Voices from the Road – IV

All the people in this group were accosted during day trips from West Glacier. They include a computer guy from Florida, a husband and wife team who work in and around the Blackfeet reservation, two attorney’s from Chicago, and a small town Montana woman who is part owner in a hot springs resort.

I talked to the latter at one of my favorite hangouts on the planet, the Northern Lights Saloon and Restaurant in Polebridge, MT. It’s 40 minutes down a washboard road and located smack in the prettiest middle-of-nowhere you can imagine. (This photo doesn’t show the surrounding scenery.) If you’re anywhere within a 200 mile radius of the place, I’d recommend stopping in.

Alright, here are those voices:

Steve, 45, from Melbourne, FLA, is an engineer working on computer systems. He said: What’s the most important issue? Getting along with other countries. Negotiation. I like the way the European community works together, the European Union. They stand as a larger power economically. They use that power to enforce change, instead of military. Instead of going around the world being, I hate to say it, big bullies that chew up all the world’s resources. We should work with negotiation as an example to other countries.

Alice, 53 is an “entrepreneur” living in Kila, MT. She said: My first choice is health care because I feel it’s ridiculous what’s going on with insurance. I talked to a Viet Nam vet the other day who’s having the worst time getting any care.. I’m a single woman and, at 53, I can’t afford insurance. I had a boyfriend for seven years who had cancer. I put everything on hold to help care for him. He didn’t have assets so he qualified for Medicare . But in his last days, the state found out that he owned a trailer—a two-wheeled trailer—so they took his Medicare away. He died anyway, so it didn’t matter. But, you get the point. So, yeah, health care.

Rob, 42, is an attorney living in Chicago. He said: I would say education because I think it’s the key to so much else. Education in this country is so uneven. There are so many people without access to decent educational opportunities, and it excludes them from full participation. In this country it’s hard to cross the barrier of poverty if you don’t have access to a good education.

David, 32, Rob’s partner, is also an attorney, also living in Chicago. He said: I would choose access to affordable and adequate health care. It’s probably a little bit of an expected answer, but access to adequate health care in this country is very important and not many people can afford it. So many people end up using emergency rooms for their basic health care needs because they can’t afford regular health care, doctor visits, and all that. I have premium health care and very insurance good coverage. But I know that most people can’t afford what I have.

Jimmy, 43, lives in East Glacier, Montana, and teaches psychology and criminal justice at the Blackfeet Community College, a tribal college on the Blackfeet reservation. He said: I know this might sound kind of wish-listy but educate and train children to not only have mental activity, but to have human activity, feeling activity, to help them become human, feeling people. So many of the decisions that are made politically are greedy and self absorbed, they don’t have any soulfulness to them. And that creates tons of social ills…whether it be economic and environmental problems, or a disregard for poverty. So if I were king for a day I’d use it to create educational environments for children so that they’d learn to have a regard for peace, and for other people.

Michelle, 41, Jimmy’s wife, lives in East Glacier, MT, and teaches Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades. She said: I feel, especially where we live, we see so many kids falling between the cracks. We’re one of the richest countries in the world, yet we have so many kids living in poverty. We see it day in and day out where we live. I want them to have the tools that they need the training and education and love that they need so so they don’t have to be dependent on the government, and they can be successful.