Last week I had the good fortune to witness and share two contrasting experiences reflecting Montana’s past. One, a hallmark of our region, is easy to appreciate. The other has been neglected, but it may have a more lively future. First, consider the easy one, a roping clinic.

Our neighbor, Scott Foster, recently built a professional-quality roping arena. Scott winters about 30 horses on our place, so I am interested in his operation. Biking to church, I noticed queens of heavy-duty pickups, Dodge Duleys, GM Duramaxes, and Power Stroke Fords, parked by Scott’s arena. Each pulled a horse trailer, some sufficiently large to include sleeping quarters.

Most pickups looked new, unscarred by ranch work, and well decked out. These were expensive outfits, implying a serious commitment to perpetuating skills developed on open range in the 1800s and still used today during round-ups.

Monday, biking back from work, I stopped by and watched Scott’s team roping clinic. The instructor was a nationally ranked roper from Arizona. This was clearly a serious event. It may also be a historical benchmark testifying to decades of cheap energy.

Will today’s rodeo traveling continue if diesel goes to $6 or even $10 or more a gallon and credit becomes increasingly dear? These pickups do well if they get 14 MPG pulling a four-horse trailer. Of course ranchers will rope, but recreational exercises such as this, however enjoyable for the people and horses, may be at risk. Regardless, I enjoyed observing and wish them well.

The second site of romance from times past was prompted by a front-page Chronicle story on Montana’s labor movement. Titled “Whose side are you on,” the Bozeman’s Union Temple featured an exhibit of “rare remnants of Montana’s labor movement.” FREE’s interns and I entered and were warmly greeted by art historian Elizabeth Darrow, a Democrat activist. She turned on music from the movement’s early years, “Solidarity Forever,” an ode to organizer Joe Hill, and similar pieces of folk music romanticizing labor’s struggles.

I was especially intrigued because the Wall Street Journal had just run a story on the changing culture of Bozeman, “Blue-Staters Run Through It,” a takeoff on the 1992 Redford film, “A River Runs through It.” The Journal piece featured Jim Walseth, a software designer who moved here 12 years ago to live the “Bozeman lifestyle,” bringing his “progressive” views with him.

According to the Journal, he and the “tens of thousands of knowledge workers who arrived after him are reshaping the way the state looks, acts—and votes.” And it’s surely correct. Our demography and culture have certainly changed and now reflect today’s “progressive” views.

I explained to our interns that this exhibit and the roping clinic have romantic links to our past, cultural remnants with insights for today. The team roping clinic reminded me of ranch work with Tedd Mann in Wyoming when I was a student. The union exhibit recalled conflicts in Butte, a town that once boasted of having the world’s only unionized Burger King.

I have no doubt that team roping will continue both as exciting work during roundups and as a highly demanding sport. Likewise, the motivation underlying the labor movement will likely survive and probably grow, for it is time for major policy and personnel changes in D.C.

The flaws of political capitalism become evident when politicians are bribed to favor constituents and special interests; consider Republicans Ted Stevens and Duke Cunningham. Likewise, Democrats complicity with teachers’ unions in limiting the educational opportunities of poor children poses a great threat to America. No wonder congressional approval is under 10 percent.

Both political parties are guilty of abusing public trust for personal advantage. No one respects hypocrites and self-dealers. Similar corruption in the decades surrounding 1900 motivated Progressive Era reforms.

Complementing the Labor Temple visit, we lunched at the Western Café, a restaurant mentioned in the WSJ article on Montana’s shift toward blue. The Western attracts folks who handle the furniture of the world; dirt, rocks, livestock, machinery, and wood, not those who manipulate symbols, stocks, and surveys. The Western deserves a place in the Smithsonian Institute. It’s a far better representation of American ideals than most politicians we send to Washington.