Letter from a town of 50

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No. 22

3/26/2022

New Life and New Eyes

At a time when there is so much news of death, from war or coronavirus, new life of any kind is cherished. When I began this letter to you, we still had some subzero temperatures in Ovando but I took heart that the red wing blackbirds arrived at my feeder March 3rd and on March 6th, I watched the scarlet caps of the redpolls flitting in and out of the feeder for the first time. There is something brave and heartening about those bright red flags on head and wings. The photo below is not a local one, but it does capture the moment, so I couldn't resist including it.

But a much larger Spring event is afoot in Ovando. March is calving season and on the ranches all around, cows are giving birth in the wintry landscape. In conversation with Vicki Smith at the Blackfoot Store, I learned that she is one of the people who will pass the cold nights keeping a vigil across Two Creek Ranch, managed by Wayne Slaght and his sons Ben and Grant. “I love it,” she says. “There is something special about being alone in the darkness with these animals around you.” Vicki is a night caller, on duty from 3:30 in the afternoon to 4 am. I asked her to tell me more about what a night caller does.

"As a night caller at Two Creek Ranch, I ride thru 4 pens of cows early on in the 6-8 weeks that I'm here watching cows do their things (mainly calve) and making sure the calf suckles. We use barns only if it is necessary - to pull calves or keep them out of the weather! After the cow has calved and the calf has eaten, I write down the cow number and let the boys know that her baby has eaten. On occasion, I get to help the calves suckle!! (One of my favorite jobs)

There are many things the guys (Wayne, Ben, and Grant) have to do during the day for this herd of 1,040, so to lighten the load I put out mineral and salt when needed, clean the tractor windows and keep the barns clean! And the other highlight is feeding the bums and watching them play if they can!! Bums are calves that don't have a mother for one reason or the other- twin, mom doesn't have enough milk or just didn't want to be a mom?!"

In 2017, Two Creek Ranch won an Environmental Stewardship Award, which I featured in a previous letter. There I shared an excellent video about the ranch. If you missed it, click here!

Other ranchers in the valley have pioneered new approaches to management. The Mannix Family has lived and ranched in the Blackfoot watershed’s Helmville Valley for five (going on six) generations. My downstairs neighbor, the Blackfoot Challenge, recently aired an interview with David, Bryan and Erica Mannix on the history and evolution of their stewardship practices, what it means to ranch sustainably and how they approach managing land and livestock in such a way that both their operation and the ecosystem can flourish. I am grateful to Jean Pocha for her excellent article in the Pathfinder that led me to the video, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I recommend this to anyone interested! Owner Dave Mannix has a remarkable attitude toward ranching and toward life!

Regenerative Ranching in the Blackfoot: An Evening with the Mannix Family Ranch from Blackfoot Challenge on Vimeo.

If you have ever read E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan, you will appreciate that March is the month that the Trumpeter Swans return to Freezeout Lake. Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks reports 25,500 white geese and more than 2,700 trumpeter swans were observed at Freezeout Lake, near Choteau, Montana.

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The French writer Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is often quoted as saying “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes.” He wrote this at the beginning of the twentieth century and since then, there are indeed new landscapes if we include the burst of new architecture in cities, planes in the skies and automobiles, automobiles, automobiles! But he may have been prophetic when it comes to new eyes. From the electron microscope to the Hubble and now the James Webb Telescope, we have remarkable new eyes to see things very distant and very tiny.

Now we can look at a supernova 500 million light-years away. (Technically, that's old news, since it took 500 million years for it to reach us.) You have to look hard to see the bright spot in the lower left corner of the galaxy on the right.

The smallest thing that we can see with a ‘light’ microscope is about 500 nanometers. A nanometer is one-billionth (that’s 1,000,000,000th) of a meter. So the smallest thing that you can see with a light microscope is about 200 times smaller than the width of a hair.

Nature can also give us new eyes, if we have strong legs that is! Here is a world heritage site in China, which can give you a unique and amazing view. And of course there’s Mt. Everest, if you’re in the mood…

(TIP: If the video doesn't appear or there is a message that it can't be viewed, just click on it or do a youtube search by name, in case the address has changed. Some may take some time to load.)

If you want to save your legs, you could try a wingsuit. But this requires something else: madness!

If I had a choice, (and somebody else was driving), I would pick the flying car, which might actually have a future.

Yet with all of our collective genius, nothing can fly with the grace and agility of a bird. I never tire of the sight of the murmurations of starlings. Scientists say that these are for the protection of the birds from predators, but I see them as exquisite aerial ballets.

Birds are wonders in the air and lovely in their infinite variety. And did you know that many of them can dance? I guarantee you will enjoy this fun video of avian performances.

In the recent Winter Olympics, we were treated to the beauty that humans bring to dance as figure skaters. I, for one, never tire of this. In 7-year-old Evelina and 9-year-old Ilya, we see stars of future Olympics being born in this amazing performance of “You Are So Beautiful.” Unless you understand Russian, you might want to skip to 1:30 minutes, where the performance begins.

But bear in mind that you have to begin somewhere as you watch 3-year-old Natasha Frank take to the ice, with a little help from Mom. (I should note that Natasha is older now and entering competitions as a serious figure skater.)

Age is never a barrier to the joy of dancing! Here, two seniors “cut a rug” with such gusto that I was out of breath just watching. This is Nellia & Dietmar dancing Boogie Woogie Rockabilly-Jive. (It's tiring just to say that.)

~~~~~~~~~~~

In previous letters, I have shared stories of the many ways that music lifted people’s spirits during the dark days of the pandemic and offered a universal language shared across the globe. Here are three short videos in Ukraine of people there offering the solace of their music. First, a cellist in Kharkiv plays Bach among the ruins.

Violinist and teacher Vera Lytovchenko has traded a theatre for a basement and played her violin for fellow Kharkiv residents taking cover from Russian bombing.

Kharkiv has one of Europe’s finest music festivals, which started on March 26 but was interrupted by Russian bombing, but continued in the metro station where people had once again taken refuge.

Kharkiv Music Fest - one of the best international classical music festivals in Ukraine was scheduled to start on March 26. No one could have imagined that instead there would be a concert in the subway. But here we are on the day 31 of the war. pic.twitter.com/1uyzHhGeId
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) March 26, 2022

Here is a photo I loved that came from the same metro station where people find creative ways to comfort the children.

It isn’t just humans who appreciate music. A wild fox gets equal delight out of listening to the banjo music of Andy Thorn. Thanks to Wayne Tyson for this one!

Now to Our Best Friend. Fearless little Dash is facing down a huge mountain lion who turned up on the patio. He completely ignores his owner’s frightened warnings. Stout-hearted little chap!

This one is for new Dad, Patrick Ripp! Robin Williams gives a spontaneous description of the game of golf.

~~~~~~~

As always, I end on a quiet note, with poet David Whyte, filmmaker Andrew Hinton and Irish composer Owen Ó Súilleabháin in their offering of "Blessings." I believe this was filmed in Ireland, so this is for my good friend Anne Mery, with whom I once got to listen in person to David Whyte. My thanks always to the incomparable Maria Popova for her spirit-lifting blog Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings) and to Alejandra Cisneros for pointing me in that direction.

Blessings by David Whyte from Maria Popova on Vimeo.

To everyone, blessings in this new year and gratitude for the valiant spirit of the people of Ukraine, who have given us new eyes and new hearts to appreciate the blessings that we have.

Stay well,
Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No. 21

12/8/2021

5 Comments

Winter Quiet

As I write this, we are receiving our first heavy snow—thick flakes falling softly. The muffled quiet of winter. The magic elves of the Sew and So Club left a gorgeous and fragrant wreath on my porch, (thank you elves!), so Christmas is in the air too. The town has been fully decorated by community volunteers and Santa arrived on horseback the day after Thanksgiving for the annual Christmasfest. The children line up outside the museum to sit on a saddle and recite their Christmas list. (Photos by Kathy Schoendoerfer.)

Local artists and craftspeople display and sell their creations. While adults are busy Christmas shopping or feasting on pulled pork, Jean Pocha is helping children in the fire hall making gingerbread houses.

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It's a great event and draws people from as far away as Missoula. It is also the town's Last Hurrah before winter comes and families draw together for their own celebrations. From now on, we are never sure when roads will be safely passable. The Stray Bullet closes for December (opening again in January). The Blackfoot Angler continues to sell local crafts until December 11th, 9 to 2, and December 17th by appointment. 406-793-0018. Then it closes for the winter.

Winter quiet. Snow white.

Speaking of snow, Pingu the Antarctic penguin seems to have gotten lost. He came ashore near Christchurch, New Zealand. You can see him here looking around and thinking “This place doesn’t look familiar.” He was dehydrated and undernourished so the locals fed him fish smoothies (ick!) and he bounced right back.

(2 youtube tips: If a video here says not available, just clicking on it usually solves the problem. Also, if you are ever watching a long video and don't want to be interrupted by advice about belly fat or other annoying ads, you can load it in view pure and those will be eliminated.) Some videos take a few seconds to load.

