My old stomping grounds, way too close to the McFarthest Spot for comfort, is inching closer to civilization every year. A Facebook friend posted this article from the Billings Gazette about a road project in the southeast corner of Montana. After decades of effort, the last 17 miles of Montana state highway 323 were blacktopped this fall.
The people who live there are ecstatic, as the article makes clear. But my feelings were ambivalent when I first skimmed the article. I realized I didn’t want the quaint corner of the world where Hiram and I lived for seven years, where Allen was born, to change so dramatically. I wanted it to remain exactly the same. No changes. No progress. No easier life for friends who still live in the remotest corner of the south 48 states. How selfish is that?
Pretty selfish.
A more careful reading of the article calmed me down. Highway 323 wasn’t the road I thought had been paved, but a good distance west of Camp Crook, South Dakota where we lived. (Camp Crook was 3 miles east of the Montana border and 20 miles south of the North Dakota border, in case you wondered.) So progress isn’t nipping at its heels with the immediacy I imagined. So I breathed easier. How selfish is that?
Pretty selfish.
Funny how the progress I wished for when we lived there – paved roads, more people, easier access to civilization – saddens me now. But isn’t that human nature? Always wishing for a better future and idealizing the the hardships others wrestle daily, the hardships I left behind several decades ago? How selfish is that?
Pretty selfish.
So instead of wishing for the future, I’ll try to wrap my head around the present: a paved road all the way from Alzada to Ekalaka (don’t you love those names?) before my next trip out west. Can’t wait to see it!
