wished everybody had joined weight watchers, or better still, a travel-on-trains movement with me the charter member.

Soon the plane moved and roared up and away, revving and un-revving. This un-revving in the air caused the melting of the last of my solder and probably that of the engines, so I glued my eyes to my shoes and determined to endure. This was the last of the glue, too, believe me.

We didn't crash, and it is hard to remain rigid for more than an hour so I began to look to see who was deathly pale. No one, and they were all talking and laughing or sightseeing. This, for me, is forever out. One other time I had seen the earth tilting and sliding away, spilling millions of houses out of Minneapolis, and from then on I turned that experience over to any angels flying around up there who might want it.

We had stopped at Denver to let more pounds off and on and some of them were on their way to Georgia or Tennessee like us. The kid sitting with Lee and me said, "Ah see thim ran clouds is startin' to bowl up." I thought, "You creep, we don't need "ran clouds" boiling up, too." But I was somewhat glad he didn't notice he was sitting beside a dish of lemon jello. (That's yellow, isn't it?)

After 7 or 8 hours we disembarked in Atlanta and the beautiful soft air made snow boots and heavy coats needed that morning in Billings utterly ridiculous. However, there was nothing to do about it. Luggage was not yet procurable, so we clomped on around the place.

Even with hot feet you can eat and I never heard of such wonderful cooking as we found at that airport cafeteria. I have never been able to look a meat loaf in the eye since.

Before we knew it, we were on our way back home and this time any revving and un-revving took place on the ground where it belongs. And there were only two medium fat people on board this vehicle, a bus for School District 4, Livingston, from the factory at Ft. Valley, 30 miles south of Macon, Ga.

Imagine having 72 empty seats to sit or take naps in and the long aisle was like walking around the block if you wanted exercise. And anytime I wanted I could be co-pilot. Man, that's how to fly! - with one reservation. We didn't need the 72 empty seats in the hurricane winds of Texas nor in the terrible Wyoming blizzard we got into. A dog sled, low the ground, with two seats would have been fine, and without me for the co-pilot.

And on the narrow, out- dated bridge crossing the Mississippi I wished we could shrink even more when the big trucks began snuggling up to us and the rail was all we had to snuggle up to. They are building a great new one, but if they want it soon, the gotta hurry. They don't even walk or talk fast down there, let along pour fast cement.

Respectfully,

Marj Cowan

The Montana Standard, Sept. 20, 1970

Marjie rambles

By: MARJIE COWAN

Well, the wind bloweth where it listeth again in Yellowstone Park. And where it wants to listeth, whatever that is, it does a good job. When I drove to Grant Village last week , trees were down across the roads and everywhere else, and the juice went off, but this time no one was hurt.

Two years ago it blew trees all over roads and people. At least one was killed. It also scattered to the winds as it were, my girl friend's three armhole dress. These garments have no fasteners. They just wrap. She was getting out of her car to go into the Thumb store when the wind hit. The dress came unwrapped and before she knew it was sort of a flying neck scarf. She retrieved it and jumped back into her car, looking facedly about to see who was looking. No one was. Everybody was too intent on saving their kids, their own armhole dresses or their cars, or just trying to get into the store without a lodgepole pine wrapped around their necks.

AFTER THE BIG WIND last week came the big freeze. A metal trailer without electricity is like a large tin can dunked into icy water. But fortunately they have good alternate heating systems like propane furnaces. Some of the trailer house neighbors and the apartment dwellers weren't so lucky, being totally dependent on juice.

But the wives are a hardy lot. Came daylight hours, the International Rummy Game went on undaunted. About 3 p.m. that day all was quiet on the Grant Village front so I excused myself from the last exciting blitz of one run and one set and started home to Mill Creek.

I took a circuitous route around the Camp Ground as I wanted to see B Loop where the grizzly mother chewed up the young man. It looked like all the other loops except it was finally and irrevocably closed.

lN ANOTHER AREA I saw the caged mother and her children. She was in one of the round government traps and her baby in another. The second bably was lying under his mother's trap.

