It was early June, 1965.
I was fifteen and on a train from Indiana headed for Helena, Montana. I had never been anywhere before except Chicago, to see the Christmas decorations at Marshall Field’s each December, and Pennsylvania, where I had lived for three years (and Ohio because you had to drive through it on the turnpike to get to my grandmother’s house in Pittsburgh).
Now I was off like Bilbo Baggins for an adventure in the wild, wild, west. In the fifties, I had watched every episode of the
Spin and Marty series on the Mickey Mouse Club and read the
Annette Sierra Summer mystery in 1962. I was totally prepared for rattlesnakes and mountain lions.
Three days later, the train arrived at the Helena station early in the morning. It was rainy and muddy and I felt my first stomach lurch of homesickness. I was met by Old Brewery Theatre staff and driven to what was to become my home for the next two summers. The Old Brewery was a huge, scary, redbrick building. Inside, it was like walking into a cave. It was icy cold and dark. There was a flimsy flight of stairs leading up past two holes in the thick stone walls which turned out to be entrances to the second and third floors. I was completely terrified. I could not imagine going up all those steps. The only daylight came through shutters halfway up. Trying to move forward was like getting up your nerve to jump off a high diving board. Probably you could do it and not die, but then again, maybe not. I watched as my heavy trunk and suitcase went up the stairs and turned right into one of the holes. No one had slipped and died carrying them up and the stairs had not collapsed, so I started my ascent. I do not remember how I got up there. The next horror was realizing I would have to go down again because the theatre was on the ground floor and that was where I would be working. I went up and down those stairs a thousand times over the next two summers. But the first time up was like a crash course in mountain climbing.
It was quite a place. We were the Bandit Players at the Old Brewery Theatre in Last Chance Gulch. We performed Carousel, Brigadoon, Camelot, Girl Crazy and My Fair Lady. I got to sing and dance all summer long. I was the youngest company actor both summers and even got to sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ to open The Last Chance Stampede Rodeo two years in a row. After I sang, I joined Miss Rodeo Montana and her court in my borrowed cowgirl hat and boots. Step aside Annette!
But the biggest thrill was to walk by myself (I was too young to go out after the shows with the older actors) on the large hill directly in back of the theatre after each evening’s performance. There were so many stars. All those stars. Some nights there were so many shooting stars it was like watching fireworks. They made me feel immortal. It was like being on the edge of the universe.
Now I live in County Sligo, Ireland. We moved here almost five years ago. Ireland often reminds me of Montana. Montana and Ireland are sisters in stars and mountains and big skies.
Brenna Briggs is the author of the Liffey Rivers Irish Dancer Mysteries. www.liffeyrivers.com
