History Channel's "Strange Rituals: Forbidden Sex" on TV Last Night; Also the TLC Show

So it was ironic that I was commenting yesterday on doing the TV show for TLC as a significant part of the last decade. I posted a link to the blog on my Facebook.

Later in the evening, an old friend from high school said they saw me on TV. I was confused and made some inquiries. TLC was showing a Forbidden Love marathon – exactly like they did last New Year, including the episode with my family. Twice.

We were sitting down to a ham dinner for New Year’s Eve when we found out. It was strange to realize that as we were sitting there, people all across the nation were watching us on TV while we ate.

Temple shook her head. “It’s like beating a dead horse!” she said. “How many times can they show that program? They need to come up with some new material.”

My daughter Sophie was out babysitting for the night. We looked at each other. It has only been recently since she has stopped being angry about being on the show (and so prominently featured). What would she think about being on again?

Several of my friends watched the show and commented about it to me. A high school friend said this about it:

“So Holy Hell Moroni - I hid the remote and would not let my husband surf during commercials lest I miss your segment and my husband says "um, you're really into this polygamy show, uuuh, do you want another woman in this house?", with this total look of confusion and a little bit of terror. I laughed soooooo hard, I almost peed myself, so thanks for that :) Guess I forgot to mention that I knew you hehe...”

To make matters more interesting, Temple got a text from her sister-in-law. There was a show called “Strange Rituals: Forbidden Sex” starting on History Channel within a few minutes. In the description of the show, it said (among other things): “In modern Arizona, the Jessop family continues to practice Mormon polygamy, at the constant risk of arrest.”

I knew what this was about. After Dawn left, Pascal – the director – stayed for an extra day, along with the cameraman and the sound guy. When Pascal was asked to shoot the show for Dawn Porter, he had a conflicting project he was working on. The compromise was that he could shoot an extra day worth of footage for a project he was working on for History Channel.

He told me that it would air sometime in January, 2009, and when it didn’t, I thought that the project had died. Apparently not. It aired twice last night as well.

I liked the way that shoot went. I was asked a lot of the same questions, but I felt like I answered them a lot better. It was also a lot more relaxed.

I didn’t get a chance to see it, but I was on the phone with my good friend Becca in Texas while she watched it. I could hear most of it on the phone. For the first segment, they focused on interviewing Martha and Temple. This pleased them, because they were none too pleased when their interviews got cut from the TLC show.

The second segment showed a little bit with me. And then they showed the infamous confrontation between me and my neighbor when he came up the hill and started yelling at me! They blurred out his face, and they kind of put an incorrect spin on it, that he was a neighbor with a chip on his shoulder because we are polygamists.

Becca commented: “BTW, they didn't mention what you told me about the neighbor... just showed him asking what you were doing up there while you walked down the hill reminding him he was actually on your property… *snicker* They blurred out his face and made him seem like a paranoid neighbor in general…”

There was a time when I was embarrassed by this exchange. Now I think it is kind of funny.

I only hope I have a chance to see this show. Just when you think it’s over…

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The Past Decade - It's a Wrap!

New Years is always a time for me to get contemplative. I always make a brief commentary on the previous year in my journal. I thought it would be a good time to do it here:

2000
1. Really my first year in plural marriage, because when the New Year hit (along with its phony Y2K scare) I had only been practicing polygamy for 4 months.
2. So this was really an adjustment year for me.
3. Spent my honeymoon in January in Phoenix with Temple while she miscarried

2001
1. Started getting used to having a plural marriage
2. My daughter Sara born the same day the first Lord of the Rings movie came out. (Hey that was a big deal to me.)

2002
1. My son Aidan was born.
2. My dad died. (Very significant and life-shaping event for me.)
3. I am diagnosed with diabetes. (Another life-shaping event.)

2003
1. Why don’t I remember much of this year?

2004
1. I start feeling driven to defend and discuss plural marriage on the Internet (in place of trying to find wives on the net the previous few years).
2. Siobhan and Alex are born.
3. I travel to Kentucky on a missionary trip – the first of several.
4. I quit my job of 9 years as a social worker with the State of Arizona.
5. I take a construction job in Connecticut.