They were ready to go on a trip to a zoo. To a grizzly this may be a bad trip but I heard the zoo is big and well run. So possibly it will be no worse than the bad trips we all take off and on.

When I talk, it is said that I jump from one thing to another. So okay, why not write the same way? Here goes. How come nobody found my lost billfold? It was full of identification such as nicely signed credit cards and my driver's license. The cards are cancelled now and useless. The only thing left of value would be the driver's license and I admit the picture of the criminal type person on it would be of wonderful use for clearing rodents out of the cellar or attic.

And I have good news in case it is being used for this. That picture is pasted on. The underneath is worse. It's so truly bad it would scare even lions.

l'm probably the one who should be scared. For all I know it is against city, county, state, and federal law to cut the picture off of an old drivers license to paste it on a new one.

The Montana Standard, Friday, Dec. 25, 1970.

Bring on the sun with a little gluewin

(EDITOR'S NOTE; Marjie Cowan lives near Livingston with her husband, Lee. Mrs. Cowan is a contributing columnist.)

By MARJIE COWAN

Baby, it's cold outside, and dark, as I write early on a morning of this Christmas season. I am all alone with the world news of hungry children, and discouraged boys in Viet Nam, sea lions dying of ingestion of oil, car accidents, a ship of state that seems to be taking water, and a letter from a friend with cancer, and one from friends newly unemployed.

OK, so I start to bawl all by myself here in the dark, then I remember tears just give you the hiccups and scare your husband and kids to death while not doing one service to the sad world.

So I tell myself tomorrow won't be so dark, not by a whole minutes worth. The earth has of now, the fourth week of December, stopped tipping away from the sun, and at this very moment starting to tip towards it, giving us more sun and daylight each 24 hours until June. As my Jewish friend would say, "That we should all be so Tipsy between Christmas and New Years and June!"

THAT MAKES me think how I can get my today's minute of sunshine started early. Make some gluewein. I told you last Christmas how to do this. Just take a bottle of red cooking wine, and even if, or especially if, you, too, are unemployed, the 90 cents this costs, won't, I hope, crack your budget and it might help you to remember

The sun is still there even if it is clouded over. Add cinnamon, cloves and sugar to tasted to the wine, and toss in a peeled, cubed orange. Bring to a boil and serve hot., Even the kids can have a little cup;.

T

he recipe came, along with several similar ones, from daughter Deane who lives in Janau, Germany, where the doctor told her not to drink the water. He'd just as soon your kids didn't either, so I guess everybody tries with Gluewein to keep from drying out and cracking their glue. Horses can have water. Fine teams clop along the autobahn or freeway right amongst the mad driver of little German cars. Their loving owners stop them often for drinks and put little hats on them in the hot summer. Now probably they have broken out the ear muffs and hoof cuffs as the winters are bitterly and humidly cold.

YESTERDAY this girl who now talks German as easily as American, called to her parents over thousands of miles of wire to say, "Froliche Weihnachten" or Merry Christfest, as they say there. When she said "Auf-weidersehen, lieve, liebe," it was not that she forgot her own language, but that "Goodbye, I love you," holds sobs rather too easily, and one simply does not pay $56.75 for l5 minutes of sobs! The year old boy was yelling in the background. She said he had received a slight smack for getting into Mama's library books. He seemed to be yelling in English, but by next November when they come home, he's liable to be yelling "Gotterdammerung, Mutter," or whatever little Germans yell. (Not this, probably, as it is what Wagner yelled or should have yelled as he wrote the last opera of one of his somber series.)

Anyway, as I end this discourse and as time ends 1970. I too should like to yell in German or any other language that I hope that 1971 brings peace to men and some joy. And to my dear editor and my dear readers I would say "Liebe, liebe" and "Froliche Christiest," as well as "Go ahead and frolic in the New Year, too. It's better than crying."

