High drama at the Frostbite Festival

A holiday bazaar, whether church or community, is deeply nostalgic for me. Memories of the green-tiled basement of the Methodist Church in Missoula in the 1960s evoke taste memories of butterscotch bars, riots of color in quilted art and remarkable expressions of creativity from souls that otherwise appeared so conventional.

When the opportunity to have a stall at the Upper Swan Valley Historical Society "Frostbite Bazaar" presented itself, I saw an opportunity to sell some of my books, and to support the society.

I've written similar features to this for 25 years, mostly in the Billings Gazette, where I practiced cardiac and reconstructive surgery beginning in 1991. I've collected those stories in three different books, and I had extra copies of the second and third books because my faithful readers seem to get everything on Amazon.com now.

So I set up a table at the bazaar, and peddled "True Enough" and "Truth Actually" - the sequels to "Mostly True". The titles relate to the fact that I don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

I was way ahead of the current cultural trend of crafting reality to meet one's particular preferences.

My table faced one selling specialty soaps, created by Kaylie Reynolds, employing goat's milk. Emma Smith assisted with sales. I've never known goats to be particularly fastidious in the hygiene sense, but Kaylie assures me that goat's milk is the thing in soaps.

I watched them jealously, trying to determine if they were sponging more than their share of dollars.

Since I was donating my proceeds to the historical society (in hopes of boosting my karmic cred), I felt free to employ high pressure sales tactics. I asked passersby if they were readers (who wants to admit they don't read) and pointed out that their purchase was a full donation. I suspect many of my books will serve as firestarter.

My success (sold all the books) stimulated ideas of a future career as a telephone salesperson, or scammer. I really like the one where the guy pretends to be a grandson who is arrested in Mexico and calls grandma asking for money.

Sharon Lamar taught a very popular watercolor class, with a half dozen students at a time creating remarkable mountain scenes.

Sheri Burden had a variety of striking stained-glass creations.

Linda Schuff presided over the bake sale dressed as a very festive Santa's elf, perhaps a bit on the tall side. Fern Kauffman, helming a table of historical objects, informed me that some of the vendors came from quite a distance, bringing art and crafts of every genre.

Anne Dahl, who is the historical society's program coordinator, had the good taste to buy a couple of books, but I suspect she was making sure I wasn't nipping from a flask.

As the afternoon wound down, it was time for the raffle. I placed my ticket in the box next to a cutting board (with chocolate treats included) made by Connor Matthew.

A young lady, supposedly chosen at random, was selected to draw the winning tickets from each box. Three of the four winners just happened to be members of the hosting historical society. Coincidence? Hmmmm. Was it rigged?

Unfortunately, there is no video recording to determine if the ticket boxes were tampered with, so an independent commission will have little to go on. Some might say that since I didn't pay for my ticket (it was included with registration) that I have no complaint. However, I have refined my sense of entitlement to a high shine.

This was the second community event I've attended in the last week or so. The other was the Condon Community Thanksgiving dinner, this year hosted at the Condon Community Church. The dinner was a rousing, warm success. I contributed green bean and sweet potato casseroles, which were snarfed up, although my 3.5 million Twitter followers (Editor's note: he has one follower) criticized my use of marshmallows on the sweet potato dish as "gratuitous" and "self-aggrandizing". That's what happens when you dare step outside the box of stultifying convention.

I've read so many articles lately about the loneliness epidemic, the increasing sense of alienation, how civility is being incinerated in the fires of partisanship. I'm sure that the gentry would see these types of events as kitschy, retro, nostalgic relics.

While the academics and pundits flail about for solutions to societal dissolution, bazaars and dinners and clubs and churches and bowling leagues and Mah Jongg groups and quilting clubs (although frankly, quilting is more of a cult in my estimation) continue to be highly effective vehicles for bringing people together, sharing an interest, but also sharing the elevating atmosphere of connection.

I didn't get the cutting board, but I feel that everyone who attended these events was a winner.