Photo journal Helena Capitol

First stop- Office of the Governor. They’re still flying the Israeli flag. Governor Giuanforte probably wanted it in front of the Montana flag not behind, but his publicist said, “Not yet, Greg. Let’s wait until we get those antisemitism laws in place, like South Dakota. Then we’ll just jail them when they complain.”

I asked a couple political types standing along the 2nd floor railing who were the folks on the other side. “It’s a big gathering of the MMA.” I don’t know, but they looked more like young doctors than cage fighters.

Just kidding- gotcha! Actually it’s the Montana Medical Association, here to petition for better health laws and treatment of medical professionals.

Here’s a few of them out on the front steps. Pretty typical cross-section of Montanans:

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These Montana studs may wear white coats and dress shoes and talk medicine on the inside, but out in the Rocky Mountain fresh air, Abdul, Muhammed and Fuad like kickin’ the snow around and talkin’ trucks, guns, and regular fit vs. skinny fit slacks like all typical Montana cowboys.

I asked the two Helena regulars what’s with the big lunch party downstairs.

1st politico-Well, given that they’re eating Jimmy Johns, it doesn’t seem to match the activity on the 2nd floor.

Dan-Except that the medical industry needs the sickly.

2nd politico- Well, that’s true, heh.

Those three boys lower middle were the ones I struck up a conversation with.

I went back downstairs to find out what was going on. They weren’t part of the MMA conference. It was a private school up in Whitefish/Kalispell, on their semi-annual state capitol tour.

-Are you guys in high school?

-Yep.

-Down here on a field trip?

-Yeah, every two years a bunch of us from the school come down to Helena.

I asked about their school and the concept sounded cool. It’s a private Christian school that only meets two days a week! The rest of the week they are schooled at home. The two days at school are for classroom lessons, quizzes and tests, progress checks, and sports and clubs.

-So your mom teaches you when you’re not at school.

-Yeah, mostly. Maybe sometimes dad too. But mostly we study on our own.

They seemed like real nice boys and were happy to talk to this old guy that barged in on their conversation. The only downside was a woman who swooped in to sit across from me and make sure she heard every word of our spontaneous, casual chat. “And who are you?”

-My name’s Dan. I’m just a tourist here in Helena, checking things out. Gonna visit the house session in a bit here.

That’s all she needed. She was friendly enough and could see I was just a nice, harmless guy. But- she just had to play the momma bear card. Sure, she smiled and had already let her guard down, but she had to let me and the world know that she was being diligent about protecting her little cubs. “Well, I just wanted to make sure,” (of what?) “when I saw you sit next to the boys I wanted to make sure, ‘cause…” (‘cause what?).

I don’t know. I think she could have easily just watched my conversation with the boys from a few feet away, made sure I didn’t pull out my AR-15 or battle axe, let the boys fend for themselves in this very public, innocuous situation and then after I leave ask the boys what the strange man was up to. The way she handled it, it told the boys that this certainly is a dangerous world and you can never trust a smiling, greying white guy in a yorkshire flat cap, and we must all be suspicious, and by the way, wasn’t I a great cop there?!

A similar thing happened at Riverside Drug the other day. I was picking up a package and over at the ice cream parlor I saw Stan and Lucy’s kids sitting at a table, enjoying ice cream cones. I’ve known these kids for two and a half years. I’ve babysat them, taken them for hikes, taken them out for hot chocolate, read books to them and done all kinds of fun stuff with them. I went over to say hello and they said Hi Dan and kept eating their ice creams while I asked them some questions and bantered with them a bit. Again, the matronly mother bear had to swoop in. Now, of course the ice-cream lady doesn’t know me and I could be anyone. Plus Stan and Lucy would probably be happy that she would be concerned and careful about their kids and want to keep an eye on strangers. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just that I’d already been talking to the kids for a good half a minute when she came barreling in from behind the ice cream freezer to make her grand stage entrance. The kids were just happily answering my questions and enjoying their treat. She had to make a big show. After I explained how I knew the kids, went to the same church, etc. and all was fine she just couldn’t leave it at that and had to play mama bear and say, “Well, I was gonna say. Here’s a man I don’t know and I’m the type to make sure everything’s OK. I just wanted to check you out, ‘cause you never know. I like to take care of my kiddos. You gotta make sure!”

Lady, everything’s fine! Now SHADDAP!

You see, it’s not the protective, instinctual mama-bear behavior that bothers me so much. It’s the need for such women to have to turn their virtue beacons up to stun level and blind the world with their goodness.

OK, back to the capitol. Here is the house chamber just before the session got started.

The group up in the balcony in red t-shirts is an anti-gun group, protesting against gun violence and demanding reform. I talked to an older one of them in the hallway and she said she had a cousin that got shot “because his friend was playing around with a loaded rifle.” I pried a bit and found out that that had happened 65 years ago. What she wanted was guns in lockers with the key in another part of the house, kind of like they require in Canada.

-Honey, there are a bunch of strange men at the door. I think they’re armed.

-I’ll get the shotgun.

-OK. Do you remember where the key to the gun safe is?

-In the kitchen pantry, right?

-No, that’s for the ammo case. But you’ll need that too. The gun safe key is in the den, bottom drawer of your desk. Now hurry!

Too late. Door crashes open. In come Billy Bob, Tyrone, and Fuad, armed and drugged out of their minds. The fun ensues. Thanks, ladies in red!

I think I spotted Chris Farley’s twin sister among this group:

Soon both sides of the aisle were full. Republicans on the right, democrats on the left, with some Republican spillover occupying the last row and a half on the Dem side. Up front and to the right was Missoula house rep Zooey Zephyr, the Montana-born guy who went to Seattle when he was a young and came back to Montana as a they, or maybe a Xe- I don’t know. Today Xe was the only one on the floor wearing a mask. A huge one at that, worn just below the nose, ignoring the soyence.

Zoodogs series:

There were some semi-interesting bills being debated, and I took notes, so I’ll get to those soon.

Fun fact: Lawyer-poet John Godfrey Saxe said that “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made,” and this may be the true origin of the saying usually attributed to Bismark.