Interview Transcript

Interview Date: 09 June 2020

Interviewer: Dr. Justin D Shanks

Interview Participant: Timothy Lee “Buck” Buchanan

 

JS [00:00:00] Thanks for taking a taking a break from work to chat a little bit. Uh the first uh just kind of ease into our conversation. First, let me say thanks again for making time, but to ease ourselves into the conversation, I'd love to just get a little bit of background about you. Uh what's your name? How would you describe yourself? Uh what's your career? What do you do uh when you're not working? Uh things like that. So who's Buck Buchanan?

 

BB [00:00:26] Well, first of all, my my legal name is Timothy Lee Buchanan. Um my name Buck is a nickname that I got from my granddad and my dad, they were both Buck and Bucky or whatever. And so that's how I got my name. Uh I was raised in in Idaho, north of Boise, on a cattle ranch uh that my granddad um basically got and my dad and my uncle. So there were three families that lived on this on this ranch in Idaho, north of Boise. It is pretty ironic, when we were kids we didn't want to tell anybody where we were from because they thought we were all hillbillies. But now it's like one of the premium places to be from. Eagle, Idaho is you know, kind of got this reputation for being a a place that everybody wants to live. So that's where I came from. I moved to Montana in 1976 to play music um in a band. And when I was 21 and I uh just fell in love with um love fell in love with it when I first saw it in like, oh, '74 or '75 um and then I just decided this is where I wanted to live. So moved to West Yellowstone and um met my wife there, Carol. And we decided after about three years in West Yellowstone that there was, you know, we needed to kind of try to go do something else. So we moved down to the Gallatin Valley and I started attending Montana State University in uh 1980. And I was originally going to get a degree in music, but I had to take a science class as part of the curriculum. So I took a class from Steve Custer and I just went, wow, this is really what I want to do. I want to be a geologist or at least, you know, something to do with the earth sciences. So, I switched my major and uh I became an earth science graduate from MSU. And then I was faced with the reality of the time in 1985 of going to sit on an oil well in the Williston Basin. And I thought, you know, I, I moved to Gallatin County because I really love it here and I don't want to leave. So I thought, well, what can I do? So I figured I could get along with kids pretty good. So I went back and got a teaching certificate which took another year. And then I taught 8th grade um science in Belgrade, Montana, for 22 years after doing my student teaching there. And then after that I became a brand inspector and uh I'm still playing music in honkytonk bands and and so that's what brought me to Montana. Still doing the same kind of thing to this very day. 

 

JS [00:03:28] Great. What? Which instruments or instrument do you play? 

 

BB [00:03:36] Well, I try to play the rhythm guitar and I'm a songwriter, so um I play with a band called www.Twang and we've got four records and we're on Pandora and all that stuff. Which doesn't mean, you know, I uh don't have any other way to make money because you have to have plenty of ways to make money if you're gonna spend it being a musician, you know. 

 

JS [00:04:02] Sure. sure. Ah, so you said you moved to Montana in 1976. Um how and you were in West Yellowstone and then Gallatin County, where you now are you, you're in Livingston, is that correct? 

 

BB [00:04:18] Well, I live in Manhattan. In Gallatin County. 

 

JS [00:04:19] Manhattan. Okay. So you're in Manhattan. Um and in the time that you've lived in in Gallatin County, how has the county changed? 

 

BB [00:04:31] (Laughter). 

 

JS [00:04:31] I know it's a big question. 

 

BB [00:04:33] Well, when we when we lived in West, we would drive down, of course, to Bozeman to do any kind of serious shopping or whatever, or sometimes just to get a pizza and a beer. Um basically, when you left West uh and you went into the park, you hardly saw any cars, you know, maybe two or three as you're going down the canyon, um four or five would be something that you'd go, wow. Kind of a lot of cars on the road. You know, that may be a little bit of a stretch, but it's pretty true. And then um when you got to Four Corners, there was really not much at Four Corners. There was a little grocery store uh slash gas station on the south west corner. There was the country cafe was on the uh north west corner and a little trailer park there was, which is where we moved to when we came down here. Then on the other corner, there was a log bar and I think it was still whatever that name is there. And then there was a little gas station on the other corner and there was really nothing else there. Just those four establishments on the four corners at Four Corners. Um when you headed into Bozeman, then there was really nothing until you got to basically right across the street from Perkins and there was a little gas station there. So it was there was a lot of places that were, you know, real agriculture, basically wide open spaces. And um in fact, one time my wife was driving back to West and she'd gotten outside of Bozeman and for some reason she thought that maybe she'd gone through the stop sign there at Four Corners and was headed towards Norris. And because it was just really, you know, not a whole lot of, you know, look at as far as I mean, it was awesome. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful, but there was just really no development in those areas at all. Um so that was in the, you know, the the late 70s and then when we moved um here to Manhattan um in 1980, right across the street from us a gentleman had oh a horse pasture. Uh the street to the north of our house was dirt and uh, you know, it was, you know, pretty pretty undeveloped, you know, basically just a little bit of a town. Um ours was kind of the last house in town before you made the big curve heading out on Dry Creek Road. Um so, yeah, there's been a lot of a lot of development. A lot of people want to live here, and I totally get that. You know, that's that's why I'm here is because I wanted to live here. I didn't want to stay in Boise, which is like if you ever get to feeling, you know, kind of hemmed in living here, take a trip to Boise and you'll see what real development looks like. It's like, oh, my word can't wait to get back up over the hill and back into Montana. 

