Blackfoot Valley Dispatch - The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980

The best of men That e'er wore earth about him, was a sufferer, A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, The first true gentleman that ever...

"Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed" - Alexander Pope. It was during the mid 1960's. I was 17 or 18, and Dan,...

I had been in Barra do Bugres, Mato Grosso for six months when they had to kill Pedrão. He was one of the four professional assassins, or...

I watch a lot of baseball during the season, which runs from April to the end of November. I enjoy the other televised sports, but with the disinteres...

Brazil is burning the Amazon again. Their new president has declared an open season on both the environment and indigenous people. I liked his...

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. Mark Twain  Inscribed under his bust in The Hall of Fame The U.S. owes...

Matt announced to his family that he was finally going to clean out the horse barn. With the passing of the work teams and the introduction of ATVs,...

As post-war baby boomers, most of us had parents who had suffered through the Great Depression, and then WWII. They faced the poverty of the 1930s and...

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind. The paired butterflies are already yellow with August. Over the grass in the West garden; They hurt me. I...

I spent a large part of my youth fishing: the Blackfoot River, Nevada Creek, Brown's Lake, the small creeks near Helmville, plus the pond behind our...

I have an old Peace Corps friend visiting for a few days. In 1972 we met in New Orleans, along with a group of 160 other new volunteers. The orientati...

I knew my father was dead when the helicopter flew low over my house. The ambulance had gone past with lights and siren a few minutes before. I...

It was in Summer School where we Catholic kids learned catechism in preparation for our first communions and confirmations. Two nuns would come to...

Until the late 1950s and early 60s, milk cows were an essential part of the operation of most ranches. The large numbers of children in the families...

Some friends stopped by the house last Sunday. They had been in Hawaii for a couple weeks and shared their impressions with me. I was in Hawaii once,...

He would never exchange his solitude for anything. Never again be forced to move to the rhythms of others. Tillie Olsen Tell Me a Riddle (1960) Search...

During the post-WWII years and into the late 1950s almost every town in Montana had a sandlot baseball team. Baseball was in its heyday with Mantle,...

I've been back in the US for over a year, now, and it's time to correct a wrong I left unattended for most of that time. It's embarrassing. I've had...

Emotional weariness and physical weakness are the only things that keep me from foolishness any more. Like I've written, I have the propensity to inve...

The summer before my eighth grade (1960), my mother, who still had hopes for me, got the idea that I would do well to attend my last year of grade sch...

As kids, we were always anxious to help our fathers (it was always the fathers those days) in their work. We were participating in the adult life,...

In the early 1980's I attended a lecture by Dr. Timothy Leary, the professor and LSD advocate. He said that the world has gone through a number of...

Throughout my life, the only recurring nightmare I ever had was that of me, huddled in a corner, surrounded by an angry crowd screaming accusations....

When I entered the Peace Corps they gave me five months of Portuguese lessons in the state of São Paulo before they sent me to Mato Grosso, a state...

When I was in Barra do Bugres this last time, I put a lot of effort into finding old friends from my Peace Corps years. Many had passed on, of...