We've left Big Sky, with all of its "How are YOU today, sir?", its opulent Yellowstone Club environs, and its theme park-esque detachment from all things real...
...for something a little more my style, dare I say a little more "real", and certainly a little less blatantly ostentatious. Welcome to Small Town USA, Montana. Do please humour me by clicking on the tiny sliver of photograph below, as the full-size image is one of my personal favourites.
Small Town USA is proper nitty-gritty life as it is led in the south of Montana by several thousands of people, and is something I'm coming to enjoy.
You begin to feel more like a person here, and less like a credit card.
If that wasn't enough, I've managed to find some outstanding beer in the local market. One of these is actually a real minority beer shipped from my home county in England (Suffolk), and is cheaper than I could ever hope to find it back home (in the vanishingly small number of pubs that serve it)...
I've not yet started wearing baseball caps, but I am beginning to put pauses into my conversations. More news from Small Town USA as it happens...
Pauses in your conversation; it's been my observation that verbal crutches are fast becoming a staple of American dialect. At least you haven't converted those pauses into 'uhm' or 'like" ...yet! I'm convinced that many of us Americans do that in order to keep control of a conversation so someone else can't chime in until we've blabbered through our incomplete thought, tacking on bit by bit as we go. It's that quantity over quality thing all over. The pauses I can tolerate, but 'uhm' and 'like' sing the sweet lullaby of ten thousand finger nails raking across a chalkboard.
ReplyDeleteooh, a MEGACHURCH.
ReplyDeleteDear Jamus,
ReplyDeleteI refer the honourable gentleman to William Shatner's epic track, "I Can't Get Behind That", in which he can't get behind language "that's all 'he's all, she's all'".
What I really meant in this article was that the Montananians that I have encountered have a very solid, slightly slow manner of talking, in which they take plenty of pauses - it started to rub off on me.
Dear Carla,
All the churches in this country are locked, from the micro to the mega! How do you get into them?!
Toodlepip both,
Hobbes
Wouldn't know - haven't seen the inside of one for 25 years or so.
ReplyDeleteDear Carla,
ReplyDeleteI was fascinated to find know what they look like - but couldn't find my way into any, in any city! At least they're not going to get burgled in a hurry...
Toodlepip,
Hobbes
Good for people to know.
ReplyDelete