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The Montanan welcomes letters to the editor. We ask that letters be signed and include the writer’s graduating year or years when appropriate, home address, and phone number or e-mail address. Send them to: Montanan Editor Unfortunately, because of space limitations we are not able to include all letters sent to us. Letters that appear often are edited for length or clarity. While universities are places of discussion where people of good will do not always agree, letters deemed potentially libelous or that malign a person or group will not be published. Opinions expressed in the Montanan do not necessarily reflect those of The University of Montana. |
The Missouri in his eyes
We had been off the river a few hours, having accomplished all the tasks of attaching canoes and boats to trailers and piling stuff-sacks in vans, all the time aiming at showers and the clean sheets of a Great Falls motel. I was saying goodbye to one of the guides. I offered that it had been a great trip. He smiled broadly and went one step further. “Wasn’t it beautiful? It was so great to be out there.”
Here was a man who had spent all summer on rivers in Montana and Idaho—not as a tourist, but catering to them. This was the last trip of the season and it was clear he could do it all again in a minute, damn the weather. There was no boredom, no fatigue, no guile. His face was ruddy with sun and wind and you could almost see the Missouri in his eyes.
I found it remarkable.
To love what you do and to enjoy each moment like you hadn’t experienced the same sort of situation in different variations every way past Sunday is something like being both the giver and the gift. It gave the Be Here Now phrase new meaning to me—not the slippery New Agey chant, but a new hymn of awareness, making the repetition of running the same river a sort of mindful redemption.
Back in Missoula, experiencing the usual post-vacation blahs, I thought of the guide. How does one achieve that sort of work nirvana? Is it a personality trait? Perhaps a personality disorder? No one should be that happy dealing with difficult people, sleeping under a tree because there’s no time to put up a tent, rising early to start the coffee and cook breakfast for twenty, lugging gear up a river bank, then down a river bank, up a bank, down a bank. Even if the scenery is good and the air is nectar.
The attitude seemed to be a sort of acquired or chosen way of viewing life, I mused as I viewed the stacks of work on my desk. Then a fellow worker handed me an essay by Tom Robbins, who lamented what he saw as a tendency in today’s writers to attach themselves to gloom, to write about the underbelly, the dysfunctional, the neur-otic. I looked around. My office definitely was gloomy and it did look like the underbelly of something—roiling with the flotsam from getting the last issue out.
Robbins suggested that society at large seems to value tragedy over comedy because grownups are supposed to be more serious and in our society “the tyranny of the dull mind holds sway.” Now I know why comedies never have a chance for an Oscar.
What really is happening, says Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Skinny Legs and All, Jitterbug Perfume), a raconteur of the sublime, the ridiculous, the over-the-top, is a prevalence of narcissistic pathology—that despair works because “when one is unhappy one gets to pay a lot of attention to oneself.” He went on to make a slam-dunk case for “wisdom that evolves when one, while refusing to avert one’s gaze from the sorrows and injustices of the world, insists on joy in spite of everything.” Crazy wisdom, holy fools, divine playfulness. All that stuff. Finishing the essay I felt I’d been whipped into a literary rapture.
It brought back the river guide. “Wasn’t it beautiful? It was so great to be out there.”
Hallelujah.
Joan Melcher
Montanan Editor
Letters to the Editor
Emma Fans
I enjoyed your article on Emma Bravo immensely.
I was born and raised in the small mining town of Tracy—about twelve miles from Great Falls and one mile from Sand Coulee. I met Emma in the sixth grade. I was a student at Centerville High from 1935 to 1939. I had Emma as my teacher in Spanish and Algebra there. After graduating in 1939, while at the University, I took a class in spherical trig and Emma substituted several times as my teacher. The prof told Emma he could not give me an A because I didn’t study properly. Emma convinced him otherwise.
I have bragged to many people about having the same teacher in grade school, high school, and college. Give my best to Emma.
My second claim to fame at UM regards the Mansfields. I took a class from Mike as a freshman. I roomed with his brother John at Corbin Hall as a sophomore. That year his sister visited the U and I had the pleasure and privilege of accompanying her to the Foresters’ Ball. As you can see, I think about my days at the U often.
