The Billings Free Press

Lots of people have tried to locate the soul in various anatomic structures. Billings cardiac surgeon, Dr Alan Muskett, recently reincarnated as a plastic surgeon, has figured out that at least some of it was hidden in plain sight right from the beginning.

Now that is an Awesome Creator. We humans cannot create a soul, but we can alter its external appearance as Dr Muskett points out in his recent column in the Gazette, wherein he uses a well known mythical animal to illustrate dealing with the difficult problem of rhinophyma, or Big Red Nose.

I grew up in a small village in Wisconsin. One of my neighbors suffered from this condition. He also happened to be a card-carrying alcoholic, so I naturally assumed that the one followed the other and therefore the one caused the other. Not so says Dr Muskett. Well, I owe an apology to Mr Elmer Hackbarth, now late these many years. Sorry Mr H.

Charles Dickens wrote a “little Christmas ghost story” as   quickly as he could in the 1840s because he needed the money. It was an instant success and has had many variations played on its theme of social injustice and poverty using the unlikely redemption of the miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, all in one night, Christmas Eve actually.

Venture Theatre on Montana Ave is doing Tom Mula’s version this Christmas season in which Jacob Marley gets to redeem not only Scrooge but himself as well.

Originally written for one person, this version was expanded to four and now five players, some of the best in town with David Otey playing Marley, Vincent Raye as Scrooge, Daniel Zent as an impish spirit called Bogle, and all the other parts played very well by Nan Edmonds and Tiffany Melia. The set and props are minimal and you have to be familiar with at least one of the more traditional earlier versions in order to understand what’s going on.

All the players had a reasonable English accent. They all did well and Zent played above his pay grade. The pace is very quick, one of the advantages of using the audience’s imagination for much of the action. Not much sentiment, the Cratchits didn’t play much of a part, in fact it was more of a post-modern morality play than the original Victorian. A little slow in starting but the 2nd part just hums. I prefer musical versions of this play but this was a good way of showing off the skills of the players. I saw it Friday night and I liked it. Probably not for young kids.

It’s playing Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, finishing on 21 December. Go see it.

Some notes from last summer, inspired by a recent Gazette article.

Or, if you go here and search on Dehler Field or maybe Dehler Park there will be a half dozen entries about the Field/Park.

I have added the Green Directory Montana to the media page and I asked their CEO to send me a short description of what they’re about.

This is what they sent:

Is your company or organization green? Prove it.
THE ONLY REVOLUTIONARY SUSTAINABILITY BADGE SYSTEM
Green Directory Montana brings customers and businesses together to help make Montana sustainable for future generations.
Businesses, organizations and individuals must meet a minimum of five sustainability requirements (minimum of 3 environmentally focused badges) to be included in the Green Directory. Customers can feel good about shopping the guide, as their purchasing power is used to sustain our community.

We have added an article about Billings Free Press see it here.

Best regards-

Jophiel Silvestrone CEO
Green Directory Montana Inc.
greendirectorymontana.com
(406)208-TREE

Green Directory has been awarded the EcoStar Award for 2008!

Our Philosophy:
One green change alone can’t make the world sustainable overnight, but thousands, and eventually millions of ones will. One drop in a bucket hardly makes a splash, but millions of individual drops make an ocean.

If doing business with green friendly businesses is something you want to do this is a great resource to find them in your area. They aren’t covering the entire state yet, but I’m sure that’s their long term plan.

This would make a great New Year’s resolution for your business or personal shopping.

I can stand and watch other people work for a long time, especially people skilled at what they do, and particularly if they do it with large machines. I was never good with my hands or mechanically inclined as we used to say in the countryside of Wisconsin.

More pictures, from late November, of the new building going up alongside and connected to one of the older buildings on the campus of Rocky Mountain College.

Attend, my people, to my teaching;
listen to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in story,
drawing lessons from of old.
We have heard them, we know them;
our ancestors have recited them to us.
We do not keep them from our children;
we recite them to the next generation.
The praiseworthy and mighty deeds of the Lord,
the wonders that he performed.
God set up a decree in Jacob,
established a law in Israel:
What He commanded our ancestors,
they were to teach their children.
That the next generation might come to know,
children yet to be born.
In turn they were to recite them to their children,
that they too might put their trust in God. . .

—Psalm 78 NAB

Following the psalmist above, Bill McNamer, erstwhile Billings lawyer, legislator and fellow choir baritone at St Patrick’s Co-Cathedral has published a little book for his children and for the rest of us too, Keep The Faith Letters From a Catholic Father.
In addition to a defense of his life, there is a touch of Baltimore Catechism lite, and an invitation to his children to re-invigorate their childhood faith—”The Catholic faith is a thinking person’s faith”—and have another look at the Roman Catholic Church, in which they and their ancestors were conceived, born, baptized, educated and from which as young adults they cannot simply shake off like a dog coming out of the water. Purpose and Meaning and Truth-Seeking are all part of the Catholic deal; McNamer calls on James Joyce to reluctantly say about the Church: “Here comes everybody.” [& every thing too I would add].

There are defenses of this and explanations of that as a lawyerly way of laying the groundwork for his final summation which is the Great Commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Maturity has not blunted his ironic wit: “The sacrament of Reconciliation was formerly known as Confession to you regular sinners. But we don’t hear much about sin and Confession anymore. Somehow, sin has [had] done a [total] makeover so it’s hard to recognize. Or else we’re all getting holier as we grow older.”

In addition to the Scriptures and Blake and Belloc, he has read a lot of the dissenting 20th century scribes of the Church, though he mercifully puts those references into some compact endnotes. This slim book is worth more than a quick read as I found on my second reading. Recommended.

Our glass runneth over

Some of us were giving thanks at Mt Olive on 24th near Billings West High School. Pastor Grunst favored us with his usual excellent sermon: the prescribed mixture of Law and Gospel mixed with irony of course. We cannot converse with each other without irony these days. The main irony today though was a serious non-ironic letter said to be from David Letterman, of late night TV fame. Our cup runneth over is what he said.

There are four long thin stained glass pieces of art in this inviting sanctuary. They are just splendid, the work of Susan Kennedy-Sommerfeld of Billings. Her work can also be seen at St Pius on Broadwater.

Others were playing football at St Thomas on Colton. I saw these folks while walking Maggie the Dog. I think there were a couple of girls playing too so I’m fairly sure it was a game of touch football. Weren’t these guys at Daylis last Saturday playing for real against the Cowboys of Miles City? What a good way to celebrate, working off the feast before it was eaten.

I’ve been keeping my eye on some building going on at Rocky Mt College. Rocky is getting more popular, its student population is growing, and President Michael Mace is doing a great job of expanding his physical plant because of the increasing number of students.

This is some detail of a stone bench in front of a Rocky building previously resuscitated and rehabilitated. Next door, an old building condemned to use as a haunted house at Halloween for some years is now being added to and fixed up. See these pictures from early November.

Remember those peculiar pieces of partly dressed granite that used to sit in front of the Wells Fargo building on 27th St? Well, I wandered out of the Yellowstone Art Museum a few days ago and there they were, adorning a garage on 26th St, perhaps not quite so exposed as they used to be, but just as useful as a resting place for those who need it.

What was that all about anyway?