Pingu has an Arctic counterpart, Wally the Walrus, who seems to be equally confused about his location. Or else he’s just off on what the Brits call a Ramble. More aptly a Swim. Wally is an Arctic walrus who did a little southern sightseeing on European shores, as far south as Spain. Headlines began to appear asking “Where is Wally Now?” He even stopped off in Wales, perhaps to learn a little Welsh.

Thomas Berry named the Earth era we are entering the Ecozoic, which he described as a period of mutually enhancing relationships with the natural world. We are increasingly seeing examples of this, but one of the most remarkable ones is, literally, a life-saving encounter between a scientist and a humpback whale off Cook Island. It would be easy to dismiss this as impossible, without the actual footage and the fact that Nan Hauser is the Principal Investigator for the Cook Islands Whale Research Project and Director of the Cook Islands Whale & Wildlife Centre. You have to see this to believe it. I found it very moving.

Here is another bit of underwater news, especially for Musa and Ilyas, those ardent lego engineers. Scientists are experimenting with using legos to save SIngapore's coral reefs! Can you imagine? Here is the link to read more and see a short video of the project. Can Lego help save Singapore's Coral Reefs?

Now from deep sea to deep sky and an update on the James Webb telescope. Despite some small glitches, our most awesome instrument for exploring the universe will launch on time, December 22nd. It will be 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Telescope, which should bring some interesting sights into view and even solve a few mysteries. It will be stationed 1.5 million kilometres away in space and will take a month to cruise to its final orbit. It has been designed to last for at least 10 years. You can go here for the latest update

There will be plenty to see this month without a telescope, if the weather gives us some clear skies. Jupiter shines in the south to southwest during evening at the far upper left of bright Venus. Saturn is midway between them. The Geminid meteor shower reaches its peak December 13-14. It is the best meteor shower of the year but cloudy skies could hide it. The sky map below shows you where to look. Start with the familiar 3 stars of Orion's belt, then up left to the two bright stars of Gemini.

The biggest December event may or may not be visible without binoculars. Comet Leonard was just discovered this year and may be visible before sunrise until December 12th and after the 14th, in the evening. Look northeast and find the Big Dipper, then follow the handle.

It won’t take binoculars to see this futuristic hybrid airship that will start taking passengers in 2025. It is basically a flying mansion that will offer a 3-day air cruise for up to 19 people. You may have to sell some stock.

Not every futuristic design, however, makes it into the future. Case in point? Look back at GM’s Future Firebird. Here’s the glitzy promo from 1958. It’s fun!

From the future to the past... It is now official: The Vikings were in America. They occupied a site in Newfoundland, Canada, in 1021 AD. Above, it has been made into a UNESCO World Heritage site, reproducing an original home.

There is an interesting mathematical find in Africa from 25,000 to 30,000 years ago. The Proto-Mathematics of the Ishango Bone. (This one's for Bonnie Spence.)

The Ishango Bone was discovered in 1960 by Jean Heinzelin Braucourt, a Belgian national who was exploring the eastern fringes of the Democratic republic of Congo, then Belgian Congo. The bone was found among the ruins of a human settlement that was located near Lake Edward, an ancient settlement that had been buried by a volcanic eruption.

The bone, which through carbon dating has been estimated to be anywhere between 20,000 to 25,000 years old, is believed to be the second oldest mathematical artefact based on a series of notches etched on it. The notches were made by a quartz crystal attached on one end of the bone. Experts have various theories about these. Some say it could have been used to track the lunar cycles. Others suggest that it was a table of prime numbers. Have a look for yourself and read more.

You might also be interested in an article on the Oldest Lunar Calendars. The Oldest Lunar Calendars | Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (nasa.gov)

Also in Africa, there is the discovery of standing stones in Nabta Playa, located about 800km (500 miles) south of Cairo. The site predates Stonehenge by millennia and was inhabited between 9000 BC and 2800 BC. The site is an early observatory and calendar. Scientists have so far deduced that some of the upright slabs were aligned with stars. The stars include Alpha Centauri, Sirius, Arcturus, Sirius, Dubhe (on Ursa Major), and stars on Orion’s Belt. Curiously, the site was located on the Tropic of Cancer.

The megaliths, 24 in total, were also aligned with the true north-south (which differs by a few degrees from the magnetic north-south many people are familiar with).

You can read more here.

The next piece is for my dancer friends, young and old, and lovers of dance as well as friends from Argentina who can be proud of their native daughter. I have included in several past letters the plight of the arts, which, like so many other businesses, have struggled to survive during the pandemic.

"It has been an oddly fractured year for dance. Repeated lockdowns stifled talent, thwarted new ideas. Online and outdoor offerings provided some release but when theatres reopened in May, dancers emerged as if from hibernation, full of life, anxious to get on with their notoriously short careers." (The Guardian)

This is The Guardian's introduction to an excellent article on Argentine dancer Marianela Núñez, a principle with the Royal Ballet Company.
"She danced the title role in Giselle but also, at other performances, the secondary part of the threatening, ghostly Myrtha. 'I danced Myrtha a lot in the beginning of my career and then as soon as I started to dance the title role, I stopped. Yet Myrtha is so important for the story of the ballet; she establishes that mystical world in the second act and she has to hold the stage for so long.' "

I have always reveled in the dramatic details of my friend Ari Dickinson's productions of classical ballets, from The Nutcracker to Swan Lake. I think she will appreciate this short video on the importance of mime in ballet (3 min) and I hope you will too!

Acting and dance really came together in the lively entertainment of American musicals, our own unique genre. While Broadway first made these famous, Hollywood took them to the big screen. I Love Melvin is a little remembered film from 1953, but Donald O'Conner dancing on roller skates is pretty memorable.

The next is a real treat: A screen test with a young and lovely Audrey Hepburn. No, the person you see below is NOT Audrey Hepburn, but click to watch it. (If it doesn't load, search for Audrey Hepburn screen test on YouTube.)

If you enjoyed the vintage quiz show in my last Letter, here is another one: "What's My Line" from 1965 featuring a young Henry Fonda (mother of Jane), Sean Connery and Ralph Meeker--all budding stars of that era. (Although Ralph Meeker had come to prominence in the 50s with Mr. Roberts and Picnic.)

Both Henry Fonda and Sean Connery were Academy Award Winners, Hollywood's highest honor and most elaborate production. I always feel sorry for the losers at that event who have prepared acceptance speeches they will never get to give. So much work goes into remembering who to thank! Here is John Cleese's version of the Oscar Thankyou Speech.

Before I leave the subject of losers, I would like to offer comfort and a suggestion for those local and visiting hunters who did not succeed in bagging their elk. A lot of energy, preparation and hope goes into those hunting trips. But here is an alternative that requires a lot less energy and allows you to get in a few rounds of golf at the same time.

I have been neglecting Our Best Friend lately and I would like to make up for that. You might recall a Letter or two that featured dogs doing yoga with their owners. This one's for Riggin, Lucy and Dally so listen up, Peggy, Howie and Eloise. You might want to take notes.

The next two are for Trooper, and all of those amazing and caring service dogs who make the lives of humans so much better.

Meet Lily, introduced in the first video, then with Kinley, her blind friend, in the second. You will love her.

@lily_service_pup
##servicedog ##dogsofttiktok
♬ A thousand years - Zeus

@lily_service_pup
##dogsofttiktok ##gogetkinley ##deafdog ##servicedog
♬ original sound - lily_service_pup

This photo, which appears on our town website (ovandomontana.net), beautifully captures the coming season. Trees I can smell right here in my living room, woven into my lovely Christmas wreath.

I still have in my mind images of other beautiful trees I recently met on tree-lined walks with my sister Robin by the Barge Canal in upstate New York, and walks with my friend Sally Mahe among the redwoods of Marin. So my quiet ending this time is dedicated to them, with deep appreciation of the trees we shared. Here is Mary Oliver's "When I am among trees." If it is difficult to catch the words, turn on the CC in the lower right and the words will appear.

I wish you all good health and the blessings of the season.

Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.21

8/20/2021

2 Comments

A Note to Readers: I was debating whether to continue this letter as normal life resumed and people had less time to read it. It was intended as an uplift during the dark lockdown times. I thank those who encouraged me to continue. I took Anthony Hawkesworth's words to heart. "Just because things are improving doesn't mean that we don't need to be uplifted...." Sue Lapka and others suggested a quarterly letter, but I can never keep track of the months. So it is a Sometimes Communiqué. Thank you all so much for staying tuned to our little town. Here is a summer catch-up.

The Rafts Go By

And the kayaks and the boats and the inner tubes… From trudging through the heavy snow of winter to floating on water, fishing on water, paddling on water. There is a constant stream of traffic through the town headed for the Blackfoot River or the many lakes. Everywhere in the country, summer begins on the 4th of July. We are no different. But how does a town of 50 celebrate the 4th, you ask. Here is how: (A short fun video I made of the event filmed from my window). The theme was Back-to-the-Good Times.

The Stray Bullet is jumping with a fresh, expanded deck and Trixi’s Antler Saloon, the Blackfoot Angler, the Ovando Inn and Blackfoot Commercial Company (Blackfoot Store for short) are all lively.

