There's life in the old town yet!
August 31, 2020
Here was a cheerful message from our Town Crier, Kathy Schoendorfer, that arrived in mid-August of this Pandemic Summer:
Here was a cheerful message from our Town Crier, Kathy Schoendorfer, that arrived in mid-August of this Pandemic Summer:
And come they did! A reminder that Cabin Fever isn't terminal.
First an update: Our 99 year old friend Capt. Tom Moore (he is 100 now) was indeed knighted by the Queen for raising 38 million pounds for health workers by walking 100 laps in his small backyard. He had expressed the hope that she wouldn’t be too heavy with the sword on his aged shoulders, but she also has age in her 90-some-year-old shoulders so she pulled it off with royal aplomb. Congratulations Sir Tom!
For many people in other parts of the US and the world (this letter has reached Argentina, Israel, Korea, Taiwan, China, India, Italy, Germany, France, Ireland, Switzerland and Finland among other places. Welcome!), Montana is a Far Off Place. But apparently it wasn’t always that way. It was a go-to place for dinosaurs some hundred million years ago. North America's first identified dinosaur remains were found in Montana in 1854, near Judith Landing in the Missouri River Breaks National Monument.
The only human remains from the prehistoric Clovis Culture, over 12,000 years old, were found in 1968 on the Anzick Ranch in the Shields River Valley, 175 miles from Ovando. DNA revealed that his family were the ancestors of 80% of all native groups in North and South America. The remains of another child were later found nearby from the same period. At the time, the Anzick Boy was the oldest human found in North America, but the remains of a people from 13,000 years ago have since been found in Idaho. Not so far away.
In the photo below, Sarah Anzick and her family are about to rebury the remains of the Clovis children. Around them are members of tribes from Washington, Oregon and Montana.
The only human remains from the prehistoric Clovis Culture, over 12,000 years old, were found in 1968 on the Anzick Ranch in the Shields River Valley, 175 miles from Ovando. DNA revealed that his family were the ancestors of 80% of all native groups in North and South America. The remains of another child were later found nearby from the same period. At the time, the Anzick Boy was the oldest human found in North America, but the remains of a people from 13,000 years ago have since been found in Idaho. Not so far away.
In the photo below, Sarah Anzick and her family are about to rebury the remains of the Clovis children. Around them are members of tribes from Washington, Oregon and Montana.
| |  | Now Montana has a new claim to an ancient past and this was a surprise out of left field! Not old bones but Dusty Crawford from the Blackfeet Reservation who fulfilled his Uncle’s dying wish that he get a DNA test. CRI genetics traced his line back 55 generations with a 99 percent accuracy rate. Very rare because the ancestry often is clouded that far back. It was, they told him, like finding Bigfoot, it was so unlikely. |
It has long been assumed that all Native Americans originally crossed a land bridge that existed in the past between Siberia and Alaska. But Crawford's DNA story suggests his ancestors came from the Pacific, possibly from Polynesia, traveled to the coast of South America and then traveled north. In technical language, he's part of MtDNA Haplogroup B2, which has a low frequency in Alaska and Canada and originated in Arizona about 17,000 years ago!
I have been following the career of the young Russian piano prodigy Elisey Mysin, whom I introduced to you a few letters ago. At the time of that performance, his feet didn’t reach the pedals, but here is a current update. His feet DO reach the pedals as he plays a Mozart piece for 4 hands with young Ivan Bessonov. You will see that he is still, well… a little boy, whose playing is extraordinary, not to mention the acrobatics. Do watch!
I have been following the career of the young Russian piano prodigy Elisey Mysin, whom I introduced to you a few letters ago. At the time of that performance, his feet didn’t reach the pedals, but here is a current update. His feet DO reach the pedals as he plays a Mozart piece for 4 hands with young Ivan Bessonov. You will see that he is still, well… a little boy, whose playing is extraordinary, not to mention the acrobatics. Do watch!