 

JS [00:07:53] So uh thank you for that, by the way, Buck. Um so I want to just imagine for a moment that uh I'm a friend who lives someplace else and thinking about moving to Manhattan or Gallatin County. Um how would you describe uh either Manhattan or Bozeman or the Gallatin County? What do you love about living here? You mentioned some of this already, maybe uh what's challenging, what's sort of your your short uh summary of of the community you live in? 

 

BB [00:08:24] Well, it's a very nice community. It's well-kept. People like to work on their places and uh pretty much everybody minds their own business. So you don't have to um be concerned about, you know, nosy neighbors. Um in fact, the little part of the town that we live in are our neighbors are really our friends for the most part. And I just think that it's it's a very friendly place, a pretty open place. Um, but, you know, I've I've always been, you know, in the majority kind of and so I've always had that that privilege. You know, I wasn't a Native American or black or any of that kind of thing, so I don't really know too much about that. But it's always was really, really welcoming to me from everybody. In fact, when I first moved here, I had hair down to my shoulders and the first guy that stopped by was this old cowboy and a, oh, beat up Ford pickup. And he said, 'well, my name's Dick Vanderbie and I just live right down the street.' And I told him my name and he said, 'well um welcome to Manhattan.' And I just, you know, was like, okay. That was pretty neat, I thought. And so kind of if I was going to describe this area of the United States to people, I would say it's pretty welcoming, pretty forgiving as far as, you know, what I've what I've been exposed to. And, you know, the the air is great. The, you know, you can go and and, you know, 15, 20 minutes from town, you can be kind of by yourself if you want to be. And um I think that that's really appealing, you know, to a lot of people. And the sad part about it is, is if everybody decides to come here, you know, then it won't have that um anymore. However, if you're one of the newcomers that came from LA or Seattle or whatever, it's just going to seem as as open to them as it did to me when I got here in 76. You know, it's just a relative view of of where you came from and where you are now. 

 

JS [00:10:39] Definitely, yeah that's great. Very welcoming, uh friendly, inviting community, that's certainly one of the hallmarks definitely. Uh so now that we know a little bit about you and a little bit about what brought you to Montana and your experiences uh living in Manhattan, I'd love to talk about information access. Uh so the essential goal with this this part of our conversation is to understand um your practices and decisions about information. In the first sort of big question is uh where do you get your news? 

 

BB [00:11:15] Well, I get my news from public radio or public television, and I uh haven't been watching too much public television for about the last year and a half because I find it too depressing. Uh I try to separate the visual from the audio. It's easier for me to deal with with um, you know, a couple hours of news in the morning and then call it good for the day. Um I I really avoid any kind of news source that has to make a profit by selling the news because I find that it's a lot easier for them to um to try to tell the audience what they think the audience wants to hear versus just basically the news. And so I've been really attracted to public radio for oh decades um KGLT, of course and KEMC out of out of uh Billings and then Montana Public Radio, they have a translator in Butte so we can pick it up a little bit here. And so that's nice to have three of those public news sources. And, you know, that's that's where I get the bulk of my information about what's going on in the outside world. 

 

JS [00:12:31] And that holds true for uh local news, regional news, national news, international news? 

 

BB [00:12:37] Yes, sir. Yup.

 

JS [00:12:38] Okay, great. What about uh any print sources? Do you read any newspapers? Receive any newspapers at the home? 

 

BB [00:12:45] No, sir. I used to take the [Bozeman Daily] Chronicle a long time ago, but I just uh it would get too depressing to me to just read the same old stuff, you know, all the time. And um so that's why we discontinued that source. And I understand that, you know, we really need print journalists because they're the ones that sort of kind of set the gold standard for for uh truth and accuracy in reporting, but I just didn't feel like I wanted to continue on with that. 

 

JS [00:13:22] Sure. Uh and what about orally? 

 

JS [00:13:24] Do you uh you chat with anybody to get information maybe about more local or hyper local events, maybe things happening in your extreme local community? 

 

BB [00:13:36] Well, you know, just word of mouth. I talked to the neighbors, of course. And we talk about stuff like that. And I was on the town council here in Manhattan for a term in the 90s. So sometimes, you know, I'll be involved with um things like that um, you know, local things like that. So it would be more mostly word of mouth, I would guess, you know, for the for the local stuff. 

 

JS [00:13:59] Great. Uh so now that we've chatted about sort of your current and maybe longstanding practices, I'm wondering if you can think back as far as you can and try to recall your first memory of receiving information about the news or receiving news information, maybe television or print or radio. Uh just kind of think back as far as you can. What's your earliest news memory? 

