SEIDMAN SAYS: A holiday in rural Montana stirs thoughts of better days - and Ted Lasso

RED LODGE, MT — For the past decade, the soundtrack to my Fourth of July holiday has been the powerboat races off Lido Beach, the ambiance, the stifling, stickiness of midsummer Florida.

Not this year. For the month of July, I’m in rural Montana for a writer’s retreat at the guest cabin of my sister and her husband, recreating the trip I’d envisioned last year, when a fluke health crisis put me in the hospital rather than on the hiking trails.

Fourth of July is a big deal here; the annual parade and rodeo date back to 1929. Settled in the foothills of the east Rockies in the early 1880s, Red Lodge is the seat of Carbon County, where there are only three dwellings per square mile; just 2,200 residents live “in town” year-round. With its stoplight-less main street and old movie theater marquee, it’s a throwback to an earlier time, the kind of place where drivers slow down and lift a hand off the steering wheel as they pass, whether they know you or not.

Nature is in your face here, literally.  It’s been a rainy June and countless deer brazenly graze on the lush grass in the yards of the former coal miner’s homes that line either side of Broadway. Wild turkeys meander across the road. Nearly every house or business sports an overflowing hanging flower basket or window box, celebrating the end of another long winter. On a recent morning I turned a corner and came face to face with an enormous bull moose.

There are still signs of last year’s devastating flood that hit nearby Yellowstone National Park – a house teetering on the bank of Rock Creek, stuffed with branches and debris the raging waters shoved inside; a new bridge to replace one washed out; a fading yard sign, “We [heart] you, volunteers!” When a natural disaster strikes, you can’t afford to be enemies with your neighbors.

An hour before the parade it is drizzling, but regardless, townies and tourists pack in shoulder to shoulder the length of the main drag. The clouds part just in time for a piercing blast from the town fire engine that signals the start, drawing the early imbibers at the Snag Bar, a favored local watering hole, blinking into the sun.

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A parade is a parade, but here the kids are on horses, not bikes, and instead of a marching band there’s the Alte Kamaraden (Old Friends), a geezer instrumental group that dates back to 1896 and plays safely seated on a flatbed trailer. The Republican Party float (“Only you can prevent socialism!”) and its Democrat counterpart (“Working for you, not just the few”) briefly draw both cheers and jeers, but the grownups are more focused  on optimizing their childrens’ positions for candy catching.

The sun disappears again for the rodeo, but neither that, nor the muddy arena, deters spectators or competitors. The national anthem is played on a violin that sweetly hits the high notes that can challenge a hometown singer; its elegiac timbre feels just right for today’s troubled times.

Cowboys with names like Straws and Lightning and Calgary (those are first names) try to cling to ornery, gyrating bulls and broncs for the eight seconds required to get a score. When they don’t, the spectators in the “Oh S***” section rise in a unison wave and croon, “Oooooohhhh **** . . . You got bucked!” It’s more commiseration than derision.

No one makes a crack about the rodeo clown, a former high school teacher and wrestling coach in drag, or gets irritated when the person next to them spills an entire beer on their boots, or boos anyone. Best of all, no one is staring at a phone.

After a dinner of summer’s bounty – corn on the cob, potato salad, watermelon and grilled brats – while waiting for the fireworks to begin, we watch the final episode of “Ted Lasso” we’ve been saving for a special occasion. It’s the only television I’ve seen since I arrived two weeks ago.

For those who don’t know, Lasso is a rube coach from Kansas tapped to lead a soccer team in the U.K. At first, he seems like a doofus, but you quickly discover he’s that rare human being who neither judges nor holds a grudge, is quick to forgive and is able to find a redeeming quality in even the most unpleasant and unrepentant. He makes everyone around him better.

In the final show, his son – for whom he has moved back to the States – comes to him crestfallen after missing an open shot in a game his father is coaching. Lasso looks him in the eye, smiles and gently reminds: “What do we say?”

“Be the goldfish,” his son nods, and races back into the game.

It’s a reference to an earlier episode when Lasso advised his professional players not to be defined by past mistakes, to let troubles go like a goldfish, which (he says) has a 20-second memory. Take a breath, move on, try again, be better.

After watching fireworks from a neighbor’s driveway, we sit in silent gratitude for a day so full of life’s simple pleasures – sunshine, fresh food, handsome cowboys, wet dogs, carefree children – and so bereft of animosity, political debate and righteousness.

In these dark days of wondering whether democracy is on its last legs, this respite and reset far from home has restored something I haven’t felt for a long time. The ability to look ahead, not with despair or foolish optimism, but with hope.

Swim on.  Be a goldfish.

Contact Carrie Seidman at carrie.seidman@gmail.com or 505-238-0392.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: A summer holiday in small-town Montana offers a chance to savor life