Country girl travels to striped ape land.

From MONTANA STANDARD, 2/21/71

By MARJORIE COWAN

Contributing Columnist

LIVINGSTON We've been on a trip! The exclamation mark is because this happens about once every decade or maybe every two decades.

And here we are back from that country where the striped apes (you know, the kind that drive so fast) get a bead on a person, and then, in gangs of hundreds, try to run him down and wipe him out.

Their aim is good and our escapes sometimes seemed narrow, but we did escape because husband Lee has been in training against them in Yellowstone Park for about 10 years. Yellowstone Park is where they all come in the summer for refresher courses, you know.

We went alone this kind without a single kid who had to stop right after we had just stopped, so we made a lot of miles not only on land but once on a ferry boat.

We were warned direly by the brother we visited to never, never tell about the paradise where he and just a few others live as they are trying to keep California out., so I can only tell you it was in the land of sky blue waters and if the sky blue waters hadn't been drowned out by fog and drizzle we would have seen the lights of the city of Victoria, B.C. across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The fog and drizzle insisted on wrapping us whitely and damply but it could not take away the gentle air nor lessen the impact of flowers and green grass in February. Nor could it blur the beauty of an eerie rain forest with its mossy drapes like tangled hair.

And I guess everybody knows about the wonder of the ocean. Not even jet planes nor atomic bombs have so far outroared it as it breaks its great waves. The beach was strewn with big logs thrown there by wild storms, along with many articles inscribed "Made in Japan." A beautiful bright ball makes a centerpiece on my sister-in-law's table This evidently had, in far away waters, gotten away from some Japanese as he was fishing.

The ferry boat ride should have lasted forever even though the big creature was chugging up and down on choppy waves. When we drove onto its gangplank or whatever that is, I could hear a certain Montana cowboy thinking, "Not only me and my wife, but my car too!" After a few moment, however, even he who loves only dry land, decided it wasn't any worse than running a horse after a steer over gopher holes and sagebrush.

I tried while being pursued on the freeways and while visiting kinfolk unvisited for 20 years to never think of the sad world and the sad boys in Viet Nam, but alas, I found first hand another sadness. Those people out there don't have jobs. I knew about this already but hadn't talked to anyone trying desperately to think what to do.

I wanted to help all the troubled. Who doesn't? But so far I have not found one way unless I am helping out plundered earth by using all white paper products, instead of colored, and by using soap instead of detergents. And giving up all plastics possible such as clear wrap and the ever useful plastic bag. If every housewife did these three things I have read it would ease tremendously the burden we have imposed on our waterways and out beat up air.

Well, I couldn't help the troubled people except two at home who I found weren't trouble at all and who wished we had stayed longer so they could be bosses longer.

The Montana Standard, Sunday, Jan 2, 1972

HECTIC HOLIDAY

by Marjie Cowan (Contributing Columnist)

Gluckliches Neues Jahr plus ice bags for your head! Also, Felice Nuevos Anos and some re-fried beans. And a stretch in the happy farm for Gramma Marjie!

Since the middle of November our little red home in the West has bulged and swelled. People going by report the walls moving and the roof rising and falling.

Our farthest-away kids got home speaking Deutsch (one never says German, I have learned) along with the fluent Spanish and former years.

This makes about a body per square foot in our house and all in the jolly season when one must also have a big, messy Christmas tree with a bale of gifts piled beneath. The 2-year-old Kraut in the party "coming Merica on big bird" for the first time, kept trying to at least feel of them. He was hauled away, he was reprimanded, he was lectured. Finally he said, "When is the dam Critmut party?" I knew how he felt.

Then when no one was looking he made a last desperate foray into the packages, tearing one open in seconds. It was a cloth calendar. He held it lovingly in his arms saying "pesent ganz kaput" so charmingly that everyone laughed and let him keep it. And he was given a handsome dump truck to play with, "crucks" and "motorhycles" being his bag.