Something else that comes alive in the summer is our Brand Bar Museum, which was the site of the original Trixi’s Saloon back in the day.

I am very proud of our museum because it was the project of the community, built from the ground up and managed by all volunteers, like our Fire Department. It was the original project of Howie Fly and Hugo Eck who beautifully restored the old building as a museum.

At the entrance, you will be greeted by this short description of the town’s history.

Inside you will find a wall dedicated to the inimitable Trixi, who was both generous and colorful and still fondly remembered by those who knew her. She was originally a bare-back rider who could do rope trips while standing on her horse!

Local artist Angela Bennett produced a beautiful map of the Montana Watershed, which you will find there.

One entire room reproduces a room from the early days of Ovando, including furnishings, table settings, and clothing. Members of the community have donated from their own collections. The treasures in early photographs and accounts of the first settlers are not to be missed. If the museum isn’t open when you come, check with the Blackfoot Store to see if there is someone available to open it for you.

For those seriously interested in the history of this exceptional little town, I have produced a History of Ovando, Part 1, which is available on YouTube. Part 2 is in production. If you haven't seen it, here is "Simon Hoyt's Legacy."

While we are looking back, I have unearthed some fun short clips of early clog dancing. I’m especially fond of this one, filmed in a home in Appalachia that is testimony to the way families enjoyed themselves before screens took us over. We know that similar events that took place in early Ovando.

If you were one of the thousands who took up the study of Welsh during pandemic boredom (as described in that last letter) or, like me, have Welsh roots or simply love clog dancing, this 1959 video is a reminder of the inception of clog dancing. In this small Welsh town, the clogs were made by hand by the shoemaker. It is a short film beautifully done in 1959.

Now fast-forward (we are returning to the computer age), here is the performance that debuted a modern development of an old dance in electrifying fashion with the first appearance of Riverdance. They were not the main attraction but inserted between the main events. That changed. You’ll see why. This one's for everyone. Don't miss it! (I only wish the old Welsh shoemaker and his customers could see it.)

In contrast to the lively foot work, have a look at this next dance in which the woman appears not to be on her feet at all but merely floating in a wedding dance in Kyrgystan. It is amazing to watch. Two other short dances follow. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=560508065123815

In the next pieces, the feet are still but the fingers move. I mean really move! I continue to find very young musicians who astonish me. I could never have imagined a 5-year-old who could play Chopin’s Fantasy Impromptu. How ever did he learn it in the first place, not to mention small fingers playing it? And looking about so casually as he does it! Meet Jonah Ho.

Now here are 40 deft fingers giving Beethoven a new sound on Flamenco Guitar. You have never heard Für Elise sound like this. I know you will enjoy these four superb musicians.

I don't want to forget our very first musicians, the valiant little songsters who surround us. My Comadre sent me this short but delightful video from Mexico. “Feliz Dia con Canto” (Happy Day with Song), which highlights the variety and joy of bird songs. Click on the link.

I often hear a new song from birds, hidden away in the leaves of trees, which I would love to identify! Cornell Labs (ground zero for birdwatchers) has created an app for smartphones to do just that. Here is the link to get it.
Identify Bird Calls Easily with the BirdNET App – TechAcute

The skies seem to have been especially busy this month, including the Pleiades Meteor Shower that just ended. Unfortunately, smoky skies over many areas prevented viewing. But the eyes of telescopes large and small never close and as they improve, bring us ever more news of the universe. In 1990, the Hubble Telescope was the first to be transported into space (347 miles!) to provide us with a vastly more detailed picture of the universe in lovely photographs like this one of the Veiled Nebula.

I can’t wait for the James Webb telescope, which is on schedule to be launched this October and promises to open up new vistas, seeing farther back in time than ever before. It will be awesome! You realize the challenges of the project in this short NASA video.

This summer, two private spacecraft were launched to the edge of space to initiate what could be called space tourism. Richard Branson went aloft in Virgin Galactic's spacecraft and Jeff Besos in Blue Origin. But nothing eclipses the courage and skill of NASA's first astronauts, setting forth on the first journey to the Moon. The Moon landing was an event watched around the world but the unexpected consequence of that event, perhaps its greatest gift to humankind, was our first view of planet Earth: The lovely "blue marble" that is our home. The new experience of that view came to be known as the Overview Effect, described by several astronauts in this short video.

Unfortunately, back on Earth the pandemic is marching on and front line workers are being called upon once again to stretch their super-human energies and compassion. Even Covid-sniffing dogs are being deployed to help detect cases. Meet Buffy in Florida. She does more than detect. She cheers everyone with her fuzzy, friendly personality. Cheer is something badly needed in hospitals now.

Dogs are well known for their heroic deeds, but lesser known are the Hero Rats. For those of you who may have read my piece about the famed Magawa, who was awarded a medal for his work in defusing landmines, the news is that Magawa has retired. But the Hero Rat program continues, helping to free land for agriculture in Cambodia that has been off-limits for years due to left-over landmines from Vietnam and other wars.

As I have commented before, it is amazing to me how individuals confined to their living rooms, found ways to make contributions to the pandemic and honor especially those first responders who put themselves in harm's way to help their fellow citizens.

My favorite visuals from the virtual continent Pandemica are the collages of "people at home" gathering virtually to make music together. The technology behind this boggles the mind. Here is how the leader of the virtual Quarantime Choir describes the project.

"This was recorded in April/May 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Everybody from home with a smartphone and some in their home studio. It was a great experience to unite more than 50 people who would have probably never met in this constellation in 'real life'."

For many of us, these offerings did indeed provide "A Bridge Over Troubled Waters." Here is the Quarantine Choir performing Paul Simon's classic song. in "real life".

While we are aware of the dedicated contributions of the front-line workers, we know little about the equal dedication of scientists behind the scenes who worked around the clock to produce an effective Covid vaccine. Here is a wonderful story of the couple credited with the discovery of the mRNA vaccine now being delivered to millions of people. My thanks go to Alejandra Cisneros in Bali for this!

On the lighter side, here is an old favorite of mine featuring Carol Burnett and Tim Conway in a sketch of Mrs. Wiggins and her boss.

The quiz program Jeopardy has been in the news as it searches for a new host, following the passing of its long-time host Alex Trebek. This reminded me of the entertaining shows of my childhood that we never missed: Pantomime Quiz (later Stump the Stars), I've Got a Secret, Password and What's My Line.

I dug up some of the oldies-but-goodies and was amazed to see that all the great Hollywood actors and other celebrities seemed eager to appear on these programs, which made them doubly entertaining. Everyone from John Wayne to Audrey Hepburn and Bette Davis joined in the fun. Here is just a sampling of these from the archives.

On this What's My Line show, actor Peter Lawford and the most famous ventriloquist of the time Paul Winchell, with (dummy) Jerry Mahoney are guest panelists and Frank Lloyd Wright and Liberace, a popular pianist, appear as "mystery guests."

The next one is for my Comadre. You will see a very young, but everso good-looking Paul Newman, most famous for his later appearance with Robert Redford in the award-winning movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." The guest panelist is David Niven and I should note that regular panelist Bennett Cerf was a well-known writer and head of Random House at the time. If the video doesn't show at first, try clicking on it.

I will add one more to this collection--a Password show that features in this episode Lucille Ball and her entire family at the time: Husband Gary Morton and her two children by Desi Arnaz, Lucy and Desi Jr. (I am enjoying these so much that I plan to make it a regular feature of the Occasional Communique. Great shows ahead.)

The Arnaz children on Password give me a segue into two offerings for children (of all ages!) BBC has a series that is not available here called CBeebies Bedtime stories. Famous actors do the readings, which make them all the more delightful. This one is read by Bridgerton star Regé-Jean page: Rain Before Rainbows.

Some children's stories never grow old. I'm sure there are homes where the Tales of Beatrix Potter are still being read, with their memorable illustrations. Few people know, however, that they even inspired a ballet film for children called, aptly, "The Tales of Beatrix Potter." It is performed by the Royal Ballet and even included renowned choreographer Frederick Ashton as Mrs. Tiggy Winkle. Here is a short clip from the film. (The complete film is available to rent.) Enjoy!

Also in the film category, I was so pleased when "My Octopus Teacher" won an Oscar. I gave you a teaser of this film earlier and it is still available on Netflix. Here, Craig Foster and Pippa Ehrlich are interviewed about the film.

I am bringing Mary Chapin Carpenter back to take us out on a quiet note with this beautiful musical offering.

Until we meet again, wherever you are, stay well.

Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No. 20

4/30/2021

4 Comments

We're Ready!

Looking out the window to gauge what season it is has not proved reliable. 70 degrees one day, snow the next. So I count on the Town Crier for a heads-up. She never disappoints.

You might not think that’s much in a Town of 50, but you’d be wrong. Here is the list!

