Hungry Horse: Legends of the Every Day
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- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
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Internationally acclaimed photographer Pieter ten Hoopen documents the struggles with poverty, drug use, and loneliness of the residents of Hungry Horse, MT, while also capturing the spirit of renewal, peace and serenity through stunning landscapes and intimate oral histories.
Citation
Main credits
Hoopen, Peter ten (filmmaker)
Hoopen, Peter ten (photographer)
Storm, Brian (film director)
Storm, Brian (film producer)
Other credits
[Photographer: Pieter ten Hoopen].
Distributor subjects
American Studies, Drugs & Addiction, Environment, Farming, Family Issues, Health, Cancer, Photographer, Psychology, relationships, sociology, poverty, music, the Northwest; Expository; WOKeywords
WEBVTT
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When we hear, we will fasten ourselves to it and we will not let go.
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Because it is your word, and it is taking us
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to what you have promised if we don’t lose,
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lose heart and faith and give up.
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Excuse me!
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That’s the only good thing.
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Thank you. It’s great coffee.
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Yeah.
00:03:32.584 --> 00:03:36.584
You need some air in your front tire though.
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I know.
00:03:41.626 --> 00:03:47.167
I need a new kick starter.
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Got it?
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Want a push start?
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Yeah.
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Let me put it in neutral.
00:04:27.876 --> 00:04:30.792
Hop on let him give you a push start.
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You know, I figure it like this,
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if I wake up,
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that is a damn good day.
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I try to live my life as good as I can.
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I try not to hurt anybody intentionally.
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I don\'t call myself a Catholic, a Christian or
00:08:08.459 --> 00:08:11.209
a Muslim, anything.
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My religion is the earth.
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Mother Earth.
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The sky,
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that is how I talk to God.
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My name is Charles Krasselt.
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Charles W. Krasselt.
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Wesley to be exact.
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Hey baby!
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I’m the youngest of nine.
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I have six sisters.
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Two older brothers.
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Thirty four nieces and nephews.
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Sixty four great nieces and nephews.
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And I\'m married
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to my wife Cindy.
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Love her to death.
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I\'m loving life.
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I’m living, living the dream.
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I might not be rich, but money don’t make you happy.
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Lived in Portland until I was like 18 years old.
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I was going the wrong, the wrong way.
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I was going to end up either dead or in jail.
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I was into the crystal meth, crank.
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I never did put a needle in my arm.
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That is one thing I am proud of.
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Every time I ever did it, it was either smoking or snorting.
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And one day I was sitting on a couch
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in a crack house pretty much
00:10:00.751 --> 00:10:02.751
and had a needle in my hand.
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My arm was tied off.
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I looked at it and said, \"no.\"
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Threw the needle into the floor.
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Called my auntie, went to her house.
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And that’s when I joined the army.
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Spent three years regular army,
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five years National Guard.
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When I got out of basic,
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came up here and visited my brother for two weeks.
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Flew over to Glacier National
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and that\'s where my brother Bob picked me up.
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He walked right by me.
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He didn\'t even recognize me.
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I\'m like, \"Bob.\"
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And he is like, \"Charlie?\"
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Wasn\'t long after moving up here that my brother
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he went to hang a piece of sheetrock.
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And the guy at the other end his hand slipped
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And my brother he tried to catch the whole twelve foot sheet by himself
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because there was guy standing down below and it would have killed that guy.
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So he caught it and when he did he compressed a disc in his back.
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So he had to go in and get some, get checked out.
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And when they did the blood work we found out the worst news.
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He had cancer.
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Inoperable.
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And it had already spread throughout his whole body.
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They did chemo and radiation.
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He fought with every ounce of his soul.
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They gave him three months.
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He lived a year and a half.
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He wasn\'t giving up.
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He had kids to raise.
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That\'s what he kept saying.
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I was bringing him back from chemo treatment,
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chemo radiation.
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It was the last one he was going to do.
00:12:10.751 --> 00:12:14.500
And we pulled up out in front of his house
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and he got the shock of his life.
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He had been married for quite a while.
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And I\'ll call her the bitch from hell.
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I won’t name no names but she knows who she is.