Actually all 2-year-olds should be given a Christmas toy a week from August on. They don't comprehend a bunch at once nor do they know what the big excitement is all about anyway.

Last year we had a convivial bowl of gluhwein which we learned to make during a $50, homesick call from near Frankfurt; this year we had una cervesa, bitter and yeasty, and Deutsch bohle.

Next year, so help me, we are having koolaid, baking powder biscuits and beans boiled just once. Gramma, at this time, has had it with being European, Spanish, or even smart, as far as that goes.

Soon peace and quiet will be restored and there will be plenty of time to scrape away the last vestige of bohle, schweinbraten or tortilla, and to pick up the last bit of tinsel. And guess who will start crying and looking forward to the next serving of re-fried beans?

Montana Standard (date n/a)

McAllister Memories

Things do change, Marjie learns

EDITOR'S NOTE: Marjie Cowan of Mill Creek, near Livingston is a Montana Standard columnist who grew up at McAllister and went to school in Whitelhall with commentator Chet Huntley.)

BY MARJIE COWAN

Since you last heard from me, have I had letters!. And all from fellas, the first time in over 30 years. However, not one of the boys was under 80 and not one wrote bvecause I turned him on. They merely wrote because in April I mentioned McAllister in this paper.

That was a magic word. It brought out memories like kids to the spring opening of the Dairy Queen.

MURDOCH MacDONALD wrote from Portland that he once did illustrations for the old Butte Miner and mentioned his days in Livingston as a commercial artist. That was in the dim past but lots of people remember him and his wife, Louella, and they remember when he and his brother, Lincoln, in the dim, dim past walked from the Revenue Mine north of McAllister to what was then known as the Meadow Creek grade school. Jogging l0 or 12 miles per day then was not a fashionable fad for kids or anybody. Few people needed exercise and few were too fat. It was just a case of no wheels and no hooves!

ANOTHER COOL CAT from those days - he was born in the early '80s, in fact-wrote from Sumas, Wash., about how he took a ride on a breaking cart from McAllister to Virginia City expecting every minute to be his last. It is a 20 mile trip and usually took more than three hours even with good horses. He and his daring young driver, named Tom, made it in two.

The breaking cart was two wagon wheels with a board across for a seat and a tongue long enough so the frantic colts couldn't kick the driver's head off. Seldom did anyone git invited as a passenger, seldom did anyone want to.

Fred, who told the story, said it was a good chance for him to ride over to procure his marriage license, but he believed in his heart that he would end up as the main actor at a funeral instead of a wedding.

But they got to Virginia City in one piece. They hogtied the horses to a hitching rack while they ate a big meal that cost 25 cents, then they bought the license and a wedding ring fashioned of purest Montana gold. After 58 years it is still on the finger of the proud bride. Tom, the young driver, has gone on, but Fred and Lora still raise beautiful flowers in Sumas ,Washington.

ANOTHER OF THE fellas, this one named Guy, said, "Did I ever tell you how I saved a man's life at McAllister?" I listened and here's the story:

"My mother, Ellen Gibson, ran the Meadow Creek post office going on 70 years ago. Two or three miles above us lived a couple bachelors. Every few days they would walk past our place on their way to the village saloon for supplies. They were quiet goin' down but hollered and sang comin' back.

"One of them when sober was a gentleman. He came from the east and his speech and manners told of education and a good home. His name was Dan Andrea. His fellow drunk was less refined and was named Billie Gun.

We didn't know anything about Billie except that one 40 below night he pounded on our door and yelled, "Come quick with an ax. Dan's froze down!" I jumped into my clothes, built up the fire and ran with my ax with Billie stumbling along guiding me. Sure enough, there under a fence was Dan frozen down solid.

"I chopped him out and got him into the warm house. He thawed out and wasn't hurt much unless he bit himnself with his chattering teeth.!"

