Cowflops and Cowtowns

A little more than ten years ago, I moved from the Philadelphia area, population 6 million, to Denver to become the Philadelphia Inquirer’s national correspondent for the Rocky Mountain West.

Only a few weeks after the move, I found myself in Jordan, Montana, population about 400. 

This was before the standoff with the anti-government Freemen, so the town had yet to nearly double in size with an influx of people just like me. That meant, thank God, there was no one around to hear when I asked one of the residents what those low, clumpy bushes out in the fields were.

There was a long silence.  “Sagebrush,” he said finally.

Or worse yet, when — wanting to give Philadelphia readers an idea of the vastness of the area — I asked someone how big his ranch was.

The silence was longer this time and accompanied by an icy stare.  “We don’t ask people that here,” he said. 

At least I didn’t order a microbrew at the Hell Creek Bar.  There, people lined up shots and beers – Miller Genuine Draft —  for me. If I wanted interviews, first I had to drink. I don’t remember much about that night except walking back to my motel room in the snow. The temperature was well below zero. I was colder than I had ever been in my life. Some guy followed me back from the bar and pounded on my door, which had no lock. I piled my suitcase and whatever moveable furniture I could find against it, and held my aching head and wondered why I had ever left the sweet familiarity of Philadelphia. In Philly, I carried money in my pocket in case I was mugged, crunched crack vials beneath my running shoes on my nightly jog, and knew better than to call the insurance company to replace the vent window whenever somebody broke into my car.

Street smarts? Those I had.  And they were absolutely useless in a place where most of the streets weren’t even paved, where cell phones didn’t work, and where once, when I asked to use someone’s bathroom, I was ushered outside to a tastefully appointed two-seater (padded toilet seats, one pink, the other blue, and a magazine rack on the wall).

Rural reporting was going to require a whole new set of skills.

Gwen Florio, who decided she like tiptoeing through the cowflops, is now the Capitol bureau chief for the Great Falls Tribune.