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And if she ever sees this she\'ll know exactly who I am talking about.
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All of his stuff was out on the front porch.
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And he says, \"Why? What did I do?\"
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She looked right straight at him
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not even blinking and said,
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\"Look in a mirror.\"
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He had lost all of his hair.
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He had lost all of his weight.
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You know, he was a shell of himself.
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And for her to say that
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was the most heartless thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
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To a man that has already been told by the doctors
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that there is nothing more they can do for him.
00:13:12.667 --> 00:13:14.250
So we left there.
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We just loaded his stuff up into the car.
00:13:17.459 --> 00:13:18.626
And we left.
00:13:18.626 --> 00:13:21.917
And I rented a cabin over there in Hungry Horse.
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Last three months of his life me and him lived in that cabin.
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Whatever he wanted, he got.
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He was a recovering alcoholic himself.
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He had probably 15 years of sobriety before that.
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Then all of a sudden, if he wanted a drink,
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he got a goddamn drink.
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If he wanted to go gambling,
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we went fucking gambling.
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I didn\'t give a fuck what it cost me.
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It didn\'t matter.
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He was my brother.
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And I would do anything for him.
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And I tried.
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The doctors told us that he had, you know, just days to live.
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So the whole family was here.
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Every one of his siblings was here.
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All their wives and kids.
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Everybody was here to say goodbye.
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I think it was 2:52,
00:14:17.417 --> 00:14:19.626
he took his last breath.
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Took one last breath, said I love you, and
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and went to sleep.
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He is buried there in Columbia Falls, right next to Smith’s.
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Or not Smith’s, Super 1.
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Right up there in that cemetery.
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Right after I lost my brother I was
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on a pretty good binge for a couple months there.
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I was drunk, drunk, drunk.
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One eyed Charlie as you would call it.
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As a lot of people call it, is one eyed Charlie.
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Once I get too drunk I go to one eye
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and not much is remembered after that.
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The real truth of it,
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you know, loss helps in a way because
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it makes you appreciate what you do have.
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And that’s, it wasn\'t long after I did lose my brother that
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I found the love of my life, Cindy.
00:16:19.167 --> 00:16:22.500
First time I met her, I asked her if she was single.
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She told me, \"No.\"
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Every time I seen her I would ask, \"You single yet?\"
00:16:26.709 --> 00:16:29.500
I would ask, \"You single yet?\"
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She kept on telling me no.
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One day,
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she was out with an old lady named Thelma.
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It was her 78th birthday party.
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Thelma, she walked up and asked me to dance.
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She said, “Would you dance with me”?
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And how do you turn down a 78 year old woman that asks you to dance?
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You can\'t.
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You know, it’s just if you do it is like sacrilegious or something, I don’t know.
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But she asked me to dance
00:16:57.375 --> 00:17:01.542
so I got up and I was out on the dance floor dancing with her
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and she danced for about, oh, maybe 30 seconds or so.
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And then she kind of danced me over towards Cindy
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and she grabbed Cindy\'s hand and said, \"You dance with him!\"
00:17:11.209 --> 00:17:15.125
And I’m out there dancing with her and I asked her, \"Are you single?\"
00:17:15.125 --> 00:17:16.125
And she said, \"Yes.\"
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And I said, \"Not no more.\"
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And from that night forward we’ve been together.
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And that was October 14th,
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almost 15 years ago.
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That’s how I met the love of my life.
00:17:32.292 --> 00:17:36.584
Now I work at Glacier National Park.
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The best part about being up there and everything is
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my wife also works up there.
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She is the head housekeeper at West Glacier Motel and
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we get to carpool to and work.
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She\'s a manager so she gets to set her own schedule
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so she makes sure we have days off together.
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Love you.
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Love you too.
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I’ll call you when we’re done.
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OK.
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I’ll be somewhere.
00:18:14.584 --> 00:18:16.834
To tell you the truth, you know,
00:18:16.834 --> 00:18:23.459
I’ve worked a lot of jobs, a lot of different jobs and
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I\'ve gotten sick and I\'ve taken days off.
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I have never once called in sick on this job.