I ASKED GUY how they got into such a predicament. It seems they had to roll under this fence on the way home. The swampy ground was soft and springy and the midday sun beamed beneficiently on them even though it was such a cold day. We will presume one said to the other, "Lesh jish lay here and rest a minute or two." So they both fell soundly asleep.

When Billie later awoke and found he was stguck to the earth in the bitter darkness of winter night, he wriggled panic stricken out of his big overcoat and managed to stagger to his feet. But he couldn't get Dan, of the well fitting eastern clothes, unstuck. He knew he had to get help quickly or Dan might have to remain there until the spring thaw.

"One thing, though," Guy ended his story, "he never drank again. I guess when he saw how close he came to being a section of the great ice sheet he decided that was enough. He married a respectable widow and lived happily ever after."

THE WIDOW was Ada Thexton DeArmen, sister of Annie McAllister. Annie was the wife of J. A. McAllister for whom the big town was named in the first pl

Country Girl Gets A Letter (Montana Standard) (date n/a)

Sincerely, Chet

Chet Huntley, the NBC commentator, has explained some "ancient history" for a country girl he befriended during high school days in Whitehall.

Huntley was the subject of a recent Montana Standard column by Mrs. Lee Cowan (Marjorie) of Livingston.

"Margie" told of going from her home at McAllister to the "large city of Whitehall" to attend school. On one of her first days of school, she fell downstairs and met Chet Huntley. Describing herself as a fat sophomore, and Huntley as a boy with a brilliant mind, Huntley picked up the books and papers scattered by her fall.

"You should be pulling a wagon," Huntley told the country girl.

Huntley received a clipping of this April 6 account in the Montana Standard. He wrote Mrs. Cowan, complimented her on her writing style and said:

"I certainly choose to think that when I said 'you should be pulling a wagon,' I was talking about the load you were carrying. I can't remember the incident, so in that case I can supply my own motive."

"Margie" has promised to write additional articles for the Standard.

Oh, yes, Huntley did not sign the letter, "Good night, Marge". But, he did wish her "all my best" before his uncustomary "sincerely" signoff.

Career bows to joyful collapse

From MONTANA STANDARD, (Date n/a)

By MARGIE COWAN

Contributing Columnist

The name of this story is, "How to be in a Kindergarten Christmas Play after 55". It happened like this:

A week ago, a far-away telephone voice said, "Mother, can you meet Lee, Jr., in Billings Monday night, Flight 54?"

I said, "What! You're sending your 5 year old boy all by himself?"

She answered, "I have to, Ralph has another surgery and I have to go to Fitzimmons in Denver to be with him."

I swallowed and that was my mistake. It left a silence that she filled with orders such as, "Get him right into that rural kindergarten there. He's a transfer student and there is no problem. He loves school and doesn't want to miss."

A day later he was in kindergarten. He had had a most marvelous trip with everyone on the plane doing things for the adorable little boy with the long eyelashes.

A stewardess delivered him to us and he said, " She played games with me. She's the same color as my new girl friend in Fort Carson."

I winked at the pretty black girl and hoped that that remark hadn't gone over like a ton of racial difficulties.

The first day in school was a brilliant performance for no one. Lee cried and stuck to Gramma Marjie like glue. But he soon jumped off my lap and joined the others and I went home thinking how simple it would be after all to have a little kid in school again. The euphoria lasted until the bus unloaded at 3;30 p.m. and I was shown the kindergarten schedule

and the Christmas play in which Lee Jr. was Present No. 9. He soon had his lines learned but never once knew when to say them even though I earnestly acted out the part of No. 8, who spoke ahead of him

Wednesday night came. Our little boy stood proudly with the school during the carols. He would occasionally say, "Noel", angel, St. Nick," or something as splendidly appropriate for the season, each a brilliant note usually followed by a huge yawn.

Then the play began. Presents No. 1 though 9 appeared in the form of little legs and heads protruding from gift-wrapped boxes. Not one little creep knew when its lines were to be said, but everyone, as usual at such programs, loved watching the little folks and the teachers eliciting what they could from such a cast.

