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Oh, I’ll Never Leave Montana Brother by Dr. John F. Miller DDS
Effects of Screen Time on Adult Sleep That was the title of the article that appeared before me. I chose not to investigate any further. I was confident that my current habits were contradictory to the author’s recommendations. Just one more thing that’s going to kill me... sooner. So I continued scrolling my Facebook feed in bed as is my nightly routine after tucking in all the kiddos. Then, wedged between the meme’s, hashtags, and emoji’s a lone status rose into view. It was the status of my senior class president announcing that on this day 18 years ago we graduated from high school in 1999 (RIP Prince). Meaning that we were crossing the threshold of time signifying our being out of school longer than we were in school. I threw it back to 1999; let’s keep it there for a minute. I grew up in very close-knit community in Northern Arizona. The type of place that was so small that everyone was considered a neighbor and treated as such. Now, in addition to it being very small, there were a lot of Miller’s there, a lot. In fact, sometimes just for fun my High School Basketball Coach would start 5 Miller boys just to mess around with the announcer. I often joke that I couldn’t date any of the young ladies in town seeing as they were most likely a relative of some kind.
generic title of “Miller Party.” I don’t get home as often as I would like but if I could only make it home for one day I would want it to be Sunday so I could be present for this event. The central activity is the playing of Rook, a team based card game, while the periphery contains pick-up basketball games and the churning of homemade ice cream. It was here that I sat at the feet of my Great Grandparents, slung Rook cards with my Grandma and Grandpa, snickered at my crazy Aunt’s and their deafening laughter, and bonded with my many cousins.
Every Sunday at 4:30 pm there was and still is a gathering of Miller’s. This affair has the
While these parties continue to this day, the majority of Sunday afternoons find me here, in
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Northwest Montana, with my small family. I didn’t stand a chance to be honest. I was exposed to the beauty of the Flathead Valley at a young age and spent time here every summer. I recall Norman Maclean’s description of Montana from A River Runs Through It, “It was a world with dew still on it, more touched by wonder and possibility than any I have since known.” Now, not to be so dramatic but I was also quite taken by Montana and I knew it would one day be "Home." It should be obvious at this point that I’m feeling quite sentimental. We moved here in June six years ago. We were scared as we no