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I’ve felt kinda shitty a few times,
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but I still go to work because it\'s just
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the drive up there,
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the eight mile drive
00:18:42.834 --> 00:18:46.000
can make you feel, go from
00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:50.584
\"Oh god I feel so shitty. I don\'t want to go to work,\"
00:18:50.584 --> 00:18:54.500
to, \"Man this is so beautiful. How could I not want to be here.\"
00:18:57.524 --> 00:19:00.524
It\'s not just the area. It\'s the people.
00:19:00.525 --> 00:19:03.631
The people here I just love.
00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:06.000
If you break down and you\'re stopped at the side of the road
00:19:06.679 --> 00:19:08.679
And you\'re changing a tire
00:19:08.703 --> 00:19:12.703
I guarantee you before you\'re done changnig that tire
00:19:13.420 --> 00:19:16.792
Four or five people will stop and see if you\'re okay.
00:19:16.793 --> 00:19:18.795
See if you need a hand.
00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:24.501
Somewhere in some Bible it says do not build a
00:19:24.792 --> 00:19:26.420
place of worship.
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Don’t build statues for me.
00:19:29.125 --> 00:19:31.830
You\'re not supposed to build a church,
00:19:31.830 --> 00:19:32.667
in my opinion.
00:19:40.667 --> 00:19:44.250
You can sit right here and talk to the Lord.
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He can hear you wherever you are.
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All I can do is my part and
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try my best to love mother earth.
00:19:56.959 --> 00:19:59.334
And it\'s just me.
00:20:31.292 --> 00:20:34.000
I remember when my father first introduced the idea
00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:37.125
of us moving to Montana.
00:20:37.125 --> 00:20:38.917
He came home and
00:20:38.917 --> 00:20:42.417
asked me and my sister what we thought about moving out West.
00:20:43.167 --> 00:20:47.417
Being a teenager at that time and very rebellious,
00:20:47.417 --> 00:20:50.292
I didn\'t like the idea very much.
00:20:51.375 --> 00:20:54.959
On the other hand, it was probably the best thing that happened.
00:20:54.959 --> 00:20:59.334
I had no idea
00:20:59.334 --> 00:21:04.292
where anything was, who anybody was.
00:21:04.292 --> 00:21:07.000
I felt a little lost at the time.
00:21:14.375 --> 00:21:17.500
It was a tough time for me when I moved here.
00:21:17.500 --> 00:21:21.167
I was very resentful towards my father.
00:21:21.167 --> 00:21:21.876
I had no friends.
00:21:21.876 --> 00:21:23.375
I had nobody.
00:21:23.375 --> 00:21:26.830
I felt very alone.
00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:31.002
I so much wanted to be accepted.
00:21:32.830 --> 00:21:35.292
The first people that I met,
00:21:35.292 --> 00:21:37.834
I so much wanted to be part of a group.
00:21:48.917 --> 00:21:55.420
That was my first introduction to methamphetamine.
00:21:55.420 --> 00:21:59.626
I would sneak out of the house at night to meet these people and
00:21:59.626 --> 00:22:08.751
participate in drinking or smoking weed or just driving around.
00:22:13.626 --> 00:22:15.334
I like excitement.
00:22:15.334 --> 00:22:16.830
Fast moving.
00:22:16.830 --> 00:22:17.876
Fast paced.
00:22:24.167 --> 00:22:26.542
When I was coming down.
00:22:26.542 --> 00:22:27.667
Just feeling drained.
00:22:27.667 --> 00:22:29.250
Not as energetic.
00:22:29.250 --> 00:22:31.542
Not as outgoing.
00:22:31.542 --> 00:22:33.417
Where I thought, \"Oh, if I just have one little bump
00:22:33.417 --> 00:22:34.542
or a little bit more
00:22:34.542 --> 00:22:36.417
I can continue on.
00:22:36.417 --> 00:22:38.125
I can keep going.\"
00:22:38.125 --> 00:22:40.209
I didn\'t want to miss out on anything.
00:22:40.209 --> 00:22:42.667
Yeah, there were some nights I remember
00:22:42.667 --> 00:22:45.167
I didn\'t want to go to bed because I thought I would miss out on something
00:22:45.167 --> 00:22:49.209
with my friends or in the world.
