It takes me less than a half hour to clear away the accumulations that have been building all day. I’ll probably have to come out again later, but I won’t mind.
At lunch, I dine on a Banquet beef enchilada meal. I have missed breakfast in all of my sleeping, and my medication has been pushed off until now. I’m a little off when I finally take it—not light-headed but definitely aware that something is not quite right in my system. As I sit and shovel forkfuls of Spanish rice into my mouth, I can feel the medication take root, and my unease drifts away.
My father has made the front page of the Billings Herald-Gleaner again, under the headline “Stanton denounces Big Sky EDA board.”
Yellowstone County commissioner Ted Stanton, at odds with fellow commissioners and other members of the Big Sky Economic Development Agency advisory board since his pick for director fell through, criticized the panel Wednesday and signaled that the county faces a battle “for the soul” of its economic future.
“I think the voters and the businesspeople of this region are going to have to take a hard look at this group,” Stanton said in an interview at his office. “I think when people really get into the meat of it, they’re going to see that they’ve been underserved here. Yellowstone County deserves better.”
The “meat,” according to Stanton, is a series of decisions that have “stunted” economic growth in the county. Among them, he said, is the failed Promenade project that had been slated for the West End and would have brought approximately ninety retail stores in an outdoor, urban-style setting. Backers of the project pulled out last month, citing a contracting economy, but Stanton maintains that Yellowstone County officials and the Big Sky EDA failed to come through with a promised package of tax incentives.
Stanton said his criticism of the board is unrelated to the candidacy of a friend, Dave Akers, for the economic development agency’s director job. Akers, considered the front-runner for the job, was dropped from consideration after being arrested on suspicion of drunk driving two weeks ago.
“The way Dave was dealt with is emblematic of how the board works,” Stanton said. “But it’s immaterial to what’s hurting development in this county.”
Fellow commissioner Rolf Eklund was skeptical of Stanton’s claims.
“Everybody knows what Ted’s problem is,” said Eklund, who frequently spars with Stanton in county meetings. “He’s never made much of an effort to hide his agenda.”
To be sure, Stanton has long been a divisive—but also beloved—figure on the Yellowstone County political scene…
Always needing a fight, my father seems to have found one. Perhaps that will put an end to the one he’s having with me, at least for a while. I can always hope. I prefer facts.
After lunch, I step into the bedroom and consider the clothes I bought yesterday.
First, as I had determined, I need to try them all on and make sure everything is in order.
This takes a while, among all the slipping out of my work clothes, shimmying into the new items, looking myself over in the full-length mirror on my closet door, then shedding one set of new clothes for another.
The fits are all good, and the clothes hang nicely on a body that I know has gone doughy, especially in my thirties. At one point, I step forward to the mirror and press my face up close. A face changes imperceptibly day to day, but on close examination, I can see what has happened through the years. The creases across the bridge of my wide, flat nose are starting to deepen. My eyes are crinkling at the corners. My hair, which has been thinning at the temples for years, has turned gray on the sides.
I am beginning to look my age.
At 3:02 p.m., I hear the rap-rap-rap of knuckles against the front door. I’ve been in the computer room, reading up on Bobby Troup, one of Jack Webb’s ensemble players. (Did you know that he wrote the theme song for Route 66? I didn’t.)
I take the five steps to the front door and fling it open. Standing there on the front porch are Kyle and his mother, bundled up and beckoning me outside. Behind them, on the sidewalk leading up to the front door, is the Blue Blaster.
Donna Middleton and I are sitting on the front lawn, on folding chairs I dragged out of the garage. With the snow shovel, I’ve built a mound of loose snow in the middle of the sidewalk. The house I live in is the second to last one in the 600 block of Clark Avenue, and Kyle and the Blue Blaster are on the sidewalk at the corner of Clark and Seventh Street W., where the 700 block begins.
“Are you ready?” he shouts down to us.
Donna starts pumping her right fist in a forward-and-back motion and chants, “Go! Go! Go! Go!”
I pump my right fist in unison but do not chant.
Kyle settles into the Blue Blaster’s seat, and then he starts pedaling furiously, his piston-like legs driving the glorified tricycle to a high speed. When he connects with the pile of snow, it’s like a frozen explosion, the powdery snow blowing out in all directions.
“Awesome!” Kyle yells.
“Do it again,” I say as I get up, grab the shovel, and start rebuilding the snow pile while Kyle wheels the Blue Blaster around and goes back to the corner.
Soon, his mother and I are chanting and fist pumping as Kyle blasts through another mound.
“I know what,” Kyle says. “I’m going to ride around the block, and you guys make snowballs and try to hit me as I go by.”
Donna fixes her boy with a wicked grin. “You’re going down.”
“No, you are,” Kyle yells, and he and the Blue Blaster light out of there.
Donna and I drop to our knees in the front yard, scrounging up snow and forming it into perfectly round projectiles. As Kyle rounds the corner and bears down on us, we start flinging snowballs at him. A few connect, but mostly we miss, sending little snow skid marks across the sidewalk. He really is fast on that thing.
While Kyle wheels around the block for another pass, I have an idea. I slip over to the side of the house, where the snow is a little deeper from my neighbor’s shoveling, and I mold a few snowballs. Perhaps if Kyle doesn’t see where they’re coming from, he’ll be easier to tag.
I see him round the corner and come down the straightaway, and I cock my arm back, try to time my throw, and then let it go.
The snowball crashes against the back of Donna Middleton’s head, spraying snow on her shoulders.
She pivots and faces me, her jaw slack.
I look back at her and want to say I’m sorry, but my mouth moves only a little and forms no words.
And then she throws a snowball at me, which explodes against my buttoned-up coat.
She starts laughing, and I throw one back. Now she’s taking evasive action, running erratically in loops around the yard as I give chase. Kyle has left the Blue Blaster, and he’s chasing her, too. We’re throwing snowballs and chasing and laughing, and I cannot remember the last time I did any of these things.
That’s not true. I can remember.
In November 1974, when I was five years old, my father took me on a business trip. We flew from Billings down to Denver on a Saturday—I remember the day clearly because there was no school, and it was the weekend before Thanksgiving. When we landed in Denver, my father hailed a cab that took us to a downtown hotel. It had been snowing in Denver, and downtown was mostly dead on a weekend. The gray of the day and the snow combined to give downtown Denver an eerie sort of pallor (I love the word “pallor”), one that was both appealing and a little creepy. After dinner, my father and I went outside and built a snowman on a deserted street corner, then pelted it with snowballs. It was fun.