COLUMN: On the road again

It was a stark and beautiful reminder of just how big Montana is.

And it made me think of the thousands of young Montanans who endure seemingly endless miles as they travel to the next, most often far-flung sports venue.

And in a strange twist, it made me think of what an amazing invention we have in the form of the human behind, keister, posterior, etc.

There I was, tooling along I-90 in Big Red, my 2006 Dodge Ram 1500, who many of you may be familiar with as I have traveled from Alberton to Noxon covering the sporting events of seven high schools from one end of Sanders County to the other end of Mineral County.

Occasionally, those events have included Billings (State B football championship), Laurel, (State Track and Field meet) and Butte (District basketball tournaments).

I’m not complaining, I love doing what I do. For me, covering sports in Montana is the realization of a life-long dream that materialized when it dawned on me that sitting on my behind after retiring from 40-plus years of Radiology stuff was not going to work.

At any rate, given the vastness that is Big Sky Country, a lot of my retirement job involves parking my gluteus maximus in the driver’s seat of Big Red has its pros and cons.

This past week I drove from Plains to Powell, Wyoming, on my way to a long-overdue mini-reunion with my brothers and my sister. The Treasure State is in the early stages of jaw-dropping grandeur these last few weeks. Leaves are turning amazing colors and fresh, white caps are appearing on the tops of mountains.

Now, it’s only 475 miles to Powell, but that translated into roughly seven-plus hours in the Ram saddle.

As the small towns passed by outside my bug-encrusted windshield, I couldn’t help but think of those youngsters aboard those buses I occasionally passed and harkened back to some road trips of my own during the sporting days of decades gone by.

One of the longest trips I ever took as part of a team was a “swing” through South Dakota as part of a Billings American Legion baseball team. Rapid City was the ultimate destination.

And I couldn’t help but remember how good it felt to be OFF that damn bus when it rolled up to the motel in Rapid City. For one thing, hundreds of miles of enclosure with two dozen other teenage boys was a “gaseous” adventure, if you catch my stinky drift.

But, it was the butt that was probably most relieved.

So as I rolled across the Wyoming line Wednesday afternoon, with already 400 miles in my rear view mirror and 80 to go over the northern fringe of the Cowboy State, I couldn’t help but (there’s that word again), think of the trips some Montana kids take during their high school years.

And in many cases, those trips are not in air conditioned super buses with video technology and “righteous” sound systems. No, some of those trips are in your standard issue, yellow, smoke belching school buses. You know, the ones with the cast iron seats.

A quick search on Google revealed some amazing statistics about sports travel in Montana.

For example, a Scobey Spartan footballer, on his way to a game against a West Yellowstone Wolverine, would cross 586 miles of Big Sky turf. An Ekalaka Bulldog hoping to play basketball against the Troy Trojans, would have his or her behind parked in a seat for a mere 786 miles.

And a Wibaux Longhorn would need to traverse 661 miles if they were to play a game in St. Regis.

Any of these trips would no doubt produce TBS, tired butt syndrome, not Turner Broadcasting System.

Oh, there would be stops along the way. For anyone who has ever worked at a burger joint or a convenience store, there’s nothing like the sight of a bus full of pent-up teenagers bursting out the folding doors of a bus and running toward the front door. This is chaos at a different level.

But Montana kids do it every weekend for most of the nine months they are in school each year. And it’s not just sports team guys and gals, there are at least an equal number of students traveling long distances to take part in academic events as well.

This, after most of them have spent five or six hours a day sitting behind a desk or at a school table.

All hail the magnificence of the “caboose”. Nature’s pillow. Starting point of legs. And, if you live in Montana, Texas or most of the states out West, TBS is likely something you’ve experienced in your lifetime.