Montana - Our Treasured State
By Lindie Fink Gibson
My grandmother, Barbara Goddard with her parents, Johannes and Maria Brakstad, and baby brother Jelm Brakstad and brother Colbin.
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I
love Montana because my grandmother was born here in 1897 to parents
who came from Norway to start a new life in the Land of Opportunity.
Then my mother came along in 1925 and me in 1953, and my son in
1975. My son started his family here in 1994 and Montana will always
remain my home. For a place to be called 'home' it needs to be more
than a place to tie your horse to a hitchin' post and pitch your
tent, or a railway stop at the end of the line.
Montana is an environment offering a variety of opportunities
and experiences coinciding with the awe and wonder of nature; a
place where people realize that earning a good living is not as
important as the experience of true living - in harmony with God
and man - the way it was meant to be.
Montana is a place where you can hold your head high and see
limitless sky and feel purifying wind blowing through your hair
- where you can study a ceiling of starry night unshrouded by big
city lights.
It's a place where your neighbor is your friend, where strangers
still reach out with a helping hand, and where a man's word and
handshake are as good as any piece of paper.
Montana is a place where living in the slow lane of life is a
much
preferred lifestyle - where watching a colt or frisky young calf
run and dance in a field is better than the best programming TV
has to offer - where hiking and camping and fishing dimish the lure
of holiday cruises and Disneyland for making and sharing memories
while our children grow.
Montana is a place where the roar of the hustle and bustle of
life
is drowned out by the solitude and silence of nature and the music
heard in the sounds of birds and creatures that inhabit our wheat
fields and countrysides and woodlands. Montana is home to the deer
and antelope that play, and a few buffalo that still roam; with
golden sunsets and flaming orange sunrises and crystal clear lakes
and stream.
Montana is also a place where nature dresses in the beauty of
four distinct seasons; a never-ending reminder of the omniscience
of God.
Our state is home to the Asian, the European and Black, the
wealthy, the poor, and everyone in between - a place where all are
considered equal in the eyes of the Montanan.
Why do I love Montana? ... Because Montana is a land rich in
resources and experiences that are treasured - and for
generations, the love and appreciation for Montana remains in the
hearts and homes of its people as one of its greatest treasures.
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Lindie Gibson *Echoes of the Heart* Livingston