Montana, and Other Wide Open Spaces

1,400 miles and nearly 15 years separated my having left Glendive, Montana and my having returned.

I was born at the Glendive Medical Center in November of 1986. My dad was a farmer in the Bloomfield area. I enjoy vivid memories of exploring those 1,600 acres of grassland and crops, especially the winding creek that ran through our property. While dad and mom worked during planting and harvest seasons, my brother and I tromped up and down that creek looking for frogs and fish, occasionally ran into snakes, and just generally enjoyed the fresh air and wide open spaces.

Now my wife and I rent a small farmhouse, north-west of Glendive by 10-15 miles, and I get to enjoy seeing our sons roaming outside. Their squeals and ruckus play as sweet percussion and accompaniment to the winds that blow undeterred over mostly treeless plains.

My parents moved with my little brother and I to Ohio when I was about 10, and I don't think it ever felt like a suitable replacement to the wide-open freedom of Big Sky Country. You can't really look in any direction in Ohio without seeing some sign of human development - power lines,  houses, businesses, roads, cars, etc. It's just too busy, too noisy, too crowded.

I feel like I can breathe out here. "Elbow room," is what they used to call it.

Will I ever forget the second broker I assisted at TQL, a woman named Shannon, who told me matter-of-factly that my having four kids was ecologically and socially irresponsible? "The planet can't support this many people," was something akin to what she told me.

I know people who'd be offended by that, but I just laughed. I think she was offended that I laughed. We didn't get along the best after that.

I was undeterred. My wife and I are expecting our fifth child in September now (unless we're having twins, which do run in the family on both sides).

It's hard when you grew up in a state as sparsely populated as Montana to take people seriously when they say the planet is overcrowded.  Montana, one of the larger states in the union, just recently hit a population of 1 million persons, and a quarter of those live in or around the city of Billings, in the center of the state.

I think those wide open spaces I grew up with influenced me in another way, helping to instill in me a distrust of authority and resistance to excessively controlling measures. You get so used to being your own boss when there aren't other people around.

Add to that how easy it is to get into a mindset of bucking the trend when you're homeschooled, and you've got a recipe for wanting to govern yourself and speak your mind.