Museum:
    * raking
    * Cleaning interior Hooscow / Jail
    * Removing xmas lights from Hooswcow
    *  Cleaning/ repairing if necessary picnic table and benches

- Horseshoe Pit Area:
    * Clean sheep wagon
    * Paint interior of sheep wagon [paint to be provided but if you have extra white let me know!]
    * Rake and weed grounds [if you have weed spray we could use it]
    * Fix the horseshoe pit back boards
    * Inspect and fix if necessary picnic tables and benches

- Mini Central Park:
    * Rake
    * Weed
    * Inspect and fix if necessary the bench

- Clean road from Ovando to the The "Dump"

- Rake areas around downtown buildings

- Cemetery clean up
and more!!!!

Another official announcement of Spring is the return of Iris the Osprey and her companion Louis to her Hellgate Canyon nest. Her fans were eagerly awaiting her arrival at the beginning of April. Cornell Labs has had a webcam there for several years. I always ask--WHY, Iris, would you post yourself above the parking lot of Hellgate High School when there are so many better views in the general neighborhood. Then again, with those wide wings, she can reach the river in a jiffy with views we could only dream of.

Here you see them adding sticks to their nest. First Louis makes his delivery, and Iris puts a stick on top.

Rumor has it that Louis is two-timing Iris! He visits another nest on the river so everyone is holding their collective breath to see if Iris can successfully hatch her eggs as a single Mom. A soap opera like any other, just going on higher up. If you would like to tune into the live webcam, here is the link:
Hellgate Ospreys Nest Cam| Cornell Lab | University of Montana - YouTube

Closer to home, this morning a female blackbird landed on top of my feeder with a beak full of small sticks. I think she was just showing off because she couldn't feed with that mouthful. More Spring activities! The evening grosbeaks arrived today too! Definitely a colorful addition to the landscape.

In the last letter, I shared the flawless performance of Nathan Chen at the World Figure Skating Championships in Stockholm this year. I can report that he did take home the Gold! Also, I was captivated by the moving and exquisite performance of Viktoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov. No surprise that they also took home the Gold for this beautiful ice dance.

Here is another figure skater, outstanding for a different reason and utterly inspiring. At the age of 90, Yvonne Dowlen puts on her skates every day and goes to the local rink. Following a stroke, she found it easier to skate than to walk. In her youth she had a successful career with the Ice Capades and other professional skating venues so, well, she just kept on skating. Skating is who she was.

Okay, I can't resist it. Whenever I watch beautiful dancers, on ice or parquet, I'm taken back to Fred and Ginger. To my mind, they never grow old. So here are Astaire and Rogers in their 1935 dance "Hard to Handle."

The good news is that Covid cases are dropping and things are starting to open up, though carefully! California has invented Drive-in Opera. The San Francisco Opera had their first performance before a live audience with "The Marriage of Figaro."

That's one answer to a pandemic problem. But here is another very inventive one by a man who combined his love of model trains and classical music by creating a train that plays classical music as it strikes 2,840 wine glasses. You'll see that this feat was awarded a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest melody played by a train. But really, how many melody-playing trains ARE there?

While we are on the rare subject of musical water glasses, here is just your everyday street musician playing on crystal glasses by hand. It really is beautiful and a little more expressive by hand than by train.

Now for a bit of humor. This is a favorite of mine, discovered on YouTube. It really made me laugh! Two flight attendants in "Flight Announcement." Definitely a classic. This one's for Susie Sweet.

On the subject of bears, Paula Hammett sent me this clip of traffic stopped in both directions (and with remarkable patience), while a mother bear tries to get her cubs across the street. It's something like herding cats or trying to take toddlers on a walk.

If you are a lover of elephants, you will appreciate the efforts of an orphan elephant sanctuary in Kenya to introduce this baby elephant, who has only know human "parents," to adult elephants in the hope that he will be taken into their care and trained properly as an elephant!

The Cubans are back with friends from around the world to give us a lively version of La Bamba. I can't fathom what goes into this technical feat that connects Buenos Aires with Australia, the Congo, Mali... But it's a treat.

I want to end with something I shared near the beginning of these Letters. It was recorded one year ago today to offer musical support for all those suffering from or due to Covid. It is hard to believe that a year has passed in this dark limbo and that we may have something of a true Spring ahead. I want to honor the thousands of my fellow human beings who really stepped up to the plate in generous and amazing ways. Here 300 people from 15 countries join a virtual chorus and orchestra to sing "You'll Never Walk Alone," which has been particularly apt this year.

It is dedicated to the memory of my dear friend Jack Cross--physician, composer, and great soul--whom I think of every year on this day with celebration for the gift of his music and his life.

Stay well and enjoy the Spring!

Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.19

3/30/2021

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Unstuck

There is some good news: The giant container ship hopelessly stuck in the Suez Canal is finally moving again. All it took was the Moon. The 220,000-ton vessel carrying up to 20,000 containers has been described as being as long as a skyscraper and as tall. In one rendering it appears in the center of New York’s Central Park to give some idea of its size.

What is Evergreen about it is unclear.

Here you can see the 14 valiant tugboats struggling to move the behemoth. But the Full Moon finally did the trick with rising tides. I’m rather fond of the second photo in which one of those proud tugboats was posed like “The Little Tugboat That Could.” It is actually pulling the newly floated ship on its way.

If you look carefully toward the front of the ship on the right, you may see its actual name in small letters. EVER GIVEN. I have no idea what that means other than no craft has EVER GIVEN such a headache to 300 ships backed up behind it and the loss of billions of dollars to the Panama Canal folks. Thank you Moon!

I begin with this news because it is such a perfect, tangible metaphor for the whole forward motion of global and personal movement coming to a grinding standstill this past year. So many projects backed up behind it. Normal life stalled out. And now, albeit slowly, we are becoming unstuck.

Our less traveled waterway, the Blackfoot River, is also slowly resuming its flow, in a brownish, muddy sort of way. March is the season of mud, with a mixture of snow and rain. A hesitant Spring. One good sign that things are starting to unfreeze: The Blackfoot Angler is opening on weekends and offers this river report.

First river report for 2021: As of March 19 2021.
Warm temps, sun and rain
have started turning the Blackfoot River Spring Brown.
Running 1,200 cfs with normal under 1,000.
And Brown's Lake is still frozen.
As is Salmon Lake.

Winter is indeed slowly losing its grip and hopefully the pandemic is too. You can click here to see a short video taken by an NBC Montana drone of our Blackfoot Valley neighborhood now. Somewhere in there is Ovando.

In contrast to the biggest and slowest vessel on water, here is the highest speed, smaller airplane that has been designed for the future. Hold on to your hat. This is a real plan! A supersonic plane that will fly from New York to London in 3.5 hours. In the reverse direction, you would arrive before you started. Isn’t life confusing enough?
It brought to mind a famous limerick:

TThere was a young lady named Bright
Whose speed was far faster than light;
She set out one day
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night.

Boom Supersonic hopes a full-sized aircraft with room for 44 passengers can be in regular use by as early as 2029. The end goal is the development of its 199-foot-long Overture, its first commercial plane, which would have enough room to ferry between 68 and 88 passengers at any one time while flying at speeds literally double that of standard jets today. 997 mph.

If I HAD to choose between the two, I would travel by cargo ship.

While we are looking into the future, I would like to share with you a video I call the Robots and the Caveman. You will soon see why. Robots Sophia and Han engage in conversation. No ventriloquism or script. Just collossal absorptions of data that allow them to make intelligent responses. During the pauses, their "brains" are scanning the database to compose replies. The video was made in 2018. Sophia is now even more lifelike and is being reproduced in numbers, particularly for service industries where they can be programmed to suit the particular needs. Ben Goetzel, of Hanson Robotics, explains how they were created and the future of AI. If you would like to skip directly to the robot interaction, jump to 4:00 minutes.

Japan now has a robot news anchor who is amazingly lifelike. She was created through the modeling of a real person. While more realistic, she is not of the order of the Hanson robots who can increasingly “think” on their own and respond to a variety of people and situations. It's still uncanny.

Robots, however intelligent and life-like, could never deal with the pandemic with the intelligence, feeling and originality of humans. My hope is that they may challenge us to pay close attention to the things that make us uniquely human. The Guardian carried this recent headline:

A new obsession: the people who learned to play instruments during lockdown
Research from Yamaha shows 75% of Britons have turned to music to beat lockdown blues

A student nurse in Hemel Hempstead has taken up the mountain dulcimer and fits in music lessons from a teacher in the US, which she fits in with her Zoom classes during lockdown. Banjo, celtic harp, kalimba… Anything you can think of! Music definitely wins hands-down as the most comforting activity to watch or participate in through difficult and isolated times.

This gives me an opportunity to share a favorite video. The Ukulele Orchestra in the UK performing "Thank you for the Music" during lockdown from their homes. Notice how unique each one is in looks, voice, personality, humor, home decor... Not one can be mass produced like Sophia. Enjoy us! It's a fun one.

Something you might not have thought of as a pandemic rescue is the learning of a new language, especially if that language is Welsh! The Guardian describes this as another “obsession,” which is truly hard to believe! A language from a country that has towns with names like

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?

It is a sure sign of Covid desperation that less than two weeks into lockdown in Wales, the National Centre for Learning Welsh launched new free Welsh classes, with 8,300 people signing up. Their target had been 100 learners and suddenly they had 1,300 pure novices “keen to start.” They had to find enough tutors to hold 89 classes.