2005
1. I spend three months working in Connecticut
2. I spend four months working in San Diego.
3. I am laid off in the summer and resort to odd jobs for the rest of the year.
4. I am very active on the Internet.
5. Missionary trips to California, Utah and Missouri

2006
1. Missionary trips to Utah, California, Missouri, Florida, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and New Zealand. Some more than once.
2. There is a sad division in our community.
3. My daughter Jerusha is born.

2007
1. Back to construction – I work most of the year in Tucson, Pittsburgh, and Vegas.
2. I have the most spiritual experience of my life.
3. I am contacted by Incubator TV.

2008
1. I work in Albuquerque for a month
2. I am accosted by Channel 3 in regard to my brother’s divorce.
3. I contact a former member of Incubator TV in regard to how to deal with the media.
4. We negotiate and Dawn Porter comes and films a segment with us in April, 2008.
5. The next day, Texas raids the YFZ Ranch.
6. I start this blog. Lol
7. I travel on the fair circuit at the end of the year.
8. Dawn Porter: The Polygamist’s Wife airs on C4 in the UK in October.
9. The show airs as Forbidden Love: Polygamy on TLC in December.
10. My son Avery is born.

2009
1. I travel to South Carolina and work there for 3 months.
2. My son Israel is born.
3. I spend the summer in Montana on the fair circuit.
4. I develop DVT in my left leg while I am there.
5. I spend a month and a half bedridden.
6. I return to South Carolina to work for a few weeks.

A FEW RECENT DETAILS
1. Temple and I just had our 10 year anniversary – 10 years as a polygamist.
2. Martha and I shared our 17th anniversary.
3. My oldest daughter Sophie just turned 16. Getting old, man!
4. A mountain lion was prowling around our house a few weeks ago. We were gone at the time, but I’m sure it was watching us. The kids now don’t go out alone when playing or doing their chores.
5. I am now wearing special medical compression socks to treat my DVT. They are like pantyhose. Now all I need are heels.

Happy New Year, everyone!

French Reporters & Class Reunions

Okay, here are a few updates:


LEG

Regrettably, I am still suffering from Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). I spent the entire month of September in bed with my leg propped up on a pillow. The pain diminished, and the swelling went down. At the beginning of October, thinking that my leg must be better, I ventured out to work at another fair in Willcox, Arizona. The drive alone caused my leg to balloon up again with edema.

That is how the month of October has been. I am feeling much better, but every time I try to get around normally, my leg winds up putting me back to bed. The doctor says that it could take up to six months before I am totally over this. I am spending a lot of time reading. But there is no TV watching, because the generator decided to spit out a valve. There is also no writing, because my laptop was sitting in a corner, collecting dust after taking a dump in Montana.

Thank God for my BlackBerry, otherwise I might have gone insane.

BUT… I did recently repair my computer, which is why I am able to blog on this fine Sunday morning.


CLASS REUNION

Last year, I missed my 20 year class reunion. Ten years previous, I had gone to my reunion where I almost won the “Most Changed” award. (I wasn’t always this fat.) When the 20 year reunion rolled around, I seriously considered going, but there was a fair going on that weekend. I was faced with the choice of: 1. Going to my reunion and spending money, or 2. Working the fair and earning money. Obligation to my family won out over nostalgia.

Several months ago, the Class of 89 announced that, in lieu of a 20 year reunion, they would have a reunion with FIVE classes, encompassing 1985 through 1990. Such an event is unheard of, and only a once in a lifetime event. I promised myself I would go.

I have spent the last several weeks listening to 80s music, looking at old pictures, etc. I have really been looking forward to the reunion. I have really been thinking of those days when I grew up in Casa Grande. It seems as if the young people in that community were very close knit. I have been thinking about the people I knew and associated with. This has been enhanced by my participation on social networks like Facebook. I have recently connected with many old friends there and have pleased that they have not been lost to me in the haze of the decades.

