Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/diversions/page/10/)
I enjoyed some time recently with an old friend who shared memories and photographs of her early childhood on a scratch-gravel South Dakota farm before it even had electricity. The photos in particular elicited powerful memories of my own. I was too young to remember when electricity was installed at my family’s summer place in the mid-1950s. I do recall the day when the much-anticipated telephone service arrived to Hail Columbia Gulch. (more…) Continue Reading →
To look at the lineup for Richard Dreyfest V, a music and arts festival coming up next month, you’d think it was a week-long event. But no, all those bands, artists, comedians, poets and more—60-plus and counting—are going to be performing over just two days at eight venues in downtown Billings. (more…) Continue Reading →
I had total hip replacement surgery in the middle of May, and I figured that if I was anything like my coworker, I’d be back to normal in three weeks, four weeks max. My coworker, who had the same surgery, is 20 years younger and a Special Forces vet. He returned to work a week after his hip replacement, but he later told me that he had made a mistake in coming back so soon and almost passed out numerous times his first week back. (more…) Continue Reading →
On his Facebook page, Bozeman illustrator and author Ted Rechlin describes his new book as an “epic dinosaur adventure graphic novel.” The book is “Jurassic,” recently released by Farcountry Press in Helena, and it concerns the virtually nonstop adventures of a yearling Brontosaurus adrift in a world teeming with dangerous predators. Rechlin said he doesn’t know of anyone else making graphic novels about dinosaurs. (more…) Continue Reading →
BUFFALO, Wyo.—The no-nonsense team captain and accomplished actor raised a pertinent question before the coin flip to determine the home team for this year’s Longmire Days celebrity softball game. A Martinez, the actor who plays Jacob Nighthorse in the Netflix series “Longmire” (and who spells his name like that—“A Martinez”), is proud of his Native American heritage and wondered why it wasn’t obvious that his team in the “Cowboys vs. Indians” contest would be the home team. After all, Indians were here first. (more…) Continue Reading →
As the only foreigner at the table, I was becoming increasingly aware of the semi-suppressed sniggering that was going on among my fellow diners. We were in a Billings restaurant and, in front of me, was a plate of Rocky Mountain Oysters, a dish that had been highly recommended to me by the assembled company. I’d never heard of it, but even in my ignorance I suspected that there was more than a hint of the euphemistic in the title. Nothing I could see on the plate looked like seafood. Nothing I could see on the plate looked like it had bobbed around on the beds of the Atlantic or Pacific oceans, and it was hard to imagine this stuff producing anything even remotely similar to a pearl. Continue Reading →
It’s pretty exciting when big-name stars make appearances in Montana: Elton John, Paul Simon, Garth Brooks and the like. But it’s not as unusual as today’s press might make it appear. While we may seem “out of the way” to folks back East, Montana has a long history of drawing the latest fads, entertainment, attractions and big-name talent. (more…) Continue Reading →
I have lived in Billings since 1989. I have covered the city of Billings as a reporter for more than 20 years. And a few days ago, I finally toured the Moss Mansion. How can that be? Preston Boyd Moss, who built the imposing red-stone mansion at 914 Division St., had a hand in just about everything that mattered in early Billings. Continue Reading →
Trent Inderland is looking forward even more keenly than usual to a bluegrass concert in Billings next week. Inderland, vice president and concert coordinator for the Yellowstone Bluegrass Association, is excited partly because the group that’s playing July 7 is the Gibson Brothers band, winner of numerous awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association and veteran of the Grand Ole Opry. (more…) Continue Reading →
Driving back to Billings from Great Falls on Wednesday, I took a long detour. I was in the mood for back roads, for one thing, and I specifically wanted to see the one-room schoolhouse—right next door to a nuclear missile silo—that I’d visited in 1999. That visit was part of the week-long journey I made with photographer David Grubbs, driving from Yaak to Alzada on unpaved roads and then writing up our experiences for the Billings Gazette. (more…) Continue Reading →