There are now 1.3 million people learning worldwide after thousands of new users signed up for free classes during lockdown. Learning Welsh just for the fun of it?

This absolutely charmed me because my maternal grandfather was from Wales and I visited there in search of some family, which I found. I learned how to say “town,” “window,” “church” and “Hello” in the language, but that’s about it. Not to mention the difficult pronunciation.

If that warmed my (1/4) Welsh heart, another heart-stopping fact soon followed: Speculation that Stonehenge may have been “Second-hand” with the original circle being in (drumroll) Western Wales!

It has been known for some time that the large bluestones of Stonehenge came from a quarry in the Welsh Pressili Hills. Now it seems that the original monument may have been in Wales, dismantled for some reason and carried 175 miles east as part of a larger migration. 175 miles may not seem far, unless you are carrying gargantuan stones along with you. Researchers are still trying to figure out how the bluestones made the journey. Desperation may have driven some people to study Welsh, but what kind of desperation, or inspiration, drove those early Welsh people to undertake this incredible journey? The discovery was made by archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson, who describes it in this short video.

If you are a lover of Stonehenge, or taking Welsh lessons, you may want to watch the full BBC documentary "Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed."

But it is Russian rather than Welsh that I will have to study to keep up with the young artists I have been following from that country, whose names I can't pronounce but whose talent leaves me breathless. I give you Agafia Korzun, age 7, who took 1st place at the VIII International Open Festival Competition of Young Performers. It is not just what she plays but how she plays it, as you will hear.

In the next short pieces, past and future come together in the present. Peggy Fly forwarded this very moving video to me, taken with an iPhone of a cliff village in China. (Not by Peggy!)

I found another amazing video that shows even more of the feats these villagers accomplished daily. What incredible physical condition they must be in! I don't think Sophia or Han could have done it, do you?

I almost wished I hadn't pressed on with my research into the fate of this village. Here is where they live today. Do you think the little boy is still happily making breakfast for his brother? It is hard to know. Life is certainly easier. Still, the peak of human fitness just declined a notch.

Perhaps the fitness of an entire human community is not as it was, but individuals continue to break records in ways that boggle the mind. Consider Nathan Chen, a winner of the 2021 World Figure Skating Championships. It is not only the physical feats that are impressive but the sheer grace and beauty of his performance.

Now for a bit of humor, I take you back to an early sketch with John Cleese in "The Bookshop." This one is dedicated to those good friends of books Anne Mery, JJ Wilson and Paula Hammett.

If you are an animal lover, you might enjoy this documentary on unusual animal relationships. You can watch as little or as much of it as you like, without losing the idea. But it is well done and interesting. It ends with a particularly unlikely relationship between a kudu and a giraffe. I kid you not.

For me, the ultimate wondrous relationship occurs, in rare moments, between animals and humans. There is nothing artificial or trained about this. It just happens and represents something special. In this clip, watch a beluga whale entranced by a violin.

I end on a quiet note, with a most extraordinary presence: a blue whale, rarely seen in these waters off San Diego or seen at all by humans. Almost 100 feet long (30 meters) and weighing nearly 200 tons (175 tonnes), it is the largest animal ever known to have existed. When I first saw this video, I was sure it had been "photoshopped." It didn't seem possible. But when I investigated the drone videographer, Domenic Biagini, I saw that it was indeed real. He spent the pandemic year of 2020 dedicated to making a full length documentary, premiered as a Christmas gift on December 25th to all of us. I highly recommend A Year in My Life. As a counterpoint to the opening feature on Evergreen, a lifeless leviathan of the waters, I close with this living leviathan that offered a life-changing experience to those who saw him and helped them become "unstuck" in the year of Covid.

Stay well,
Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.18

2/28/2021

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While Bears Sleep

Both bears and hermits hibernate in winter. I pretty much go inside in November and come out in April. This year winter came early, died down, and then roared back in the monster storm that swept much of the country. Texas suffered bitterly and there were record temps in rare places. Nobody mentions Montana’s stats because, well, it’s just expected here. Mostly what I heard was, “Thank goodness. We really needed the snow.” But this much?

Bonnie Spence took this photo of the Lolo Pass Visitors’ Lodge on February 25th. If you like frosting, this would make a great gingerbread house.

Kathy Schoendoerfer of the Blackfoot Angler is my go-to person for what’s going on in the hinterland and the river. She reported on February 13th that south of Ovando, next to the Blackfoot River, it was 26 below zero. There were wind weather advisories during that period for wind chill temperatures up to -55 in the valley. She posted a brief video clip of the Blackfoot River beneath a quote from a poem by Lillian Smith. (This is just a still photo from that. Visit her website linked above for more.)

A frozen river is a quiet thing,
But underneath, change is taking place.
~ Lillian Smith

Bears may be asleep but the town is wide awake! Trixi’s Antler Saloon is fully open now (10 to 8) and has been serving up take-and-bake pizzas on the weekends. I’m not sure that’s continuing but you can check at 406-793-5611.

Colleen at the Stray Bullet is doing her take-out casseroles, clam chowders and other goodies. She usually posts a menu at the beginning of the week on the Stray Bullet Facebook page.

The Blackfoot Store has generously stayed open through thick and thin and it’s thicker with folks these days. It has always been a town hub. A warm space to gather for a cup of coffee and the latest local news, while stocking up on everything from Hutterite chickens to fruits and vegetables and most anything else you might need. This is no small task during the pandemic and winter snows. The Ovando Inn has even stayed busy with hardy visitors.

Montana has certainly been luckier than other places, which have experienced many losses during the pandemic. Sadly, in the UK our old friend Capt. Tom has passed away from Covid at 100. But NOT so sad really. You would have to call his life a COVID success story, walking his 100 laps with his walker in his garden to raise money for healthcare workers during the pandemic. At 98 years old, he could never have expected the turn his life would take or that he would be knighted by the Queen and have a Hurricane and Spitfire fly over for his 100th. In the end, he raised several million pounds. I’m sure he died with a smile on his face! If you missed my earlier notes on him, you can find his story to date here. Capt. Tom Moore passes at 100

Most Covid stories are not like Sir Tom’s. In addition to the loss of loved ones, so many people have suffered the loneliness of isolation. Here is an animated short created to inspire people who have been afflicted with this during the shutdowns.

Here is a Good News check-in on November’s newborn giant panda at the Washington Zoo, who might better have been named the White Worm during his debut appearance. It’s a wonder his mother could find him. Well he has filled out in these months and looks as a panda cub should.

In the category of Oldies but Goodies, I love looking back at unusual pairings of past stars. This one is bound to lift your spirits and set your foot to tapping. Carol Burnett teams up with Dolly Parton in a lively rendition of “No One Picks Like A Nashville Picker Picks,” supposedly composed by Carol. They look like a couple of teenagers! It really is fun.

Just to keep your feet a'tapping, here is an offering from a clog dancing event; folks doing what they love at Hillbilly Dirty Dancing by Scotty Bilz National Clogging Convention 2013.

Now here is a considerable variation on that theme—dirty dancing Chinese style by farmers in their fields, who find a way to overcome Pandemic Depression. Pretty amazing.

Even more amazing was the big sky event this month: the landing of Perseverance on Mars. It is like sending your Honda Civic 293 million miles (471 million kilometers) on a seven month voyage into space at 24,600 miles per hour (39,000 kmph). Then it has to decelerate to 12,500 mph (20,000 kmph)—that’s 15 minutes from London to New York—to begin its descent; then to land almost precisely in just the right zone where the rocky surface won’t bring it to an untimely end. Inside your Honda is the helicopter, Ingenuity, that will make the first space flight on another planet. It weighs less than a bag of sugar and has a 4 foot wing-span. My oh my!

Here is a very neat reconstruction from the Imax documentary "Roving Mars" from 2006. The mission is the same but the latest rover is larger with more technical equipment on board to gather scientific data.

If you would like to see the current rover, Perseverance, in real time, here is the link to NASA's real-time tracker.

This event brought to mind the first cosmic show in which Mars played a leading role and eyes around the world were on the red planet. You have to remember that for centuries Mars was at the center of popular lore, from myth to science fiction. Ray Bradbury became famous for his Martian Chronicles and Arthur C. Clarke became a household name for novels about Mars. In 1971, the unthinkable was about to happen: an actual space vehicle was about to take off to the actual planet. Stop and think what a shocker that was for Earthlings whose minds had been filled with their own stories and imaginings about the planet. I remember eagerly tuning in with my family to a program that aired on November 12, 1971 called "Mars and the Mind of Man," the day before NASA's Mariner 9 mission reached Mars and became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet. Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan and others were gathered to discuss the implications of Mariner's arrival.

To give you a feel for this momentous event, here is Ray Bradbury reading that evening from a poem he had written in honor of the occasion.

Now here is Arthur C. Clarke, 7 years earlier in 1964, making his own predictions about the future. You will be surprised by his prescience.