But also, I think I liked myself a bit better back then. Certainly in some ways, I was more of a dumb ass. But I was edgier, more laissez-faire, more devil-may-care. I wasn’t hampered by the mistakes of life. I wasn’t dulled by health issues or tamed by domestic responsibilities. Don’t get me wrong. I am still the same person. But there are a few moments when I look at myself and ask, “What the hell happened?”

So as I prepared for my class reunion, I looked at the few clothes in my closet and wondered what I would wear. My wives speculated which one of them would go. Long had I entertained a fantasy of walking into a reunion with a wife on each arm. But I made it clear to my wives – none of them would go. After having been on TV, I didn’t want to make a spectacle of myself. I would be going alone.

So last night was my reunion. I didn’t go. And here is why…


66 MINUTES

At the end of September, as I lay in bed with my illness, I frequently wondered how in the hell I was going to provide for my family. I couldn’t work. My wife Temple was pounding the pavement, looking for a job. I prayed for an opportunity to come my way.

Then one afternoon, I got a phone call. I looked at the Caller ID to see way more numbers than the standard ten digits. Definitely an international call. I stared at the strange number and wondered whether I should answer it. I decided not to. A minute later, the phone rang again, and I decided to take a chance and answer it.

It was a reporter.

In the days after our show with Dawn Porter, it seemed as if I was being contacted left and right for similar opportunities. A company that produced reality programs wanted to come into our home, another British production company wanted to send a woman to live with us for one month, and someone even pitched me for Survivor. But it has been five months since anyone had contacted me.

I had thought that the proverbial fifteen minutes promised to me by Andy Warhol were over (although Dawn Porter had only given us ten minutes.) It seems I was wrong.

It was a journalist named Morgane from France. She represented a program called “66 Minutes”, and she wanted to come into our home to film us. Already it sounded better than our previous venture. Dawn Porter was a brightly-colored flower set in the middle of the simple peasants. Morgane would not be on camera. It would just be her and her cameraman, and she would ask us questions. But it would not be so much an interview as it would be filming us interacting with each other – such as filming Martha and Temple cooking in the kitchen together.

I told Morgane how the girls would not be keen to do another show, because their interviews had been cut from the previous program. They were still a bit miffed about that.

“Actually, we are more interested in filming them,” she responded. “We want to see this from a woman’s point of view.”

Mmmm. Not bad…

“If you are looking for polygamists where the women wear pioneer dresses and the men wear button-up shirts, then you would be better off going to Centennial Park,” I told them. “There is nothing stereotypical about me or my family. We don’t fit the idea of what people think polygamists look like.”

“Actually, it is our goal to show that there is no stereotype that fits polygamists,” she said. “They are just normal people.”

I am liking this more and more. Now for the coup de grace…

I explain to her how I kind of made my daughter Sophie participate in the last shoot, and that she had had a hard time with it. I understood the desire of a journalist to get the opinion of a teenage girl on the topic of polygamy. As valuable as I think Sophie’s opinion is, I was not going to force her to go through this again.

“I won’t make her do another shoot,” I said. “I am going to let her make the decision.”

“That’s fine,” said Morgane. “She does not have to participate. We can even digitally alter the footage so that it will blur out her face.”

Sounds good.

I took a couple of days to discuss it with the wives. Neither of them was pleased. They did not relish the thought of bringing the media into our home again. But things are tough. We did not get paid much for doing the last show. But we did get paid a little. This was ultimately the factor that made us decide to go ahead with it. It would be nice to get a little chunk of change at the end of October when we have very little in the spare change department.

As I have said before, I am such a whore. Would I drag my family in front of the cameras again for a few shekels? Hell, yes, I would.

I contacted Morgane and let her know that we would do the program. We set the date for Saturday, October 24. I was leaving Friday, October 23 open, because I at least wanted to attend my class reunion.

But we would do things a little bit different. We got such backlash from our friends and family that we decided to NOT tell anybody. It was really painful to experience the derision and disapproval of people close to me. So, in short, I would tell them squat about my plans. The day of the shoot, they would see a strange house parked at my house, but they would not know why until it was all over. It would be “none of their damn business”, as they say.