00:23:09.959 --> 00:23:14.417
The next thing I know, yeah, I
00:23:14.417 --> 00:23:15.125
was pregnant.
00:23:19.209 --> 00:23:23.876
I had my son in June.
00:23:23.876 --> 00:23:26.667
And at that time,
00:23:26.667 --> 00:23:29.626
that is what I was using meth a little bit more.
00:23:29.626 --> 00:23:34.167
I realized that it gave me some of the
00:23:34.167 --> 00:23:38.375
good sides of meth where it gave you energy.
00:23:38.375 --> 00:23:40.250
You are able to accomplish a lot more.
00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:45.626
Keep up with the house chores.
00:23:45.626 --> 00:23:49.420
Being a young mom with the
00:23:49.420 --> 00:23:51.500
responsibilities of working two, three jobs
00:23:51.500 --> 00:23:53.751
and raising a baby
00:23:53.751 --> 00:23:55.959
and doing the housework, all those things.
00:23:55.959 --> 00:23:58.250
I didn\'t feel like I could physically do that on my own.
00:24:00.917 --> 00:24:06.830
In a way meth helped me achieve those things.
00:24:08.292 --> 00:24:11.584
I was compromising
00:24:11.584 --> 00:24:15.876
my son\'s time by staying out late with my friends,
00:24:15.876 --> 00:24:21.420
leaving my son home with his father, not coming home until later.
00:24:21.420 --> 00:24:22.626
Sometimes not at all.
00:24:22.626 --> 00:24:26.000
And it was at that time that I chose,
00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:29.626
I pretty much chose meth over my family.
00:24:29.626 --> 00:24:35.334
And that\'s when I continued the quick
00:24:35.334 --> 00:24:40.375
spiral to my
00:24:40.375 --> 00:24:44.125
bottom.
00:24:45.876 --> 00:24:48.584
I was thrown in jail
00:24:48.584 --> 00:24:51.420
for about a couple weeks.
00:24:51.420 --> 00:24:53.500
I was released into my father\'s custody
00:24:53.500 --> 00:24:56.917
under the idea that I was to go to treatment.
00:25:01.500 --> 00:25:05.292
For the first time, I listened to other people
00:25:05.292 --> 00:25:07.792
that had similar experiences.
00:25:08.626 --> 00:25:13.375
Maybe not just with meth but internally, feelings, emotions.
00:25:14.125 --> 00:25:17.417
I had those same experiences or feelings
00:25:17.417 --> 00:25:21.500
and I didn’t think anyone else did and I felt very alone.
00:25:25.209 --> 00:25:27.250
My son was a big factor in me
00:25:27.250 --> 00:25:29.792
staying sober.
00:25:29.792 --> 00:25:33.584
I quit for him until I realized
00:25:33.584 --> 00:25:35.792
that I was able to quit for myself.
00:25:35.792 --> 00:25:40.500
My love for him and for myself now
00:25:40.500 --> 00:25:43.959
is what keeps me clean.
00:25:48.667 --> 00:25:51.917
I haven\'t used meth since.
00:25:51.917 --> 00:25:56.334
And that was
00:25:56.334 --> 00:26:00.250
15 years ago,
00:26:00.250 --> 00:26:01.917
which is pretty awesome.
00:26:03.125 --> 00:26:07.250
I had to remove myself from anyone and everything that had to do with meth
00:26:07.250 --> 00:26:10.959
and any of that scene.
00:26:10.959 --> 00:26:14.125
It wasn’t a pretty road it wasn’t a pretty journey
00:26:14.125 --> 00:26:17.334
and I wouldn’t make the same choices,
00:26:17.334 --> 00:26:21.584
but I’m very grateful for those experiences.
00:26:25.420 --> 00:26:27.959
My son is 16.
00:26:27.959 --> 00:26:29.459
He will be 17 in June.
00:26:29.459 --> 00:26:34.917
It was at that time that I started experimenting with meth.
00:26:34.917 --> 00:26:39.792
And I, it scares me, especially in this area.
00:26:39.792 --> 00:26:43.751
Meth is a big problem.