Finally during one of the sit-down scenes, No. 9 fell over. There it lay trapped in its box squirming like a beetle on its back. I knew there would be tears in a second, so never at a loss, Gramma Marjie rushed up on the stage, grabbed the poor beetle, righted it and rushed back into the audience with a nonchalant wave to grinning husband and friends.

The beetle smiled cherubically around at everyone and went right on saying nothing when it was time for his line.

The play was at last over, the audience in stitches at the planned and unplanned happenings and charmed by the cute little children and the pretty teachers.

Over for everybody, anyway, except Gramma Marjie. My little present came over to lean on me and show what "Sandy Clouds" brought him. He suddenly looked agonized and whispered, "Oh God, Gramma, I'm wetting my pants".

I forgave him his prayerful statement under these circumstances and said, "Never mind," while I dropped a piece of gift paper over the incoming tide. Then we got big Lee and away to the door we flew like a flash, tore open the shutter and threw up on the sash.

Soon all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse, while I and big and little Lee lay snug in our beds with visions of Presents 1 through 9 dancing through our heads.

And Gramma Marjie vowing to forever give up her stage career, plus kindergarten, plus grade school, plus high school, plus college, plus everything but sitting around somewhere far, far away in the sun.

Of football and turkey, trimmings, old brides, MONTANA STANDARD (date n/a)

By Margie Cowan

Contributing Columnist

This is for brides only, whether of 4 days or 40 years and you can just look the other way, you and all the other chauvinists in the audience. You can see I have joined women's lib and am now bitter and vociferous.

Actually, I haven't, and I am kidding you, I just don't want you to have to read what is of interest to women only; women;, the great sub-species. See, there's my insecurity showing again. I did not previously have such a feeling. I know what has happened. FOOTBALL!!! In our house, sometimes for two or three days, we are not allowed to talk, sing or even belch unless we wait for half time. If any of us catches a bad cold, has adenoids or asthma I'm sure we will have to go out and sit in the car unless we can control our noisy snuffling and sneezing, and especially coughing.

ARE YOU STILL with me, brides? Because if you are still tenderly indulgent of football every waking hour of every weekend, still I feel you need help if you are to maintain tender indulgence for a period of time.

And never have I been known to turn my back on people needing help, whether they want it or not.

Another reason I am so bold as to proffer help is that I remember about too years back when I would have given anything to do something, all on my own, without a bossy mother or mother-in-law treating me as if I were a moron needing step-to-step instructions.

HOW DID your Thanksgiving turkey turn out? Mine wasn't so hot. I used a plastic baking bag for the first time. I hate plastic and always avoid it if possible because getting rid of it is bad for the environment, whether you are trying to burn or bury and to cook in it to me spells fumes and flakes of plastic emitting onto food.

I don't know whether we ate any plastic or not but it did not improve the turkey, so I am going back to my mother's old black roaster with lid. At 350 degrees it cooks a bird brown and properly loose of wing and leg.

ANYWAY, the plastic emissions were probably no worse than the paper wrapped giblets I cooked for about the first 5 years of wedded bliss. Then, I didn't have enough sense to buy the turkey a few days in advance and thoroughly thaw it. More likely I couldn't scare up the money until absolute desperation had set in. At any rate, a frozen turkey with that neck flap securely sealed down is a formidable adversary and a person of faint heart and no muscles hasn't a chance. So I cooked the paper and dragged it out a soggy mess later.

IT DIDN'T taste too bad, actually, and was no worse than the time I cooked the uncleaned gizzard for Thanksgiving

Okay, so we assume your turkey did not have an uncleaned gizzard but may have been paper stuffed.

For Christmas, don't stuff it at all. Bake the dressing in a big pan using plenty of chopped onion and lacing it with sage and other seasonings. There are always recipes on the poultry seasoning cans. Soak it in milk and broth all night if you want to, tossing and cutting through it to break up lumps before baking.