Closer to Earth, our February skies 60 years later have had some notable moments of their own. There is the American Airlines pilot who was heard asking an air traffic controller, "Do you have any targets up here? We just had something go right over the top of us. I hate to say this but it looked like a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing moving really fast. It went right over the top of us." American Airlines confirmed the transmission but just said "Go talk to the FBI." Have you ever tried to go talk to the FBI? About a UFO?

A United Airlines pilot had a more serious problem when an engine caught fire and the cowling came off. Miraculously, no one on the ground was hurt by the falling debris.

On the lighter side of events in the Friendly (?) Skies, I found an old video of Bob Newhart's skit as an air traffic controller. Seemed a timely moment to share it.

Now home again, home again to our own time and place in 2021. Another of the positive outcomes of the devastating pandemic is that famous and talented people who have been denied their opportunities to perform for huge audiences in packed venues for sizeable fees are performing for us from their homes for free.

One of those is Mary Chapin Carpenter, whose regular Songs from Home offers a nourishing musical treat. Here is her song for the New Year from her farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains. This one's for my brother Christopher, who first introduced me to her years back.

Now that we have landed back on terra firma, it is good to be reminded of how astonishingly beautiful we are next to the red, bleak and sandy spaces where Perseverance perseveres. Who better to do this for us than Louie Schwartzberg with his eye and lens for exquisite natural things.

As always, I like to end on a quiet note, so here is another extraordinary musical collage of voices--17,572 singers from 129 countries--gathered virtually under the direction of Eric Whitacre to sing his composition Sing Gently. It opens the heart like a flower.

Happy landings and stay well,
Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.17

1/31/2021

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The Long Winter's Night

2021 arrived like Carl Sandburg’s fog, on little cat feet. The one exception was under Mt. Fuji in Japan, where fireworks burst over deserted streets. They were bought for the cancelled 2020 Summer Olympics and had to be used for safety reasons. I’m sure they brought joy to people watching from their windows and yards. If you are missing the fireworks, enjoy these. It is never to late to wish for a Happier New Year. Thank you to Clara in Pasadena for sharing it.

A clever Italian has summarized our 2020 year with a cartoon short that you will appreciate, even if you don't know Italian, because the images tell the story with humor in "Good-bye 2020."

On the drive to Missoula, I marvel at the sight of ice fishermen keeping their cold vigils over poles fixed over dark holes in the ice. Sometimes they have tents and sometimes not.

I discovered that there are colder spots than Montana for winter. The place that gets the award for “coldest town” is in Siberia. No surprise there. Here an elderly man becomes the fish! A winter dip, where temps can drop to -74 (-59C) is considered important for one’s health. Next to that, what happens if you put your laundry out to dry!

Human resourcefulness and creativity can flourish even in these frigid temperatures. You will be astonished by the sights of the Snow and Ice Sculpture Festival in Harbin China, where a virtual ice town is created on 200 acres.

My one last winter offering, also from Russia, is a beautiful piece by the Igor Moiseyev Ballet called Snowstorm in which humans become the storm itself.

Closer to home, dance groups continue to struggle during the Covid crisis. Confined to their homes, 32 professional ballet dancers from 14 countries perform music from Swan Lake together to raise money for Covid relief. Amazing to watch. This one is for Ari and Judy in South Carolina, who have conducted their own ballet classes online, and for Matilda in Ovando, who loves to dance. Here is "Swans for Relief."

Then there is the spontaneous pas de deux between little Avlina and Ian the postman. Even when stuck indoors, surprising things can happen. This is brief but delightful.

Now to what I call “unlikely instrumentals.” Here is a guitar duo on a single guitar. Yes, that’s Two people. One guitar. It must be a very close relationship!

How to top that? Try a Cello Quartet with One cello and Four cellists. You have to see this to believe it. It's fun. I thank my Comadre for this from Mexico City.

This one from Gary Aitken features an unlikely instrument at Carnegie Hall. You are used to hearing it around a campfire, but here virtuoso harmonica player Buddy Greene plays Bach!

Last but not least of our unusual instrumentals is a remarkable story that I heard about from a couple on an airport shuttle. It's called The Landfill-Harmonic or The Recycled Orchestra and yes, the instruments come from a landfill in Paraguay where the people are poor in circumstances, but rich in what they do with them. It is 13, not 60 minutes (the program) and not to be missed.

And there are still the acts of generosity, like the young boy in Iowa, age 12, who raised thousands of dollars for his community by making and selling nearly 115 baseball bats out of wood brought down by the August Great Derecho storm. Or one man paying for the car behind him in a Dairy Queen drive-thru that resulted in over 900 cars also taking part in the pay-it- forward chain, which lasted two and a half days, to the tune of $10,000.

Speaking of cars, here is a light moment at a gas station that is sure to bring a smile, as it did to the drivers of several cars! I call it Gas Station Karaoke.

This next offering is for those of you who have, or are, a young person studying science or having an interest in becoming a scientist. Or for those (like me) who simply have a layman’s interest. Here is one of America’s greatest physicists and winner of the Nobel Prize, Richard Feynman, speaking about “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.” His interview with Christopher Sykes appeared on Nova and it was nominated for an Emmy. Excerpts from those interviews appear in this TED talk introduced by his daughter and Christopher Sykes. I found it delightful.

For those of you who admired Our Best Friends doing yoga poses with their owners and wondered how you could get your own Best Friend to do yoga with you, here is a video on "How to Teach Yoga to Your Dogs." Good luck!

The only thing I will miss post-Covid are the lovely musical collages of people performing from their homes. I have loved taking in those individual faces and their living rooms, dens, bedrooms... At once so public and so intimate! So here is the Stay at Home Choir with The King's Singers performing "And So It Goes."

I end with a quiet message I received from a friend on January 1st that is good for the whole year ahead. May it indeed be a better year for us all.

Happy New Year wherever you are and please stay well.

Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.16

12/6/2020

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Deck the Halls

December 6, 2020

I know you have been waiting to hear (unless you are on the Town Crier List) who won the scarecrow contest. So here they are.

Folks came into town on Saturday after Thanksgiving bearing boughs cut from their evergreen trees to deck the halls, or in this case porch railings. Yards of wide red ribbon were deftly used to weave them into garlands that graced the Blackfoot Store, the Museum and the Stray Bullet porches.

Christmas lights were strung across the town that make us colorful at night. And now I need to solve a mystery that has no doubt plagued anyone who drives through town at night. What on earth do I have in my window? I realize that it is hard to make that out at a distance, but it is a Christmas elk with festooned horns. Seemed just right for the neighborhood and the local elk might enjoy it too. Here it is close up, so you know what you are seeing.

Missoula has an osprey nest webcam that I love to check in on periodically. There are some excellent photographers who follow these birds and others. I just saw two amazing photographs of a great horned owl and owlet. These photos were taken recently near Greenough Park by Louis Matteau.

One day, to my porch feeder, came three lovely goldfinches in their winter garb. I keep hoping they will return but the house sparrows are much higher in the pecking order and in sheer numbers. Still, I was happy to see them, flickering through the snow. Perhaps they’ve left for Miami.

I hear the sounds of axe and saw and I know that many Ovando folks are at the unending task of getting in more wood for the cold cold nights. A warm fire is the antidote and consolation for our fierce winters. So here is a treat in honor of this season’s ritual work. Pete Seeger singing “Keep the Flame Alive” with Lorre Wyatt.

I have been following Nora and Isaac, the young brother and sister who make music together with their father in Quimper, France. Around Thanksgiving, I found little Nora singing one of my favorite Spanish songs, Gracias a la Vida, Thankyou for Life, which was perfect for the season. The words were taught to me by my dear friend Virginia Igonda, while we were waiting in a long line to cross the border at Tijuana. I was able to sing it with her at the end of her life in Ecuador. It’s surprising to hear it with the tender young voice of a child. The song was made famous by Mercedes Sosa, who brought a very different, mature voice to it.

First, here is Nora, singing beside her father in the first bloom of her life.

(English translation of first, second and last stanzas)

Thank you, life, for giving me so much.
You gave me two bright stars, that when opened,
Perfectly show me both black and white
And high in the sky, the starry background,
And within the crowd the man that I love.

Thank you, life, for giving me so much.
You gave me hearing that, in all its breadth
Records - night and day -crickets and canaries,
Hammers, turbines, bricks and showers,
And the tender voice of my beloved.
…
Thank you, life, for giving me so much.
You gave me laughter as well as tears.
That I might know happiness from pain -
The two ingredients of my song,
As well as your song, that is mine too,
And the song of all, that is my own singing.

Now the song from two greats of North and South: Mercedes Sosa and Joan Baez. It’s an electric performance that really projects the spirit of the song. I offer this in memory of my Argentine friend, who taught me so much.

Speaking of best friends, here is a most unusual feline. Calling this “A Cat Plays Like Beethoven” is really a stretch, but you have to admire little Nora’s unique enthusiasm for the instrument.

Almost as unlikely as a cat playing Beethoven is a five-year-old playing Chopin. Jonah Ho certainly brings something entirely different to the instrument than Nora, which even by human standards is extraordinary. I’ve always thought of Fantasy Impromptu as a piece for virtuosos. My mistake.