00:26:46.626 --> 00:26:51.250
Something I think about pretty often.
00:26:55.751 --> 00:26:57.834
I guess it is funny looking back like,
00:26:57.834 --> 00:27:02.250
when you were little and wondering where you’ll be when you grow up.
00:27:02.250 --> 00:27:05.209
Here I am, I\'ll be 35 in September and
00:27:05.209 --> 00:27:10.125
I would have never imagined that this is where I would be.
00:27:16.375 --> 00:27:18.125
I love it here in Montana.
00:27:18.125 --> 00:27:18.917
I love this place.
00:27:18.917 --> 00:27:20.709
It gives me
00:27:21.751 --> 00:27:24.417
a sense of
00:27:24.417 --> 00:27:29.000
fullness internally.
00:27:29.876 --> 00:27:33.292
It\'s very magical here.
00:27:36.917 --> 00:27:41.125
It\'s very,
00:27:41.125 --> 00:27:43.959
I don\'t mean to get emotional, but I think of
00:27:43.959 --> 00:27:48.542
all the things I have encountered here in Montana.
00:27:54.709 --> 00:27:58.417
It’s sometimes indescribable.
00:27:58.417 --> 00:28:01.500
It strikes a chord.
00:28:01.500 --> 00:28:05.209
This is home for me.
00:28:09.292 --> 00:28:13.125
I don\'t know if I would be able to find this anywhere else.
00:29:00.125 --> 00:29:05.125
This place up here, especially in this little canyon,
00:29:05.125 --> 00:29:08.626
is a secure little womb for me.
00:29:12.751 --> 00:29:15.792
There are only two ways in and two ways out.
00:29:32.459 --> 00:29:35.959
In the winter it’s very quiet, very quiet.
00:29:35.959 --> 00:29:38.667
And you have a lot of time to deal with yourself.
00:29:43.917 --> 00:29:49.334
In order for me to live anymore,
00:29:49.334 --> 00:29:51.334
I have to feel free.
00:29:57.420 --> 00:29:59.209
Montana is a great place to live.
00:29:59.209 --> 00:30:01.959
It\'s simple.
00:30:01.959 --> 00:30:03.959
I, uh,
00:30:03.959 --> 00:30:06.334
don\'t have a clue what else to say.
00:30:38.834 --> 00:30:43.250
I’ve been thinking about the past.
00:30:45.250 --> 00:30:49.334
How some friends just seem to last.
00:30:51.584 --> 00:30:57.542
Right on through those stormy days.
00:30:57.542 --> 00:31:04.542
And all the others just blew away.
00:31:04.542 --> 00:31:08.709
And I can’t help feeling they’ve been here before.
00:31:08.709 --> 00:31:14.876
Ten or twelve lives or more now they’re just passing through.
00:31:16.917 --> 00:31:20.250
I’m talking about old souls.
00:31:20.250 --> 00:31:22.626
Music, well, music
00:31:22.626 --> 00:31:27.125
that has been my whole life since I was about eight years old.
00:31:27.125 --> 00:31:30.420
I had older brothers and older sisters
00:31:30.420 --> 00:31:33.375
and of course I got to listen to all their old albums.
00:31:33.375 --> 00:31:37.751
My sister had the Beach Boys and she had the Beatles,
00:31:37.751 --> 00:31:40.459
you know and my older, older brother,
00:31:40.459 --> 00:31:44.667
10 years older, thought he was Elvis Presley.
00:31:46.250 --> 00:31:51.250
So I would write songs about just everyday things and make them laugh.
00:32:04.292 --> 00:32:08.834
My dad just loved me playing songs.
00:32:08.834 --> 00:32:14.125
And he, he got the cancer and he spent a year suffering.
00:32:14.125 --> 00:32:17.209
But he always wanted me to play my guitar.
00:32:17.209 --> 00:32:20.626
Come in his little room and play my guitar for him.
00:32:20.626 --> 00:32:24.626
And the first song I truly wrote and finished was for my dad.
00:32:26.292 --> 00:32:28.500
And, and he told me never to stop.
00:32:28.500 --> 00:32:30.709
You know, just keep playing.
00:32:30.709 --> 00:32:33.626
Which I did.