A GREEN SALAD is easy. Adding a teaspoon of minced or powdered garlic never hurt anything except your young sister's chance to get a date with the bad breath she will probably develop. For a vegetable, heat a can of mushroom soup with two cans of French cut string beans, or brown some almond slivers in a half-cup of oleo, add lemon juice to taste and heat with drained beans. Remember to pour the vegetable juices in your gravy, not down the sink.

The day before or a week before, anytime, stir up that fruit cocktail that is printed on the sacks of brown sugar at the grocery store. With ice cream or whipped topping this is darned good and it probably takes five minutes.

YOU NOW have a basic meal. You still have time to cook sweet potatoes, open cranberries, fix a pickle tray and get your eye make-p on before your mother in law arrives. (When she does, ask her to make the gravy.)

After your eye make-up sets, if you really want to show off, heat a can of cherries, pineapple, apricots, or whatever you have, thicken the juice with cornstarch, gently heat one-half cup of whiskey or brandy. When everyone is seated, pour the booze over the fruit which you have put into a pretty, flattish dish, and carry it in like you were the torch bearer for the Olympics. Have your husband pop the cork of some iced champagne or cold duck and you have a dinner a la Roberta and a bunch of other elegant cooks I know.

THIS LATTER is not as expensive as you think and kids today have vast fortunes compared to brides of the '30's. But if your fortune is still only half vast, chill a $1.00 bottle of wine, add ginger ale and 'way you go.

Even your chauvinistic father-in-law, who probably thought you'd never learn anything, is liable to say to his bride when they get home, "Maybe Tommy didn't mess up his life as bad as I thought".

I'm kidding again. Or else slipping back into insecurity. Actually most in-laws are good buddies who don't chicken out, even up to 40 years. And those old brides can be awfully helpful, even with eye makeup.

The Montana Standard, Butte, Thursday, Dec. 6, 1973

'Chickens' try Amtrak

Montana Standard, date n/a

A Pathway of Friends

by Marjie Cowan

Contributing Columnist

The last trip I wrote about was high in the sky and no freaked-out chicken could have shed more feathers than I did. I hate to be up in the air. To look down at my feet on a stormy day makes me dizzy. So this time Lee, Lexi and I (one is husband, one is daughter) took Amtrak and sped away. We got on at Livingston and ended up in Chicago where our son met us and took us to his home in Grosse Pointe, Mich.

It was a pathway of friends. The first was Warren McGee of Livingston, and some cute young guys Lexi knew in high school. There is no man more charming than a good conductor and there were fellows like Warren and the young trainees all the way, easing confusion and making people laugh.

We hadn't been on a train in 30 years unless you count one trip between Livingston and Bozeman with the grade school kids. We expected dirt, narrow seats and nothing much in general, having read a lot about today's rotten trains.

Instead we sat in comfortable, clean coach cars with leg room and room overhead for luggage and coats. I thought sure the bathrooms would be awful, but they were clean as could be with lots of hot and cold water, mirrors and even toilet paper.

We intended to avoid eating en route as much as possible having always thought the food was high priced and poor quality. So we tried to make our three sandwiches grow like the five loaves and three small fishes, but it didn't work. Everybody got starved and followed the crowd several cars back to the dining car.

\We lurched and staggered as sometimes the cars bucked and pitched. And I did not know about the exciting thing happening between cars where one car gees and the other haws. All you do is lean way over and grasp the handles on the car you wish to attain. Then wait a second for a lurch that will fit your lurch and swing over. It is easy and even fun and we kept wanting to do it again, like going down a slide.

The black maitre d' took no nonsense off anybody and if you couldn't make up your mind about getting sat quick and getting dinner ordered the same way, you got unmistakable help. Then the skillful waiters came, swaying and balancing with precision to set down plates of beautifully cooked food at most reasonable prices.

The main idea was, "Eat and don't gawk around." Gawk too long and your plate would be missing before you got the gravy sopped up. And you'd be staring at your dessert of lovely Chantilly rice.