I’M NOT A WHORE

At the urging of my wives, I shot off an email to Morgane about how much they intended to pay us. It would be nice to have a dollar amount. The response I got was surprising:

“I do not know how it is in US but we never pay for interviews. It is against the principle of journalism, otherwise I pay you and you tell me what I want to hear. So I am sorry but it is not possible.”

At first, I thought she was surely pulling my leg. But I have a couple of friends in Belgium who are journalists. I emailed them, and one of them wrote back and told me this:

“I'm afraid your friend is wrong and that you won't get money for being part of a news story. When we're reporting on a story, we never pay the persons we interview, at least in Belgium and France. There are exception, like in the UK, where they pay to get exclusive interviews, but it's a totally different situation here.”

I went back and gave the girls this news. “I have NO DESIRE to do any show unless there is money involved,” I told them. “I’m not going through any of that unless there is some sort of compensation. We are not doing this show.”

But that night, I was bothered by my response. I couldn’t sleep. I thought about my love for their French language and my love of the French people. Ever since I was a small child, I wanted to learn French. For two dollars, I bought a small booklet on the French language from a grocery store. I took four years of high school French. I went to Belgium as an exchange program, and I volunteered for the same exchange program for six years, taking Belgian students all over Arizona. I taught French for five years for various continuing education programs. I worked for Holiday Inn as a French reservation agent.

What if the whole reason I felt driven to learn French was for this? Who better to represent Mormon polygamy to the French than me??

I emailed Morgane two days later and agreed to have her come into our phone for free.

The next step was to take Sophie aside and tell her our plans. A relative recently had told me that Sophie had mentioned in confidence how much my decision to make her do an interview had hurt her. I would not make her do it again. As predicted, she did not want to participate. So we arranged for her to be somewhere else that day.


THE QUEENS OF CLEAN & THE NO-SHOW

Three days before the shoot, we started cleaning the whole house. We bought supplies. We scrubbed the walls and doors. We organized the shelves. We got on each other’s nerves, because the cleaning was not happening as fast as we would have liked. It became obvious that we were not going to be done on time for the shoot.

So I made a tough decision. I decided not to go to my class reunion the day before the shoot. The plan had been – drive to my reunion and attend the mixer, drive home all night and be ready for the shoot. I did this, because the girls really needed my help with the cleaning. It was a hard decision. I had really been looking forward to the reunion and seeing all my friends. But this was more important.

As the date grew closer, I was concerned that I had not heard from Morgane. So I emailed her. She didn’t respond. I told my wives that the French crew was probably going to be a no show. We were all immensely relieved. But a couple of days before the shoot, I got an email. Everything was on schedule.

The cleaning continued. The day before the shoot, Morgane called me from San Diego. The crew was in the States already. She asked if we could move the interview to Sunday, instead of Saturday. I agreed. Although I was a little annoyed. I could have gone to my class reunion after all. I asked Morgane if we could go over the schedule. When should we expect them? What could we expect? She was actually quite anxious to get off the phone.

“I will email you the details,” she said.

I was starting to get a funny feeling from this response.

Saturday came, and we recruited all the children to finish cleaning. They cut weeds outside and piled them to be burned. They all scrubbed the kitchen down and got their rooms organized.

The whole time, I was motivating them by telling them that we would have some special visitors the next day. I bought some steaks to grill for our company. The cleaning was done by noon, and to reward them, I took them to a picnic at nearby Woodland Lake. As the sun set, I was getting concerned that I had not heard from Morgane. What time were they going to get there?

I finally called Morgane. I was getting really, really frustrated. I wanted my message to say something like this:

“Mais qu’est-ce que tu fous? Ça ne va pas, non! On vous attend en Arizona!”

But it was probably something a lot more polite, knowing me.

I got a call from Morgane an hour later. She cancelled the visit. They were also in the States to do a piece on health care. That story quickly became more important, and her producers wanted her to pay more attention to that one. So they would not be coming. She apologized profusely.