00:32:33.626 --> 00:32:36.292
And lost my mom a year later.
00:32:36.292 --> 00:32:40.000
So I was on my own at 14.
00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:41.167
At 14.
00:32:41.167 --> 00:32:43.959
And my younger brother got adopted.
00:32:43.959 --> 00:32:46.459
I had another brother that was in Vietnam.
00:32:46.459 --> 00:32:49.917
Another one that was in the Peace Corps and he was in Nepal.
00:32:50.709 --> 00:32:55.000
The family was gone and I just hit the road.
00:32:59.417 --> 00:33:02.709
I made money by playing songs.
00:33:02.709 --> 00:33:07.459
I just opened my guitar case and play at a truck stop or wherever.
00:33:07.459 --> 00:33:11.584
There wasn\'t a lot of money back in the 70\'s, there was...
00:33:11.584 --> 00:33:12.959
Montana was very poor.
00:33:12.959 --> 00:33:14.167
Still is very poor
00:33:14.167 --> 00:33:17.375
There is not, there’s not a lot of money here.
00:33:21.751 --> 00:33:23.959
Give me ten, give me ten, give me ten if you want to go along.
00:33:23.959 --> 00:33:25.459
Ok, let’s go.
00:33:30.420 --> 00:33:36.000
I went back to Michigan to see some family one Christmas and, uh,
00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:39.375
I ran into a lady there
00:33:39.375 --> 00:33:44.500
and spent two weeks with her and fell in love with this lady.
00:33:44.500 --> 00:33:46.667
I came back to Montana.
00:33:46.667 --> 00:33:47.709
She wrote me letters.
00:33:47.709 --> 00:33:49.959
Well it turns out she was pregnant.
00:33:49.959 --> 00:33:53.667
Well, so I thought I better do the right thing.
00:33:53.667 --> 00:33:57.417
So I moved back to Michigan
00:33:57.417 --> 00:34:00.876
and actually raised three boys.
00:34:02.334 --> 00:34:04.292
Did a lot of things.
00:34:04.292 --> 00:34:05.792
Mostly carpentry
00:34:05.792 --> 00:34:07.959
I played music, wrote songs all those years.
00:34:07.959 --> 00:34:09.917
Played in a lot of bands
00:34:09.917 --> 00:34:15.292
But never wanted to be a star or, you know, a big performer.
00:34:15.292 --> 00:34:18.125
Too busy raising my three boys.
00:34:18.125 --> 00:34:20.334
Hunting and fishing.
00:34:20.334 --> 00:34:23.584
They are very good at all those.
00:34:23.584 --> 00:34:27.584
One day I was playing at a place in southern Michigan
00:34:27.584 --> 00:34:31.792
and a man came up to me and said, \"Do you have any demo tapes?\"
00:34:31.792 --> 00:34:37.000
And this guys seemed like he, he knew somebody in Nashville.
00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:38.834
Well I thought, \"Well, that\'s great.\"
00:34:41.830 --> 00:34:46.500
It was very cold and I remember in the bottom of my truck there was a puddle of water.
00:34:46.500 --> 00:34:50.667
And there was a tape that I had made of a song I had written.
00:34:50.667 --> 00:34:54.542
But it was frozen in the puddle of water at the bottom of my truck.
00:34:54.542 --> 00:34:56.667
So I went out during my break,
00:34:56.667 --> 00:35:00.751
heated up the truck and I pried this tape out of the puddle of water
00:35:00.751 --> 00:35:03.584
and I dried it off in the heater and I didn\'t know if it would play.
00:35:03.584 --> 00:35:06.709
I rewound it, you know, and I put my name and number on it.
00:35:06.709 --> 00:35:08.830
And I gave it to him and I said,
00:35:08.830 --> 00:35:10.500
\"I don\'t know if it is working or not but that is what I got.\"
00:35:10.500 --> 00:35:14.500
Well, a few weeks later I got a call from Nashville Tennessee and it was
00:35:14.500 --> 00:35:19.830
Dennis Lord who wrote Country Club for Travis Tritt
00:35:19.830 --> 00:35:24.167
and that is what made Travis Tritt famous if you know the country genre.
