George Michael Earrings on a Rusty Old Track (Re-Post for Everyone)
Not everyone has the luxury to dismiss or throw folks away
NOTE: Due to a strange change in Substack behavior, this post went out on Tuesday to Paid subscribers only, even though it was repeatedly set to be published and available to Everyone. (OTGC publishes our work for everyone!) Sincere apologies if you feel spammed by seeing this again.
Please forgive! Now, on to some weekly truck … - Leo
We managed to get outside for a while on Saturday. It is Memorial Day Weekend, after all. The holiday when the 94 million acres currently known as the State of Montana is body-tackled by tourists slathered in technicolor outdoor-fabric, gunning to snag some fish from a river and slap it on a grill. With beer.
I trailed my husband, walking along an unofficially abandoned railroad line instead1. We are not fishermen. He collected rusty bits and worn wood pegs, all likely to end up in his ceramic creations. I shot patterns and textures.
For the line of thought I am nurturing here, the key part is that we were outside, walking along the leftovers of a transport technology which once bound together two of Montana’s more significant towns: Helena and Great Falls. People were fishing and camping all around us, along this Recreation Road we would likely never camp on ourselves. It is much too close to the highway. We know how to get far more lost, if we want. This afternoon stroll is a mere thirty minutes from our front door.
We finished up our mild adventure with a cuisine-grade burger at a nearby taphouse. One well worth your while, should you ever be nearby. Wifi was available, along with local brew, as well as Montana’s very good regional cider brand. There was even a weed shop down the street, in the tiny riverside town where we ate. Which I mention not because I partake any longer—cannabis rattles my nerves, and leaves me feeling blue for days—but because there is no need to stay in a city if one wants “accoutrements” to go with your bit of nature. Even in rural Montana, intoxicatingly tasty elements of the anthropocene era2 have spread along rocky canyon riverbanks once dominated by mountain goats.
It has become harder to find the wild. Still, I would rather be sitting in one of these curated outdoor dining experiences than staring at a screen. Or, so I say here now, while staring at a screen, writing about a previously lived experience.
Could I survive with neither nature nor screens? I do not know. I have not had to try, at least not since growing up before personal computers were invented. People somehow managed without, and my family took only occasional trips to the mountains.
My life has been privileged enough to consume nature for its beauty, on demand, taking photos on the wildly powerful computers I now carry in my pocket. I keep thousands of those photos stored on my phone, and in a data center, somewhere, the location of which no doubt changes regularly. I have no idea where.
I have never had to survive outside of my physical comfort zone, even if I have pushed myself to try a bit, in certain ways.
Social comfort zone, though? That’s a very different story.
A brother of my Masonic Lodge in Portland frequently complains of the way he sees this old civic organization we share as “infected with white trash Trump voters.” He is a single, seventy-year old, upper middle class, retired white lawyer, born in the middle of the baby boom. He lives in a home he bought and paid off long ago, in Portland’s Hawthorne-Belmont neighborhood3, one of the deepest blue political zones in America.
He does not get out much. He lives most of his life via keyboard.
His open bias against rural American culture is ironic, given he is a Freemason proudly living in the heart of Portland. Portlandians are well-known for their claims to embrace diversity. And, reaching across divisions, in search of shared light, is a core tenet of Freemasonry4. I like to remind him of these points. He seems not to care.
I do. I have to.
Out here in Helena, Montana, I know several men in my local Masonic Lodge who are part of that demographic my lodge brother in Portland appears to despise. They hunt, wear caps, love football, drink beer, and often do not bother to put on a suit or tie for lodge meetings, though they have one, for funerals and degrees. I am sure some voted for Trump. I also know they show up, do the work, and would be among the first to offer me help, if I had need. No questions asked.
Early on, when I first met these guys, a few looked twice at the “George Michael” hoop earrings I wear specifically to make me look more gay. A couple of them paused, briefly, the first time I mentioned “my husband, Michael.” A fair number of them have since told me of their LGBTQ children, siblings, cousins, aunts, etc.
So, I know for a fact, from my very own “lived experience,” that just showing up, month after month, and being completely myself—earrings, husband, and all—has built bridges, and shored up trestles, among some “white trash Trump voters,” where these bridges may have never existed before5.
In other words, I see these guys work harder to bridge actual social gaps than some highly vocal Portlandians I know, parked behind keyboards and shooting off their mouths. I expect many of my local guys would never vote for Trump again, if they did before.
But, I will not ask them.
Shaming people does not win votes or friendship, much less a chance to change somebody’s mind.
Those rusty old railroad tracks Michael and I walked did not lead anywhere in particular. We had no destination or agenda. Still, the trestles crossing the river were strong. The rust added color. The air was clear and fresh.
We could have stayed home, staring at a screen. But, we drove off and walked along some abandoned old technology anyhow. We went someplace similar, but unfamiliar. Unexpected. We found some beauty there.
“Unofficial” in that the line we walked does not, for whatever reason, does not appear on this site dedicated to “abandoned” lines. As compared, I guess, to simply rusty and long-unused lines, like the one we strolled.
“Anthropocene” is a relatively recently coined scientific term referring to the current era of geological history, which is heavily impacted by human technology (e.g., mass extinction, biodiversity loss, chemical pollution-induced genetic changes, micro-plastic related disease patterns, global climate change, etc..)
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-the-anthropocene.html
For those who do not know Portlandia very well, the the Hawthorne-Belmont District is one of the brightest blue urban districts in America. In local parlance, “Hawthorne Belmont” is code for “hippies who got rich.”
https://bestneighborhood.org/conservative-vs-liberal-map-portland-or/
“What is the Core Idea Behind Masonic Philosophy?”
https://esotericfreemasons.com/masons/freemasonry-core-values/
In fairness, I am the second openly gay member of this Lodge, my friend and brother Tom was the first, and he was not … quiet.
Thank you, Lee, for being such a fine ambassador for true diversity. "White trash Trump voters." What a horrible thing to say!