I shared this information with the girls, and we all collectively breathed a sigh of relief. We do care about being a good example. But this is a tough time of the year for us. We are not doing so hot financially. I am out of work with a serious illness. The schedule revolves around getting the kids to and from school. Things just feel a little too chaotic right now.

Still, there is a part of me that really wanted to share this with the French. I really feel like it was a missed opportunity.

And, as I looked at the photos from the class reunion on Facebook, I really feel like I missed out on it all for nothing…

Slow Recovery

So after I got back from Montana, I spent an entire week on my back, trying to recover from DVT, or having a blood clot in my calf.

I went to the doctor, and he took a blood sample to see how thin my blood is. Then he instructed me to stay off of my leg as much as possible.

Within a couple of days, the swelling went down. It seemed as if the swelling acted as some sort of barrier to the pain. Because as soon as the swelling went down, the pain increased. It was almost more than I could stand. The doctor had instructed me to only take over the counter ibuprofen. I was downing a cummulative 1200mg a day. Also, I was sleeping several times during the day. It seemed like sleep helped with the pain.

A week later, I was not feeling well, but the next event was upon me - the Coconino County Fair in Flagstaff, Arizona for the Labor Day weekend.

I was pleased to see my Muslim friend Ali there. I was also pleased that my friend Joy, whom I have known since high school, allowed me to stay at her home. Having a comfortable bed to go to after work helped.

The fair in Flagstaff was busy (but rainy). I sat behind the booth in a camp chair, with my leg propped on a pillow while I took orders. But leg started swelling up again anyway.

On Sunday, my wives and some of my younger children made the two hour drive to the fair. While I worked, they had a fun time at the fair. We also had a fun time visiting with my friend Joy and her husband, and we took the long drive home the next morning to see some other dear friends in the Verde Valley (and introduced them to Temple for the first time.)

The next day, the swelling had spread up my thigh. It was all the driving. After consulting with my doctor, I made a tough call. I was due to leave the next morning for the Utah State Fair. That was a ten day event. But the weekend in Flagstaff showed me that, even with my leg propped up, my leg was going to swell as long as I worked. The driving was also not good on me. Logic dictated that traveling to Utah was going to make my leg worse, rather than better.

So I opted not to go to Utah.

I don't know if you are aware of what a tough decision this was. Utah State Fair was my last chance in the foreseeable future where I will make any money. The fair season is ending soon. I don't know what I'm going to do after that. Going to Utah, I would have made enough money to take care of our bills for September and some of October. Not going, I won't have any means to pay my bills. At all.

But I knew that my leg was not going to get better unless I stayed down with my leg elevated. So I decided to stay home.

And I have been going stir crazy! I love being with the kids. But all I do is lay in bed, reading. That is fun for about three days. When I want to watch a movie - which is not often, as we are trying to conserve gas for the generator - I have to rely on my own DVD library.

But the most frustrating is not being able to go out and provide for my family. I can assure you - this is anathema to the self worth of a man, not being able to bring home the proverbial bacon. Worse still, Temple has been out looking for work. Because my research has shown that blood clots can take MONTHS to dissolve. And there is a real chance that this could be permanent. In other words, who knows when I will be able to next go out and work?

And there is a part of Temple that resents this, I know. Years ago, there was a couple of months when she was the only one with a job, and the only one working. She has never let me play that down. There is a part of her that understands that I have a life-threatening condition and should not work. But there is another part of her that only sees the lazy bum, unshaven, in the same pajamas for a week, crashed out on the couch...

What woman wants THAT for a husband??


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Kalispell - Fun With DVT

The last week in Montana, we drove to Kalispell. What a beautiful drive it is - right up on the Canadian border, close to Glacier National Park. You have to drive around the enormous Flathead Lake to get there. Jagged peaks reflected in the glacial water - it is indeed what most people think of when they imagine Montana.

When we got there, we checked into a hotel. It was nice to sleep in a bed after a month of sleeping in a tent.

But my leg was really bothering me.