Mike Besich ’43
Laguna Woods, California
Thank you so much for your emotional article about devoted UM veteran Emma Lommasson, who used to extend help not to Montanans alone, but to all foreign students. In September 1956, she was the first official I met at UM upon my arrival from Jordan. She looked after me until my graduation in 1959. As an ex-president of the Cosmopolitan Club at UM, I wish Emma happy days and good health during years to come. My last contact with her was during her visit with ex-Dean of Women Maurine Clow to Jordan three decades ago.
I retired after thirty-three years teaching, [and positions as] dean of the college of education and director of education. I keep reading all articles written by my ex-professors—George Weisel, Royal Brunson, Maxine Johnson and others—hoping I can meet a Montanan in Amman. With best wishes I remain,
Atiyyeh Mahmoud ’59
Amman, Jordan
The Emma Lommasson article was a great story regarding a great lady. As with many, she touched my life.
I worked in the Lodge as a baker when my wife and I had a baby born with a birth defect in December of 1971. Facing many financial issues, I went to Emma, who also served as the Veterans Counselor, in the summer of 1972 to see what benefits provided funding to help my growing debts.
Emma was gracious in her time spent with me. She listened and asked openly if I had considered using my VA education benefits. Working a sixty-hour week, the thought had never occurred to me. She asked if I did use my VA benefits, how long it might take for me to obtain a degree. I responded “seven or eight years,” not imagining the validity of my answer. Emma asked my age. I told her twenty-seven. She replied simply, “The choice then is yours. You can be thirty-five with a degree or thirty-five without a degree. You will still be thirty-five.” I continued to work my sixty-hour weeks and finished my degree program in June of 1981.
Emma Lommasson embodied what educators are all about. She saw my potential and challenged me to reach for the brass ring. And when I had need, she nurtured me during my educational journey.
I have since managed several major university food service programs, two public hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities. None of which could have happened had not I received a degree. For those of us you touched and guided, Emma, thank you. UM was a better place because of you.
Harold (Harry) Aubert ’81
Kennewick, Washington
Score one for both
Ike and Fred Bauer
I was very interested in the Fall 2004 issue of the Montanan, particularly the article on the smokejumper reunion. The article states that President Eisenhower, who christened the Aerial Fire Depot in 1954, referred to the Forest Service as being part of the Department of Interior. Fred Brauer, the smokejumper chosen to give the welcoming address for Ike, corrected him by stating that the Forest Service was part of the Agriculture Department, not Interior.
Actually, both were correct. Forest Service headquarters and personnel are housed in the Agriculture Department, but its budget, upon which all else chiefly depends, is in the Interior Department.
I worked for a time in the Interior Department in Washington, D.C., and I learned how this anomalous situation occurred. In the early 1940s, during FDR’s third term, his Secretary of Interior was a controversial character named Harold Ickes.
Ickes was known as an “empire builder,” i.e., he was dedicated to expanding his department by raiding other departments. Of course, it was necessary for the President to approve, or at least condone, such actions. But FDR was occupied with WWII and had more important concerns.
Taking advantage of this, Ickes raided the Agriculture Department and took the Park Service to Interior. Next, he raided the Commerce Department and took the Bureau of Fish & Wildlife. He then commenced a second raid on Agriculture to acquire the Forest Service. However, this raid was only partially completed when incoming President Truman appointed a new Secretary of Interior, one who had no interest in empire building.
At this point Ickes had already succeeded in transferring the Forest Service budget to Interior, but not the Forest Service headquarters. To this day, as best I know, Forest Service headquarters and its personnel are still housed somewhere in the vast Agriculture Department in SW Washington, D.C., but its budget is still in Interior in NW Washington. As recently as a year ago I saw a telecast in which a former congressman stated that he had served on the House Agriculture Committee for eight terms without ever hearing any mention of the Forest Service. So score one for Ike and one for Fred Brauer.
Ed Christensen ’43
Naples, Florida
Editor’s Note: We checked on this so as not to include inaccurate information and found Mr. Christensen to be absolutely right. A call to Forest Service Region One in Missoula resulted in my talking with Judy Hewitt, finance management specialist for the region. She said, indeed the Forest Service’s budget rests in the Interior Department. And she was happy to learn a little of how it happened; it had been a mystery to her and others she works with.
KIND WORDS
The Montanan is looking great! Nice design and compelling features. It keeps [one] both interested and engaged. Good work!
Ken Ott, M.A. ’77
Tujunga, California
