One of the things I dislike extremely about driving in MT is the white crosses. For those of you whose states don't have them, or who haven't visited, imagine the following:
You're driving along enjoying the view. And along the highway, are dozens of little metal white crosses. They mark where someone (or in the case of multiple crosses on a horizontal post more than one) died in a highway accident. There are places in MT where they are crazy thick. Gallatin Canyon is one of these. Around the Silos Bar outside of Townsend is another (we counted 12 of them in a 3 mile radius).
These things have always bothered me. Some service organization maintains and puts them up. Some families have turned them into ad hoc memorials. I think it's nasty. I don't like the idea of the place where I breathed my last in a violent way as being where I'm remembered. And then there's the iconography of the cross. They don't put up Stars of David for Jews. They don't put up crescents for Muslims. Nope. All get the cross treatment. I find that really offensive in a way. It's like baptizing dead people.
So if you're ever in the neighborhood, and you see plenty of these things, remember, it's a scary stretch of highway. If there's a bar nearby, you'll understand even more.
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I never really liked those, either. However, the fake flowers that people hang on them (I used to see a lot of that between Pablo and St. Ignatius, not so much now) are a lot less strange to me than the actual shrines people make to the dead in the Southwest. Some are made out of brick and mortar. With a framed photograph, candles, and the whole bit.
Actually, there was a shrine on my way to work every day. They had flowers, candles, crosses, signs, all sorts of things. Now there's just a fading picture in a plastic sleeve nailed to a wooden cross, with a few fake flowers. I agree, it's sad, and I wouldn't want someone to pay homage to the place I died a violent death, either.
I like that sort of thing. The crosses on the highways. It just reminds me of the futility of being human. Death in a modern contraption makes everything even more absurd.
You'd fit right in, then. It's one big cemetary of road there. It's not the interstates, though- only the 2 lane roads. The best ones are the rusty, neglected ones on tertiary roads.
i used to know a girl (well dated her once, before she went crazy) anyhoo in high school she would put up white crosses for dead pets.
you know typical montana scene, suburbs, golf course, busy road and oops dead cat or dog...
she thought it clever to put up handmade white crosses for them.
as some kind of animal rights statement, this was pre PETA, mind.
i wonder if she's still doing it.
If she's the crazy girl I'm thinking of, I would bank on it.
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