Back in Missoula, we had hiked to the "M". The hike had been strenuous for someone out of shape like me. When I got down, my legs were sore from the exertion for several days. After several days, the soreness went away in my right leg. It got progressively worse on my left leg.

The night we arrived in Kalispell, I went to Wal-Mart to get some quarters for laundry. As I stood in line at the customer service desk, my leg was causing me so much pain, I could hardly stand at all.

The next day, we set up our booth at the Northwest Montana Fair, which was a disorganized mess. To make matters worse, the parking was literally a mile away, and every day I limped a mile to the booth, and every night at midnight, I limped back to the car.

I was pleased to find the same Romani that had been our neighbors in Missoula to be our neighbors again in Kalispell. We made the an airbushed banner for their booth. They promised to pay us by feeding us everyday. This is the way they fed us:

"Here, I brought you some yogurts from the breakfast buffet at the hotel where we are staying. There is also some free popcorn in that building right there. Go, and get some!"

It's a good thing we weren't really depending on them.

One morning, Rose, one of the gypsy psychics brought me a gift - a stone egg with remnants of the tag still attached to it.

"I had a vision last night to give this to you. It will bring you good luck and good health. Keep it with you always. I want you to have this."

The following is the story of what happened the day I got the egg that was supposed to bring me good luck:

The pain got so bad that I couldn't stand it. Over the past few days, I had noticed vericose veins popping out on a leg that had never had them before. This same morning, I noticed swelling in my leg, and I could barely walk. Something was wrong. It was more than just soreness from the hike. Something was really wrong, and I knew it.

I talked to my brother in law. He thought I should tough it out. Soreness was good for you. I was sore, because I was out of shape. Soreness meant that I needed to hike more often.

I called my wives. They wanted me to go the ER. I limped to the EMT tent. They told me to go to the ER. I hesitated. Going to the ER, I would abandon my brother in law to the busy crowds by himself.

The fair got out at midnight. I limped back to the truck, exhausted. My wives called me and asked if I was going to the ER. I told her I would go in the morning. All I wanted was a good night's rest. Martha started to chew me out, saying that I needed to go to the ER. So I conceeded.

The doctor ordered a ultrasound. I had deep vein thrombosis (DVT) - a blood clot - in my left calf, and a smaller one in my thigh. They put me on blood thinners right away and told me to see my doctor as soon as I got back to Arizona.

The problem was - there were two more grueling days of the fair. I worked 13 hour days, and hoped that the 6 hours of sleep I was getting would be enough. At night, I would lay in bed, wondering if I would die in the night. After all, that is how my dad died - pulmonary embolism brought on by DVT.

When we finally packed up and left Kalispell, I was filled with a sense of relief. As I felt the warm sunshine on my face and imbibed the tranquil beauty of Flathead Lake one last time, I was happy to be going home. It had been six weeks since I had seen my family, and I felt that I had been through an ordeal. I felt like I could fight this from home.

We stopped in Salt Lake City to stay the night at my sister's house. I was alarmed to see that my foot and leg had swollen to twice its normal size. It looked like I had a Flintstone foot. But I had to keep going, I had to get home. The drive was uncomfortable. I could barely bend my leg as swollen as it was. My toes were tingling, and I kept a pillow propped under my leg.

The problem with getting treatment - I don't have insurance. I haven't had insurance for years. I called my doctor. I had a leftover bill from my hospital visit from last year. I called and tried to schedule an appointment. The receptionist pointed out I still had a bill. I told her that I was aware of this. I was willing to pay half of my bill the next day. She went and talked to the doctor and this was his answer:

"I talked to the doctor, and he is willing to treat you one last time. Then he wants you to get a new doctor. We are dropping you as a patient."

"Even if I pay my billl?" I demaned.

"The doctor feels that it has gone beyond that," she answered. "Do you want to shcedule an appointment?"

"Why?" I responded bitterly. "I need ongoing care. Why would I see him only once. I'll find a new doctor."