00:35:34.420 --> 00:35:39.830
He wondered if I was ever coming down to Tennessee
00:35:39.830 --> 00:35:44.417
Well, of course I was going to come down to Tennessee.
00:35:44.417 --> 00:35:50.000
So I jumped in my truck and headed down there.
00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:52.626
Got a record label signed with Nova Records.
00:35:52.626 --> 00:35:55.834
And we made two albums.
00:35:55.834 --> 00:35:59.792
Outside Looking In and Hats Optional.
00:35:59.792 --> 00:36:05.000
Outside looking In ended up with five Grammy nominations
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.420
in the 42nd Grammy\'s in 2000.
00:36:09.420 --> 00:36:14.000
It just kinda took off from there, but I was juggling my family
00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:16.209
and trying to get back to Nashville, Tennessee.
00:36:16.209 --> 00:36:22.250
Which is 536 miles from my doorstep to the place I stayed in Nashville.
00:36:24.792 --> 00:36:30.250
Well that was hard on the relationship with my wife and I.
00:36:30.250 --> 00:36:33.292
I still love her to this day. We are still good friends.
00:36:34.375 --> 00:36:35.792
I tried to get her to move down there,
00:36:35.792 --> 00:36:39.709
but she would not move away from her family, her parents, the security there.
00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:43.959
And I had to make a decision at the time.
00:36:43.959 --> 00:36:47.542
And I decided that well I have to pursue this music because I have to.
00:36:47.982 --> 00:36:50.024
I, I have to.
00:36:50.024 --> 00:36:51.316
My boys were getting older.
00:36:51.316 --> 00:36:54.270
They were taking care of themselves.
00:36:54.270 --> 00:36:55.024
And it was a big decision.
00:36:55.024 --> 00:36:58.191
It was a hard decision for me to do.
00:36:58.191 --> 00:37:00.270
It was the right one.
00:37:08.860 --> 00:37:11.860
Shortly after the Grammy nominations I
00:37:11.860 --> 00:37:13.357
had a hard time singing.
00:37:13.357 --> 00:37:15.899
Had a hard time with the high voice part
00:37:15.899 --> 00:37:20.107
and felt like I always had a tickle in my throat.
00:37:21.982 --> 00:37:25.649
So they sent me to a doctor and
00:37:25.649 --> 00:37:28.357
turned out I had throat cancer on my vocal chord,
00:37:28.357 --> 00:37:29.899
my left vocal chord.
00:37:30.690 --> 00:37:35.565
Well at that time I had just given up everything
00:37:35.565 --> 00:37:38.565
to concentrate on this music.
00:37:38.565 --> 00:37:40.732
And at that point immediately I thought,
00:37:40.732 --> 00:37:43.860
\"Well now it\'s, now it’s all over.\"
00:37:48.107 --> 00:37:51.860
Well I pretty much wrote everything off.
00:37:51.860 --> 00:37:55.649
I was drinking too much and I thought this is it, you know? I had a close call.
00:37:55.649 --> 00:37:58.860
Little brush with death there and
00:37:58.860 --> 00:38:01.860
really didn’t care about anything.
00:38:03.107 --> 00:38:05.316
I said that’s it.
00:38:05.316 --> 00:38:08.690
I got to go back to where I have peace and quiet.
00:38:09.274 --> 00:38:12.815
I\'ve got to come back to Montana.
00:38:35.440 --> 00:38:38.440
I met a lady.
00:38:40.066 --> 00:38:42.565
Her name was Lynn.
00:38:44.565 --> 00:38:47.274
She was the sweetest thing.
00:38:50.607 --> 00:38:53.732
Settled in at a little place and
00:38:53.732 --> 00:38:58.232
getting ready to buy some property down on the river.
00:38:58.232 --> 00:39:01.024
We had a lot of dreams together and we had a lot of plans.
00:39:03.399 --> 00:39:09.274
She had, she was diagnosed just
00:39:09.274 --> 00:39:14.024
little less than 9, I guess it was like 85 days since the time we got here.
00:39:14.024 --> 00:39:16.649
It was cancer.
00:39:16.649 --> 00:39:19.940
And two weeks later she passed away.
