Disappointment and spectacle on a trip to the Ice Follies

As kids, it was rare for us to travel farther away from home than Deer Lodge. The roads and vehicles of the day weren't much, and we never saw any reason or need to go to a bigger town.

But two or three times over the years our parents hauled us to Butte to see the Ice Follies. It was a big deal for us, and the show made the interminable trip worth the suffering. The show was at night, so we had to leave early in the afternoon order to compensate for our father's self-imposed speed limit of 45 mph.

We suffered the noise and dust of the twenty miles of gravel to Drummond, which, coupled with the constant cigarette smoke from our parents, made life uncomfortable.

It was after Deer Lodge when the trip assumed larger dimensions. We were in relatively unknown country, and it had an abundance of new things for us to see. The glow from the Anaconda smokestack and all the lights in the smelter left all of us in awe.

It took a child's lifetime, and it was already dark, but finally we eased over the hill at 45 mph and saw Butte's lights. That made the long trip worth the time in the old Jeep station wagon.

We had relatives in Butte, and we had been told that our great aunt and her husband had purchased a television. None of us had ever seen a TV. To me, television, since it was new, was more interesting than the skating we were going to watch later.

I expected a giant screen full of colors and action, plus one clearer than the TVs we watch now. But when I walked in the house, our great uncle was sitting on a kitchen chair, four feet from a tiny, black and white screen, trying desperately to watch a baseball game. It was a quick and severe disappointment which took the edge off my evening.

So then it was the Ice Follies for us, and they never disappointed. After the torture of waiting for our father to find the perfect parking space, it took forever to chase and carry the six of us into the field house. And then there was the confusion involved in getting all of us something to eat before we made it to the bleachers.

With a lot of arm jerking and verbal admonitions, we found our seats and settled in for the show. The anticipation mounted when the arena lights went off, and after a few minutes came back on to give us a flood of color and sparkles and beautiful skaters.

To a rural child, living in a tiny town that didn't have a single outdoor neon light, the brightness and the colors were overwhelming – better, even, than what I thought television would be before my great uncle showed me the reality of living with naive expectations.

The show was a marvel of athleticism and color. After a monotone winter of blizzards and frozen cow manure, the effect was even more acute. When the program ended, it was time for the whimpering and whining. We were tired, but still faced a three-hour trip with four or five of us packed into the back seat.

All of us were asleep before we got out of Butte, and the trip to Drummond involved little more than trying to find a comfortable position without starting a fight. We were too tired to even squabble. The gravel from Drummond to Helmville made sleeping near impossible, but we managed as kids can. The turn and the quarter mile to our house usually roused us, but there were times that our father had to carry four or five of us inside.

I think we made the trip three times. Even with the deep impression that the size of the Butte field house and the spectacle of color and costumes at the beginning of the show, my more salient memories are about the suffering in the old Jeep.

The only clear vision I still retain is that of my great uncle hunched over, and peering into a world of TV snow in an attempt to see a baseball game. It could have been a harbinger of the life I was going to live – a life replete with naive and unrealistic expectations for things I know nothing about. But it's better than riding in the old green station wagon.