As I now have done for each of the last fifteen (count ‘em!) years, back in Montana après the multiple tsunamis that are otherwise known as a now-typical Extravaganza, I write to thank each of you for attending this year’s Extravaganza.
Each year’s event in retrospect seems to have a character to it and, looking back, this year was a year of multiple impressions: Group One not only froze their butts off but also had the pleasure of two days of motor coaching over the Continental Divide only to return to home waters to fish their third and final day in a driving and chilling rain storm; Group Two started off chilly but warmed up just as the fishing did for a(nother) banner year on the water; and as to Group Three, never in all of our years have we had quite the Southern uprising that we had this year where, festooned with a gaggle of Southern battle flags and entertained with Zionesque h.d.’s of epic proportions, The South, indeed, DID rise again with all of its wonderful accompanying softness and charm of presentation and acute consumption of Kentucky bourbon—multiple bottles as relates to the latter.
For many of you this was your first Extravaganza and, frankly, I had my eye on each of you to see just how our now traditional zaniness and total disregard for the necessity of sleep would fare with you and, in reflection, I congratulate each of you in your progression to now Extravaganza veterans, with the words of Group Three South Carolinian Juli “Da Teach” Jones summarizing the import of it all with her own post-Extravaganza posted observation that “a river now runs through me”. Bravo, bravo, bravo!
And, as to you seasoned veterans, I am simply honored by your return visit(s) to this wonderful corner of the earth, where time has stood still, Mother Nature has preserved all that was there for Lewis & Clark to first see over two centuries ago, and, as our Montana Matters Troubadour sings in his now epic Montana Matters hymn about this great state, “where people still waive hands” ( that is, all the combined fingers of those hands, not just a miscreant subset thereof!).
As all of you now have witnessed first-hand, what exists here in Montana is truly special and I hope that in my small way that I have implanted some extravagant memories in your mental hard drive so that one early morn you will awake with the quietude of Montana paying you a visit, that on some special quiet occasion a smile alights on your face as you reflect back on all that you saw here and all that you did together, and that, as now part of your annual ritual, you reach out as we all collectively did to help those who are dedicating their lives to make this special state even better.
To that end, thanks to each of you, we met our goal to raise $30,000 to fund and foster the virtual naturalist program of the Montana Natural History Center and, because of you, every school day in the coming years we will have extended to the grade school youth of Montana the wonders of Montana’s flora and fauna and thereby light a spark that may well give birth to the next generation instilling in them the awesome pleasure and duty they have in caring on your environmental torch to their ensuing generation(s). Also, with our initial givings to the National Wildlife Federation this year, my now decade-old Montana Matters campaign helped fund and create our first Camp Montana Matters which I had the great pleasure of opening with twenty awarded high school students last Sunday evening “in the wild” at the confluence of the Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church National Wildernesses, the combined magnitude of which is 3.6 million acres.
Indeed, all, Montana Matters.
So, as we put a bow on this year’s event, I take off my E-17 fishing hat in salute to each of you and thank you for travelling all this way to spend five extravagant days here. I can tell you first-hand, that, as is our tradition and trademark, everyone and everything we touched this year is better off for the experience—your heart, your soul, our friendship, and the great State of Montana where, thanks to you, even the 1500+ fish that we collectively caught and released are better off for the experience.
Yes, it ALL matters!!
Best to all from the now concluding scene of it all,
Rock Creek Ron
----><’///:><
