Dillon, Montana, 1967

I graduated from Beaverhead County High School in Dillon Montana during the Vietnam War.  Actually, many people asserted that the war had never been declared, that it was an “illegal war.”  I don’t know about that.  Denny Blouin, instructor in English at the University of Montana,” said that.  I overheard him when I audited one of his lectures held on the lawn at the University probably the next year, in 1968.

I went from Dillon to Missoula, my former home town, to attend the University of Montana.  I majored in Journalism.  Journalism was sweet.  The dean was Nathaniel Blumberg, a charismatic figure who taught the history and principles of journalism.  Nathaniel was enamored of a Canadian thinker and writer, Marshall McLuhan, who preached a hard-to-understand gospel that the medium is the massage.  Something about messages being printed on egg yolks.  My take home was that I needed to write Nathaniel a 10 page paper on the weekly news magazine, “Weekly News and World Report.”

Those were years of our youth.  As such, remembered only foggily and without much precision.  I do remember a weekly rock and roll band performance at the Student Union Cafeteria on Fridays.  I think it was called, “Fridays at four,” and the band was credible until it tried to play “Baby Light My Fire,” by the Doors.  Turns out you can’t just fake the fancy organ solo introduction.  I remember the well-deserved derisive laughter.  The other thing I remember is that someone changed the menu board:  it advertised “grilled cunt.”