We have seen musical performances go virtual with technical feats but I want to show you what the Radius Gallery in Missoula has done to offer a virtual experience of art. It takes a while to get the hang of it, but you can move through the gallery at your own speed and click on works to move them closer into view. You can even go up the stairs to take in the exhibit on the second floor as if you were there! Enjoy their current exhibit of the Peace of Wild Things. I thank my friend Martha Swanson for introducing me, in person, to this fine gallery. Click on the link below.
https://www.radiusgallery.com/virtual-tour-july-31-2020/
Speaking of art, Ovando has a surprising number of talented artists. Here is just a partial list with links to websites that will give you an even better idea. Some of their work appears at the Blackfoot Store, like Brady Stone's metal art, and the Blackfoot Angler. In some cases, if the time is right, you can visit their studios. Call first to be sure.
https://www.radiusgallery.com/virtual-tour-july-31-2020/
Speaking of art, Ovando has a surprising number of talented artists. Here is just a partial list with links to websites that will give you an even better idea. Some of their work appears at the Blackfoot Store, like Brady Stone's metal art, and the Blackfoot Angler. In some cases, if the time is right, you can visit their studios. Call first to be sure.
  Dona and Gary Aitken - Discoveries in Wood http://discoveriesinwood.com/  | |
| |  Jan Farrar - Middle Earth Pottery https://ovandomontana.net/middle_earth_pottery.html |
| |  |
| |  Tim Swanberg - Custom Cabinetry https://ovandomontana.net/tim_swanberg.html |
| |  Angela Bennett watercolors hlm5804@blackfoot.net |
| |  Cabin Fever Originals - Jewelry by Angela Williams https://app.mt.gov/madeinmontana/Business/Details/9966   |
Those following these letters will know that I am always looking for some of the myriad examples of human resourcefulness, humor and imagination in the time of COVID. From Clara Igonda in Pasadena comes yet another scene that brings a smile: This one from Barcelona.
A World-Class Opera House in Spain Reopened With a Concert for Thousands of Potted Plants
2,292 plants were on hand to watch UceLi Quartet perform Puccini's "Cristantemi."
Or there is the boy who used his unique talent of solving the Rubik's cube in record time while on a pogo stick (I kid you not) to raise money for people suffering from COVID.
Now here's something to make you tap your feet in a happy way. You can do it at home in any room without a rug (kitchen, bathroom, basement?) or just sit and watch these people do the work for you.
This made me think of the terrific dancers I grew up with from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to Judy Garland, Shirley Temple and Gene Kelly. It was the heydey of American music and dance films. I found a medley of dances from that era to music NOT from that time, but it works.
In August, a double miracle: National Zoo's Great Panda Mei Xiang finally gave birth--a much celebrated event for this endangered species and especially for this 22 year-old Panda. The second miracle is that nature would have such an enormous mother give birth to such a tiny creature. The babe is the size of a hairless mouse and Mama is challenged to get hold of it safely. The tiny thing seems to be all lungs, so what you can't see you can certainly hear.
If you have teenage children you are trying to teach at home or just want something to share together as a family or enjoy alone, I highly recommend the splendid offerings of literature and drama provided at Intelligence Squared. This one is for lovers of Shakespeare and Milton-- especially for Becca Cross, who has played Cordelia in a production of King Lear, and JJ Wilson, retired professor of English at Sonoma State University. Well-known actors deliver snippets from each author with extraordinary and moving skill at their craft, bringing the works stirringly alive. If you like this format, they also do Dickens and Tolstoy, Jane Austen and Emily Bronte among others. Very rich stuff indeed. I highly recommend it.
I end on a peaceful, wordless note with another great creature of the deep, the giant manta ray. It is in gentle interaction with a human diver, freeing it from the tangle of a fishing line while also giving us breath-taking pictures of this strange and silent underwater world.
Be well,
Sheri Ritchlin
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