This is the 160th blog post since I started in 2011.
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A bit more on Genghis. Because he conquered so much territory (map below) and because he encouraged some of his followers to stay behind in his conquered lands, intermarry & raise families, it is said that 1 in 200 of the earth's population today carries DNA that traces back to these folks.
GK did not have a well thought out succession plan. A very long story very short, his empire fell apart in the 14th century during his grandson's generation.
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I mentioned a 2nd poem awhile back. Here it is. With no punctuation whatsoever, it took me several readings to group the thoughts into phrases and sentences. Some of the capitalization helps.
Anzick Child, by Al Nyhart
Hunting marmots in August
near the Shields River
we found parts of you
buried in a sandstone outcrop
with tools washed in red ochre
Twelve thousand years
before you could tell us
of your ancestors leaving Siberia
walking the land bridge
into the Americas
Child of hunter-gatherers
you were too young
to forage wild plants
growing near your camp
or fear the mighty mammoth
kept near by the mountains
We borrowed you awhile
to examine your bones
then put you back into the earth
where the spirits of your descendants
celebrate your return
It turns out the above poem is based on fact, not imagination. There was an archeological find in 1968 about an hour's drive from Bozeman. Anzick is the name of the property owner where the bones and tools were found. The last paragraph, referring to the child's return to his burial site, happened in 2014.
Here are some newspaper accounts of the events.
WEBLINK 1
WEBLINK 2
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My laptop is on a partial fritz; it's become glacially slow. This is due to an intrinsic Dell Inspiron problem on some units whereby something goes wrong in the operating system such that the unit no longer recognizes the Dell AC charger as correct for this laptop. So it will not charge the battery. But luckily, with the unit plugged in, it at least keeps the battery at the same level.
To do that, it goes into the battery-saving mode by slowing everything way, way down.
And that makes doing this blog more difficult & time-consuming.
So...with the addition of this next photo, I'm going to suspend the blog, probably for the rest of this trip until I can get back home to have this unit serviced.
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The other night we met with a bunch of folks from the local synagogue at a brewpub. They call the event "Brews for Jews", held monthly. This one was special because the synagogue just hired a new rabbi (the former rabbi retired) so it was also a "meet the rabbi" event.
Anyhow, I wasn't much into taking pics except to be reminded of Montana's screwy alcoholic beverage laws and the power of the lobby.
We've all seen the rise of microbreweries and brewpubs...Montana is no exception. The bar & tavern owners saw this as a big threat and lobbied the state legislature (that only meets every-other year, another Montana oddity) to place restrictive rules on the brewpubs. One is to limit the amount of beer to be served daily to each patron. They do this with each customer receiving the following slip of paper, the front & back shown below.
So to purchase that 2nd & 3rd beer, you have to present the slip to the barkeep or server to be checked off.
This, of course, is really stupid because these slips are all over the place, scattered on every table & in front of every bar stool occupant. Anyone wanting to go beyond the three pint limit (not me or Susanne!) just uses another slip.
Another rule is that they must close at 8pm and yet another is that they cannot serve prepared food. The food thing is easily gotten around by having the on-site food service listed as another business entity.
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On Monday, we head to Billings for four days, haven't been there since our first Montana swing-through in 2008. It's east of the Rockies, more plains than mountains and near the Little Big Horn, of Custer fame.
With this, dear blog reader, I'm signing off probably for the rest of the trip.
Thanks for stopping by!!!
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