The truth is - I know why the doctor dropped me, and so does he. When I was in the hospital last year, we had a little conversation. Don't ask me why I did it. He asked me how many kids I have. I told him, and then I told him how many wives I have. The doctor is LDS, and I literally saw the hate in his eyes after that. He finished treating me, but even as he discharged me, he looked at me with hatred. This was not a case of my delinquent bill, as the receptionist lef me to believe. It was plain discrimination. I know it. And the doctor knows it.

I had my wife call the kids' pediatrician - an old Mormon, cowboy doctor. He agreed to see me.

After two days of traveling, I pulled into my house. It had been raining, as Arizona was in the middle of its monsoon season. So the ground was muddy. This didn't stop my kids from running out to see me. I limped inside, and let the girls put me in bed with pillows propped under my leg. My leg was huge.

I didn't know what was going to happen, but I was happy. If I was going to die, it would be at home and not in Montana.

Tomorrow, I will fill you in with the rest of my little tale...

Zombie Cats - My Time in Missoula

We left the rolling hills of Great Falls and headed west into the mountains.

Montana is so beautiful with its jagged peaks, pine forests and swollen rivers. It is not a cliche to see people flyfishing in Montana. Fishing enthusiasts are everywhere. A river really does run through Missoula...

After trading a couple of days in a motel for airbrush art, we found a campground where we pitched our tent - Jellystone Park Campground. No lie. It is a theme campground, complete with a wandering employee dressed as Yogi Bear, and a huckleberry ice cream social every night. It was a nice change from camping out on the fairgrounds in Great Falls. At least the bathroom was clean.

The only problem - we had an entire week until the next event, the Western Montana Fair. So we had some time to kill.

Missoula is a very pretty city. Home of Montana State University and the Grizzlies - they love their team. It is also located near the small polygamist community of Pinesdale. We did have an offer from a relative to stay there, but it would have been about an hour commute just to go back and forth. Plus, I am considered kind of an apostate by the people there (who are part of the Apostolic United Brethren.)

Still, I wondered if I would see anyone I knew there from that polygamous community. And at the Wal-Mart in Missoula, I did. I saw a married couple that I knew back in the day, about my age. I chased them down in the bread aisle, saying, "It's me. Moroni Jessop. You haven't seen me in almost twenty years." She was very sweet. He looked very nervous, like he couldn't wait to escape.

So what do you do when you are in Missoula, staying at campgrounds and have no money? You do what everyone else does. You go to the river. We took a nice walk along the banks, watching people kyak.

We also hiked to the "M" on the side of the mountain by the university. A trail zigzags right up the side of a very steep mountain up to the whitewashed letter painted on the slopes. It kicked my ass. I could only make it halfway up. (I'll talk more about this hike in another post.)

We also saw the Missoula Symphony play in Caras Park (for free), and got to see a beautiful hand carved carousel in the middle of the park. We explored a large hippie boutique, and had some of the best burgers I've ever eaten at the Missoula Club.

One night, we decided to go to a punk show at a club called the Palace Lounge. It was three hours of earsplitting screaming, drunken people spraying us with beer and trying to pull us into the mosh pit. As I stood on the edge of the crowd, with my arms folded, I wondered - did moshing always look this stupid when I used to do it as a kid?

The main act was El Zombi Gato, a conglomeration of local artists, most of them as old as myself. They were loud and grating and kind of obnoxious.

The best act was a band called Bird's Mile Home. They were awesome. Punk rock with a cello! Plus, the cello player was hot! The only thing I kept thinking was - why do they not have a record deal? They were that good.

With my ears ringing, we drove back to our tent.

The rains came, and there were several mornings when I woke up to a large puddle around our tent. There were some nights when I stuffed dirty clothes down my sleeping bag to help keep me warm. This is Montana! Why did I not bring a jacket?

When the fair finally started, it was quite busy. We negotiated a spot right by the carnival entrance. It was almost too good of a location. We were so busy, we could barely keep up.

A couple of notable things:

We met an 11 year-old kid named Evan Kirby. This kid is going to be the next Picasso, I swear. He does these images out of slices of duct tape. They are totally off the wall and random. He is going to be famous one day.