00:39:19.940 --> 00:39:23.232
She passed away on my birthday.
00:39:23.232 --> 00:39:26.815
We found out she had cancer on,
00:39:26.815 --> 00:39:29.024
on the uh, Valentine\'s Day.
00:39:29.024 --> 00:39:30.860
So it was a crazy thing.
00:39:39.649 --> 00:39:43.857
So I was stuck in a cabin from that time
00:39:43.857 --> 00:39:46.149
and had a little depression thing going,
00:39:46.149 --> 00:39:49.066
but I didn\'t drink or anything over it.
00:39:49.066 --> 00:39:50.899
Had a lot of thinking to do.
00:39:50.899 --> 00:39:54.440
I was on the computer online and this
00:39:54.440 --> 00:39:59.149
deal kept popping up on the screen on the computer
00:39:59.149 --> 00:40:04.982
you know, eHarmony, you\'re, you’re matches are in.
00:40:04.982 --> 00:40:07.690
Come to find out Lynn,
00:40:07.690 --> 00:40:10.982
before she passed away,
00:40:10.982 --> 00:40:13.732
put me in this eHarmony, which is a,
00:40:13.732 --> 00:40:21.191
you know it\'s a match, match deal.
00:40:21.191 --> 00:40:24.690
She, she didn\'t want me to be alone.
00:40:24.690 --> 00:40:27.232
So she put me in there.
00:40:32.565 --> 00:40:36.357
There was this one lady who kept standing out.
00:40:36.357 --> 00:40:38.274
And I said, \"You should come up and see the park.\"
00:40:38.274 --> 00:40:42.565
And she was all up for that so she flew up from St. George, Utah.
00:40:42.565 --> 00:40:45.270
I picked her up at the airport.
00:40:45.270 --> 00:40:46.774
I watched, watched the plane unload
00:40:46.774 --> 00:40:49.565
because I thought I could still scoot out of here
00:40:49.565 --> 00:40:52.732
if things weren\'t looking good, you know.
00:40:54.440 --> 00:40:58.649
This is cool man you can move around.
00:40:58.649 --> 00:41:00.607
Pretty cool, huh?
00:41:00.607 --> 00:41:05.399
So she got off the plane and I checked her out and
00:41:05.399 --> 00:41:08.232
things looked ok because I don\'t trust that
00:41:08.232 --> 00:41:13.899
online dating service at all but, hey, we did a lot of talking and email.
00:41:15.690 --> 00:41:17.690
Took her up to Glacier Park
00:41:17.690 --> 00:41:22.024
and showed her some of the secret trails that I used to trudge around in.
00:41:33.357 --> 00:41:37.732
She’s the sweetest woman I’ve ever met.
00:41:37.732 --> 00:41:41.274
We just fell in love.
00:41:41.274 --> 00:41:43.316
I might do this more often.
00:41:43.316 --> 00:41:47.274
Last September we just,
00:41:47.274 --> 00:41:50.399
we just said, \"Well, might as well get married.
00:41:50.399 --> 00:41:51.774
might as well get married.
00:41:51.774 --> 00:41:52.565
That would be kinda cool.\"
00:41:52.565 --> 00:41:53.774
So we did.
00:41:53.774 --> 00:41:55.690
And I plan on spending the rest of my life with her.
00:41:55.690 --> 00:41:56.732
She is a wonderful woman.
00:42:06.399 --> 00:42:10.607
The last five years, since I quit the drinking and
00:42:10.607 --> 00:42:14.565
maybe had a little revelation about life and
00:42:14.565 --> 00:42:18.815
don\'t take it so seriously, is that I have been my happiest.
00:42:25.270 --> 00:42:30.774
I can look around and absorb the beauty of Montana.
00:42:35.298 --> 00:42:39.298
How many people actually go out and look at the stars?
00:42:39.322 --> 00:42:42.322
Just go out and look at the stars.
00:42:43.960 --> 00:42:45.960
If more people could just get out
00:42:45.984 --> 00:42:49.984
and go sit by themselves, look at the stars at night
00:42:51.008 --> 00:42:54.008
I think this world would be a better place.