But to be honest, the young musician who has most impressed me in recent months is Alexander Malofeev, playing one of my all-time favorite works with the Baltic Sea Philharmonic: Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. It’s not just the virtuosity that is impressive. It is the maturity and depth of feeling with which he plays it. You wouldn’t expect this of a 15 year old. I’ve watched this several times and I found myself taking in the special quality of the conductor, Kristjan Järvi, and the musicians. The conductor seems to communicate with each one in a special way, just as he does with the soloist. You can easily enjoy just the first movement, though you might be seduced into listening to the end as I was. I hope you have good speakers!

Now literally from the sublime to the ridiculous, I end this sequence with the piano on a crashing final note, with apologies to Steinway. Here are Harvey Corman and Tim Conway in Dueling Pianos. Pandemics occasionally require the ridiculous. So here it is.

An important event in the art world, during the advance of the pandemic and the closures of galleries, is a virtual exhibit from the National Gallery in London. The subject is a celebrated woman painter of the 17th century whose celebrity, like that of many women of those and other times, has not survived into the present. You will be amazed at the work of Artemisia Gentileschi. “In 17th-century Europe, at a time when women artists were not easily accepted, Artemisia was exceptional. She challenged conventions and defied expectations to become a successful artist and one of the greatest storytellers of her time.” On their website, you can see a brief sample of her work and a short trailer about the exhibit. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/artemisia

If you are feeling a little flush, you might take a virtual tour of Artemisia’s exhibit. It will cost a little over $10 but is said by one art reviewer to be worth it! There is also a free series of videos that they produced on the restoration process for their most recent acquisition, a self-portrait. I imagine one of these 14 videos will do, unless you are planning to clean up some of your own. https://youtu.be/zt7d5Nb5GdE

For those who miss visiting galleries and museums, there is another interesting online exhibit you can attend here at home for free at the Smithsonian Art Museum. "Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature and Culture."

In the words of Alexandra the Scholarly Skater, “Its subject is Prussian naturalist and polymath Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), who is definitely the most important scientific figure most of us have never heard of. His extensive exploration, research, and published writing, combined with his then-groundbreaking ideas about the interconnectedness of nature, made him one of the most influential figures of his time.”

If you are in the mood to digest a delicious website devoted to the arts and reviewing current exhibits, I highly recommend the Scholarly Skater site.

In a time when galleries remain empty of visitors and musicians have no live audiences, French cellist Camille Thomas plays in locked down galleries, including the Louvre. Lovely.

I thank Barbara Cross for sending this lovely photograph of three children from a South African tribe. The story goes that an anthropologist invited the children to play a game in which he placed a basket of fruit near a tree and announced that "The one of you who reaches the tree first will be rewarded with all of the sweet fruits." When he signaled to start the race, the children locked their hands tightly and ran together, and then they all sat together and enjoyed the delicious fruit. The astonished anthropologist asked the children why they all ran together, because each of them could enjoy the fruit for himself. To which the children replied: "Obonato." Is it possible for one to be happy if everyone else is sad? "Obonato" in their language means: "I exist because we exist."

While we are mostly shut down by Covid in December, the sky overhead and the astronomers who watch it will be having a lively time.

The first event, which we won’t see (except for those in South America) is a total solar eclipse on Monday, Dec, 14—best in southern Chile and Argentina. But don’t worry. North America is having one come up in 2024. Be patient. You can watch this one on the internet. It can count as an astronomy lesson for home school students.

On Dec. 16th, you will have a lovely view in the southwest after sunset. The crescent Moon sits just beneath Jupiter and Saturn, coming very close before their big event on the 21st.

On December 21st, Winter Solstice, comes the “great conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn. Not since 1623 has there been such a conjunction this close. But not since 1226 has it been this observable. This conjunction was important in the ancient world as marking the beginning of a new era. Many today believe that the Star of Bethlehem was in fact Saturn and Jupiter shining brightly as one. While we will miss the festive annual Christmas gatherings, this sight on the winter solstice is something to celebrate. But you have to look quickly to the southwest, immediately after sunset, because it will quickly disappear below the horizon.

Finally, there is something else that offers warmth and comfort in winter: imagination. This is another human gift that I like to celebrate and share for long nights or slippery days. I close with this quiet, short animation that will literally carry you off to far places. Soar.

Stay warm and be well,

Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.15

10/24/2020

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October?

Has anybody here seen October? It seems to have gotten lost along the way! December showed up in its place with temps plunging to -15F (-26C) as I write. First snow storm was on the 17th and another just blew through. If you don't believe me, behold my porch, birdfeeder and stairs. But don't worry: Howie Fly has just been by to shovel me out!

Winter may be associated with things going stiff and dormant, but not so in Ovando. In fact just when I thought October was off the calendar, I got our Town Crier’s news. (Kathy Schoendoerfer) Terry Sheppard got creative and thought up the perfect thing. Thanks Terry!

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Time for some frivolous fun!
Because isn't it about time to have some?
and we can keep it all friendly with distancing and masks.

Help us close out 2020 with more fun than a human should be allowed to have!

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So Ovando is alive and well and, after Thanksgiving, the community will gather to decorate the town and put up the lights. We look great in winter! Come see us.

The Alpine Artisans Tour fortunately came in the thin sliver of autumnal October that I mentioned last time. It was not just at the Brand Bar Museum in Ovando but a tour that stretched across the valley. A reminder that the arts are also alive and well, in spite of the pandemic.

8 stops along the tour

#1: Handmade in Seeley Lake
#2: Grizzly Claw Trading Co
#3: Gallery 83 in Seeley Lake
#4: Willow Creek Studio
#5: Swanwoods with Martha and Jerry Swanson off Woodworth Road
#6: Brand Bar Museum downtown Ovando with
- Artoutwest - with Diane Whitehead
- Cabin Fever Originals - wit Angela Williams
#7: Lincoln Art Haus Co-op
#8: Blackfoot Pathways in Lincoln

Arts staying alive during the pandemic is a serious challenge worldwide. We have seen orchestras offer remarkable concerts, zooming from their living rooms, but these don't keep the rent or the salaries or production costs paid; the same problems facing small businesses everywhere. One resourceful solution was found by the Atlanta Opera company. They have a beautiful performing arts center for their productions but not a Covid-safe place. What is a premier company like this to do?

Atlanta Performing Arts Center

The answer they came up with is "a tent series with of-the-moment staging." The setting was perfect for a performance of the opera, Pagliacchi, about a clown and his troupe.

The feat of our Capt. Tom Moore, who at age 99 walked one-hundred laps across his back yard with his walker to raise money (40 million pounds!) for first-responders, continues to ripple out in its effect. He received 125,000 cards for his 100th birthday. ("Now children, I know you are bored, but why don't you make a card for that nice man.") Presumably 98 year-old Zinaida Korneva of St. Petersburg has knit him his socks, while she recounts war stories on YouTube to raise money for the health workers.

Well Tom's record has been topped. Tired of being stuck inside during the shut-down, 104-year old Ruth Saunders, from Newbury in Berkshire, said to her son in North Wales, “I’m fed up with this, do you think it would be all right if I went out and had a little walk?” "Certainly," he said. "You can do a little more each day." So she took hold of her walker and set out. No doubt inspired by her countryman Sir Tom, and urged on by her daughter to go for the marathon distance of 26.2 miles, she and her walker have done 130 laps around her house to raise money for the Thames Valley Air Ambulance. Ah the choices we can make and feats we humans are capable of if we put our mind to it. Bravo Ruth! Click to read more and see the video.

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If you look up in the sky at Mars, now visible in the east to southeastern sky at evening, you can imagine that somewhere in the space between us, a triangular rock roughly the size of the empire state building is orbiting the sun every 1.2 years. That is Comet Bennu, named by a 9-year-old boy for an ancient Egyptian avian deity, in keeping with its visiting spacecraft, Osiris Rex. Scientists speculate that carbon-rich Bennu might have seeded Earth with the building blocks for life. It is remarkable that a small spacecraft launched in 2016 to do reconnaissance of Bennu was able to make a momentary touch-down to take a sample of dirt and rock to bring back to Earth. The work has been described as a labor of love for researchers around the globe who invested years of their lives into the historic mission. “Transcendental,” Dante Lauretta, the principal investigator of the mission, said moments later. “I mean, I can’t believe we actually pulled this off.” So don’t get the mistaken impression that the world has shrunk to ballot boxes and campaign ads. There is still a lot of exciting stuff going on even 200,000,000 miles away.

But plenty of great feats and labors of love go on closer to home. Consider this Chinese couple and the hours-upon-hair-raising-hours they spent in perfecting this acrobatic dance for World's Got Talent. And pity their poor son, standing backstage, holding his breath.

As Covid continues to constrain us, you may find yourself stuck at home again with your mask in the laundry and nothing to do. The idea of standing on point on your partner's head, or being the head that is stood upon, may not appeal, but there is still a form of dancing that you might find simple, relaxing and amusing. I thank Bonnie Spence for this, imported from someone in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Try finger dancing! Or just watch this one and tap your own to the rhythm. It's fun! Watch dancing fingers .