Our neighbors were gypsy fortune tellers from Spokane, Washington. We learned a little but about Romani culture, especially their ability to barter and negotiate. They could practically talk us into doing anything for them!

Once the fair was done, we packed up our booth, tore down our tent, left Missoula, left Jellystone Campgrounds and headed for Kalispell for our final event in Montana. Which is what I will write about tomorrow...

So Falls Great Falls...

Anyway, continuing with my Montana adventures...

After Bozeman, we went to Great Falls. Joe and I took this back road through the mountains. It was spectacular.

My friend Steve said that he always disliked driving to Concho (where I live), because - whereas the drive is spectacular - the destination is kind of mediocre. That is the way I felt about Great Falls. It is flat and grassy. The only interesting feature is the Missouri River that winds through the center of town.

We set up our booth at the Montana State Fairpark, and they let us pitch a tent behind the booth. The first few days of the fair were really slow, but the last few days were pretty busy. It was a ten day event. My daughter Sophie came to visit and stayed with us for the duration of this event.

The most interesting thing about Great Falls were the people, and I will talk about some of them briefly:

Ali - He was also in Bozeman with us. A tall, black man, he had an accent, and so I assumed that he was from some Carribean island. Especially since he sells reggae t-shirts, and such.

I finally asked him, "So where are you from?"

"Senegal," he answered. So we switched to French. He was very surprised to find that I spoke French, and this is how we communicated the rest of the time.

Since his name is "Ali", and since he is probably Muslim, I asked him, "How many wives do you have?"

After a brief hesitation, he held up two fingers.

"Me, too," I answered. Ali found it very odd that an American would live this lifestyle. I really liked Ali and found that I had something in common with him after this.

Brandon - He is a high school student who has taken an avid interest in airbrush art. He owns a local go-kart track, and we spent one evening doing laps. It was great fun. Brandon is a good kid, and he hung around us so much that he became a pleasant fixture.

However, eventually his mother put an end to him hanging around with us. I guess it seemed weird to his mother that a 17 year-old kid was hanging around grown men. We are family men, but still. Maybe she doesn't want him to hang around "artist types", or maybe his mother Googled my name, which would bring up a wealth of personal information. It wouldn't be too hard.

Jessie & Pete - They ran a t-shirt booth called Outlaw Embroidery. Jessie is a great guy with a beard of ZZTop proportions. Pete wears bermuda shorts and a cowboy hat. Since people watching - no, babe watching - is my primary activity at the fairs when things get slow, it was nice to have someone like Pete around, with an eye attuned like mine to aerodynamic beauty.

Tohni - There was actually a tattoo booth at this fair, and Tohni is an apprenticed tattoo artist. She came this close to convincing me to get a tattoo. She is Chippewa Cree and has an innocence about her. Technology is foreign to her, and she is baffled by the cellphone her friends insisted that she buy.

Tohni hung out around us a lot. She went clothes shopping with my daughter Sophie. I never talked to her once about me being a Mormon o a polygamist. Yet she could sense something different about us. She told us repeatedly that she felt like she had known us forever, and that I reminded her of an uncle. She is a great person, and I hope she keeps in touch.

Enrique - Next to our booth, the techno music would pound several times a day, and a short Mexican man with a pony tail would toss spray cans around like Tom Cruise in "Cocktail". He would use his spray cans to whip out space paintings in ten minutes, using crowd-drawing techniques like lighting his paintings on fire. He drew big crowds, but we didn't mind. He got the overspill business.

Enrique was so kind, and he would greet me enthusiastically every time he walked by the booth. It was nice to meet someone so genuine.

The people we met were definitely the highlight of our stay. Camping was alright, not so great. The only shower was half a mile away in the livestock building, and you were lucky if you got in to shower. Because there was only one shower, and all the carnies used it.

So eve though Great Falls is not the prettiest people, I enjoyed being there, because of the people there.

My laptop did crash while I was there. I have yet to fix it.

But tomorrow, I will post about our adventures in Missoula...


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