Borodin: Do you think they will let me live in Montana?Ramius: I would think they'll let you live wherever you want.Borodin: Good. Then I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck... maybe even a "recreational vehicle." And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?Ramius: I suppose.Borodin: No papers?Ramius: No papers, state to state.Borodin: Well then, in winter I will live in . . . Arizona. Actually, I think I will need two wives.Ramius: Oh, at least.
But near the end of the film Borodin is fatally wounded. As he dies, he manages to utter a few last, well-known words:
Borodin: I would like to have seen Montana.
Glad to say I saw a LOT of it in the last 4 days. Some of it is SO desolate it's very easy to understand going crazy the pioneer psyche. After seeing some of the area around Shonkin...I can truthfully say I would have been a saloon girl, or a school ma'am, just to avoid the life of a Ranch Wife...OMG...the wind...the dust...the heat...the noise of the Elephants charging...the incredible solitude.
ReplyDeleteNOT well phrased a'tall, but think you know what I mean...*S*
ReplyDeleteWow ... not many people have been to Shonkin, for sure, or even know where it is! I did a history project years ago about the old MIlwaukee Road line through there ... it's really lovely country, I think.
ReplyDeleteAnd I definitely understand what you mean! It might be kind of cool to live in a place like that now -- but it would have been completely different a century ago, when you might have only been able to get to town a few times a year. Sitting in a little homestead shack with the wind blowing and the wolves howling ... it could have been a sure path to insanity.
Gram was born on Shonkin Creek in 1884; she told me she always ran and hid when 'cowboys' stopped by when she was little, but that she liked the Indians who visited because they were quiet and always polite. An illness took her vision as a girl...but she married in 1904 if I'm recalling right...and they moved to Belt where the Granda worked as an engineer for the power plant until he died in 1931. Even visually impaired, she was an excellent fly fisher, and loved the outdoors all her life. But she never talked about Shonkin much, so maybe she was glad to leave it to the cowboys. I have been told she had the first triplets born in MT...3 baby girls who died at birth. She had 4 other children who lived...my Da among them.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I went looking for Shonkin...I saw enough of the lay of the land to be impressed, and hightail it back to Fort Benton. *S*
I just think it is a funny quote!
ReplyDeleteProbably would have been even funnier if they'd used North Dakota instead. :)
ReplyDelete