Then there is the world of nature around us to bring us joy with its beauty and endless inspiration for artists. Peggy Fly sent on this lovely piece on Birds in Art. You can feel the love, attention and patience that goes into the pains-taking rendering of each feather and feature. This is exquisite and not to be missed.

From the two-footed to the four-footed, this is for my friend Ari Dickinson. Meet Nora, the polar bear, in "Nora's Second Chance."

"Animal communication - Understanding how animals think and feel" is a beautiful documentary, filmed in France, that explores the question of emotion in animals through an animal communicator who picks up images from their minds and claims to understand them. Whether you believe her or not, you will love the landscape, the people and the animals. If you are an animal lover, and have communicated with one of your own, don't miss it.

Now relationships with four-footed creatures like dogs, cats and horses may not be so unusual. But kinship with invertebrates (i.e. without a spinal column), particularly a marine invertebrate? How likely is that? I have been following Octopus studies and clever creatures like Athena, a lab octopus featured in Sy Montgomery's book The Soul of an Octopus introduced to me by Anthony Hawkesworth. What a lot we have to learn about our fellow creatures! I waited eagerly for the forthcoming documentary on Netflix by a brilliant South African film-maker, Craig Foster. "My Octopus Teacher," the moving story of his relationship with an octopus in the wild, did not disappoint. The underwater photography is stunning. Here is the trailer.

Now a bit of humor from the TV archives. This one's for Rose Tyson: Sid Caesar as the Professor of Archaeology.

I end with an ode to the October that isn't, yet may still be remembered in memory and looked forward to in hope. Warm, yellow October with coronavirus gone. Here is a peaceful version of the Robert Frost poem "The Road Not Taken."

Please take care and be well.

Sheri Ritchlin

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Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.14

10/9/2020

4 Comments

Autumn Yellow

Summer has come and gone, the nights are longer and there is a chill in the air. The yellowing larch trees carry the distinct message of autumn in Montana. Our artists will be gathering tomorrow to share their work at the Brand Bar Museum. I'm sorry that I discovered too late that the format I created for the artists in my last Letter on the computer didn't survive on smart phones, so the images of artists' work floated off on their own. To remedy that, I spent a day learning new tricks to make it work. Please see the new version here by scrolling down to the artists on that page. I am grateful to the Ovando folks who gave me names of other favorite artists, which I have added there: LaVonne Jorgenson's pottery and Andrea Morgan's Rooster Arts.

For the Equinox, I listened to Paul Winter’s Autumn Equinox concert from his barn in Northwestern Connecticut. Traditionally, these seasonal concerts would be held at dawn in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world. Located in Harlem, the building of the Cathedral was begun in 1892 and is still under construction! Master Stonemasons from England trained young apprentices from Harlem to work on the project. My brother Christopher introduced me to this magnificent place many years ago on a visit to NYC. My sister Robin and her family actually showed up at dawn one year to take in the Paul Winter event there in person.

Due to Covid, these concerts are now performed live in Paul Winter’s barn in Northwest Connecticut and available on YouTube. We can attend at any time of day, sans the grand cathedral of course, but here in Montana nature offers cathedrals of its own.

The biggest end-of-summer event in the valley was the 56th Annual Helmville Rodeo, known as “the biggest little rodeo in Montana.” Helmville is our nearby sister town and Ovando families often stretch across both. The town empties out for that event, though less so this summer with many Covid-risk people staying behind. Howie Fly took dozens of excellent photos of the event back in the 1960s, when he was also a participant! We worked together to put them into a video last year and he has given me permission to share it. It’s a fun video with music and the photos capture the skill and daring of the bull and bronc riders. I've uploaded it to YouTube so you can watch it here.

Here is a bit of stray news that you may have missed.

I learned a new word from this article, although I don’t plan on abseiling any time soon. As an English Lit major, I particularly appreciated that the taste in books in the world of organized crime is obviously rising. You can read more here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54209366

As the pandemic drags into its eighth month, people are zooming all over the place. Pricey conferences and concerts have gone virtual and many are free, as well as no room-and-board costs since they come to your living room and you can scrounge your own fridge while watching.

I always appreciate the double-hatted medical professionals who find time to serenade us. The National Virtual Medical Orchestra is an ensemble made up of 50 doctors, nurses, first responders, and medical students from medical orchestras across the country formed in May by John Masko. Some of the orchestra’s musicians are helping to lead the response to the coronavirus, while others have had their specialties virtually shut down by the pandemic.
Here they perform Puccini's Nessun Dorma.

History may not record this ground-roots flowering of talent around the world from living room to living room, but we can let them live on in our own hearts and memories. It is the hidden gold of the pandemic.

Meantime, those irrepressible Cubans are at it again! Making happy music together from different locations in the streets of Havana and around the world. Here they give us a lift with a lively rendition of Guantanamera.

I heard that the annual rummage sale in Downtown Ovando was a success. It reminded me of an afternoon decades ago when my friend Barbara Cross and I decided to go through our boxes stored in their garage in Julian, California. Nobody likes this job so we thought it would be more cheerful if we did it together. We’d open a box each and hold the things up and one would say to the other, “You know, I really like that” or “I really could use one of those!” and at the end of the day there were about the same number of boxes but we had just exchanged everything! A memorable event. A favorite Carol Burnett sketch captures this rummaging perfectly. Here she is with Betty White.

I couldn’t resist making this a double feature with another timely, short sketch that pairs Carol Burnett and Imogene Coca—two great comedians of their day—in “The Candidates Wives.”

My offering of youthful talent comes this week from two Chinese children, ages 10 and 7. They wowed their Talent Show audience with this performance of "You Raise Me up."

Now to all creatures great and small. Capt. Tom Moore, recently knighted, is followed here by an unlikely recipient of another honor, the PDSA Gold Medal, that goes to….are you ready for this?...Mahawa, the hero rat, for his life-saving work in Cambodia detecting landmines. He won’t be knighted by Queen Elizabeth but his work is much appreciated in that country. Since World War II, this organization has honored the contribution of animals, even to this lowly but heroic rodent. Meet Magawa, the HeroRat.

From creatures small to creatures great, you may remember the orca whale mother who mourned her dead calf by carrying it on her nose for 17 days, a thousand miles. The happy news is that she gave birth to a new calf a month ago and it is still alive and well and lively, swimming in the Salish Sea. As a vanishing species, the news was greeted with great celebration by the Canadian researchers who have followed this dwindling group of orcas.

That’s not the only good whale news! A blue whale was sighted off Australia for possibly the third time in 100 years. They are the largest animal on earth, ever! Larger even than the dinosaurs, which keeps them far out to sea where there is ocean space for them to move in. This one is estimated at 82 feet long. A beautiful sight.

If you look up at the evening sky in the southeast, you will see reddish Mars, at the closest it will be until 2035. Bright Jupiter and nearby Saturn shine in the south to southwest during dusk and early evening. They will be in conjunction throughout the Fall. Exactly between them, invisibly, is Pluto.

Blazing in the eastern pre-dawn sky is Venus, just below majestic Leo the Lion. To the upper right of Venus, you can see Leo's brightest star, Regulus.

In 1603, an out of work actor named Thomas Dekker published a pamphlet with a peculiar name: "The Wonderfull Yeare." It was peculiar because it recounted the death of Queen Elizabeth and the second arrival of the plague in London, after its first devastations in 1592. All less than wonderful surely. William Shakespeare lost three siblings to the plague as well as nieces, nephews and fellow actors. But worst of all, he and his wife Anne lost their son Hamnet. This fact is rarely mentioned, but the depth of his suffering in that plague may have led to the power of plays written during and after that time. Once the Globe Theatre reopened, some of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies were performed: “Othello” in 1605, “King Lear” in 1606, “Macbeth” in 1606, and “Anthony and Cleopatra” in 1607.

Fittingly, the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia opens with great care in the midst of the current pandemic to perform "Othello" to an appreciative audience of starved theatre-goers. Here is a glimpse of the project.

For Jazz lovers, I return you to Peter Sprague and his musicians for a concert devoted to the music of the Beatles. I've discovered that the link changes after the live concert so you may have missed the last one with Pat Metheny. It's a treat to get these concerts for free from top rate musicians and get to see a recording studio close up. Now you can play it in the background while you do chores or relax. Hope the link works this time.

In closing, I take you back to a special encore to Paul Winter's Autumn Equinox concert, which leaves us with images of his two horses, Nicky and Lucky. It is beautiful to see creatures running wild and free in this constrained and congested year of 2020. Hope for the future! It is short:

Please take care and be well!

Sheri Ritchlin

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Sheri Ritchlin is a free-lance writer living in Ovando, Montana ~ a town of 50 in the Blackfoot Valley.

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No. 22

New Life and New Eyes

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No. 21

Winter Quiet

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.21

The Rafts Go By

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No. 20

We're Ready!

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.19

Unstuck

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.18

While Bears Sleep

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.17

The Long Winter's Night

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.16

Deck the Halls

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.15

October?

Letter from a Town of 50 ~ No.14

Autumn Yellow

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Deck the Halls

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Autumn Yellow

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The Rafts Go By