About now we began to think we should after all have rented bedrooms, but the moon was high, and almost a full night up in the observatory was thrilling. A flying chicken sees little scenery, ask any one of them, so for the first time I saw the eastern cities of Montana and of North Dakota and some of those fascinating, tortured landscapes. We watched the wide Mississippi for miles. I agreed with the little girl behind us who said, "No wonder Mark Huckelberry and Tom Twain liked this river so well." Her daddy giggled and offered no corrections.

We stayed in Minneapolis and admired the city who planners were indeed early conservationists, and the IDS building lit up with a million lights. Later, in Chicago, we saw a building looming so high into the sky, it defies the laws of God and man. No energy shortage apparent there, either, nor in the thousands of stunning signs.

In Detroit, we toured another one of them; a beautiful, glass-like structure. Our son's office is on the 26th floor. It was worse than being all alone on the wide, wide sea, especially after the unsettling trajectory-type ride up in the elevator. One look down at the street through the glass wall and I recoiled to the middle of the room. Son Gary said, "When the wind blows, the cradle will rock," and he wasn't singing a nursery rhyme. The building sways in the wind. Holy cow, I thought, what induces kids to leave the safe clods and furrows for this?

Finally one Sunday, after having tramped a few dozen miles around the wonderful Ford museum, it was time to make train connections for the journey home.

The best way was by bus from Detroit to Chicago. We were told we would be the only white folks at the depot. This was wrong. There were four others.

Lexi quickly established the usual bond that seems to prevail today among young people. The blacks, in their eye-popping outfits, smiled at her or gave the peace or right-on sign or whatever it is they do.

We ended up in the back of the bus. There used to be riots about this, remember?

We were soon happily again on Amtrak and in a few hours heard, "Fust call foah dinnah."

We lurched joyously across the chasms to be seated by the stern but most gracious maitre 'd and to enjoy the graceful, courteous service of people who have always had sort of an empire, admired by all, on trains.

Right-on, soul brothers, wherever and whoever you are. All us chickens salute you.

************************************************************************************* 

Mrs. Lee Cowan Writes Free Verse Tribute to President John F. Kennedy

(From PARK COUNTY NEWS, 12/19/63)

Editor's note: Following is a free verse tribute by Mrs. Lee (Marjorie) Cowan, Hoffman Route, to the late president John F. Kennedy. Since our cover picture and the tragic events of this past month, as well as the feelings in the hearts of every individual throughout the free world, cannot be but a source of regret to young and old, it seems timely to publish the tribute which Mrs. Cowan so graciously made available.

BY MARJORIE COWAN

We grieve,

Yes,

Our regret is utter,

Yes,

But wait-

John F. Kennedy

Has received in eternal

Rest

Only part of his great

Reward.

He will be as immortal as

Caesar.

Let the William Shakespeare

Or the Walt Whitman

Hurry

Who will sing in living,

Electric phrases

Of our young

President,

Shot down–––

The shock of living

Hair

Stilled in a second

Atop the strong and shattered

Face.

Let him sing

Quickly

In our time,

Of his

Youth,

Of manly beauty,

Of intellect,

Of wit and charm,

Of bravery,

Of love.

When he sings of the Irish

Smile

Can we bear it?

I for one will

Sob anew,

and I have sobbed enough now

To change me

Forever,

When he sings of the

Widow,

Tortured,

Dignified,

No queen,

No Joan of Arc,

E'er more

Heroic,

When he sings of a little

Girl,

Sweet-eyed with no

Smile,

When he sings of a little

Lad,

Saluting a caisson forever

And forever rolling away with his

Daddy,

Can we bear it?

Mr. Kennedy,

You were not a perfect

mortal,

You were not a perfect

President,

but as you were taken along

to your

Warrior's internment,

I hear all America speak

Through the lips of an old

Cowboy

Sitting near,

As he whispered brokenly

"There goes one Hell'uva

Man!!"