 

BB [00:14:23] Well um the earliest news memory that I have is I would the bus wouldn't come up to my folks' place. So my dad would drop me off at my grandparents' place and I'd walk in oh 800 yards, something like that, to my grandparents' place. And they'd have the radio on in the morning and they'd be eating breakfast. Of course, I've gotten finished with breakfast, but I'd always eat a little something with them too, because, you know, why not? I was a hungry kid, you know, whatever. So yeah. I remember listening to the radio with them in the mornings um and that was probably, you know, six years old um and we'd also we had a cow camp up in between the south fork and the middle fork of the Payette in Idaho. And one of the things that we had was a transistor radio and it wouldn't work very well, but they had this little deal called a backwoods booster, which was basically just like a little looked like a little match box that was made out of wood with two wires that stuck out about to have really no idea what was inside of it. But it would make it pick up a little bit better. So we'd listen to that. And then um distinctly remember, you know, listening to Huntley and Brinkley and Walter Cronkite and uh those guys in the very beginning, black and white television. And we didn't have a television for for quite a while uh growing up. Um but then when we did, we would watch the nightly news, you know, the whole family would kind of sit down and take it all him. 

 

JS [00:15:56] From your earliest experiences listening to the morning news on the radio at your grandparents' house, having a little bite to eat, uh watching uh the nightly news, you know, the Walter Cronkite experience or even the, you know, the backwards booster for the transistor radio. Think about those early experiences with news and uh contrast that with your contemporary experiences, you know, with public radio, public television. Um how has your access to news and information changed in those intervening decades? 

 

BB [00:16:28] Well, I think that the access has gotten much, much greater. I think you can there's there's just no um shortage of of what is called news. Um I think the information is kind of less, how do I want to say this? Well, back when there was only three stations, ABC, NBC and CBS, you basically had three things that you could listen to and pretty much they were kind of all the same, pretty much. There wasn't a huge difference between any of the three that I can recall. With today's, like, overabundance almost of of information, you can fine tune it to whatever you really feel the world is like. And so what I think is happening, more and more people are choosing to be um self actualized with their news sources versus actually being educated. Um, you know, speaking as an educator, the first the how you know that you're learning something is you're uncomfortable with the situation. It's it's unfamiliar and, you know, so that's kind of the way news um maybe not should be, but news uh would be more in tune with reality if it challenged your preconceived notion of what reality was. Um and I think that that was that's one of the good things that I find with with public radio, is they they do have opposing opinions on there and they do interview people and I'm just going, 'oh, I can't I can't stand that person,' you know, I can't hardly listen to it, but then, you know, I'll sort of force myself to listen to it. And sometimes it changes my mind, usually not in a major way, but but I think that the plethora of information that we have now um is sometimes almost a disservice to the to the real truth that's going on. And it's really hard to know what exactly is going on. 

 

JS [00:18:50] Definitely. And I want to get more into that in just a second, but before we get to how you make sense of the plethora of information, um I want to ask you a couple of things just about sort of the technological asp aspects of your access. So uh you just slid your your cell phone into the uh the top drawer there. Is it a smartphone or is it just sort of a traditional cell phone? 

 

BB [00:19:13] No, it's a smartphone, but I don't do any of the Internet stuff on it. I use it for my business with the brand inspection um because people will, you know, you can text. You can take pictures of things. Uh, they can send you pictures of stuff. It's very, very handy. But I use the computer in my office for um, ya know, doing Internet searches or look at the weather is usually what I look at um and the stock market and those kind of things. 

 

JS [00:19:41] Okay and with with uh public radio uh or I guess public television as well, but I guess more so with public radio, do stream that uh through the computer or the phone or is it just through the radio? 

 

BB [00:19:53] It's live. 

 

JS [00:19:55] Okay, nice. Um and what about social media? Do you use any type of social media? 

 

BB [00:20:03] Um well, yes, because of the of the band that I'm in and I've written a children's book, so I've got a presence on Facebook, but I'm less than thrilled with Facebook. I'll just say it like that. Um I just think, okay, it's kind of like you go to a bar and instead of just the band having a microphone, everybody in the whole place has a microphone. And now you're trying to make sense out of all this stuff and people are maybe wanting to dance or whatever or listen to something. But all but everybody's got a microphone. And this is like, whoa, this is too much so. 

 

JS [00:20:41]  I like that. That's a good way of describing Facebook uh so is it safe to say that you don't get any of your your news or other information about the world via Facebook? 

 

BB [00:20:55] No, I don't. I don't think, my wife might get a little bit of of news from Facebook, but not much. She does stream things like um, you know, Trevor Noah and uh John Oliver, those kind of those kind of shows and she does watch PBS News online. I know she does that. 

 

JS [00:21:21] Okay, great. Thanks, Buck. So now we we we have a good sense of where you're getting your information, the sources and the, you know, the technological means for for accessing the sources. And you just a moment ago mentioned the plethora of information that is available uh both online and through various other outlets, and the challenges of making sense of that and that's what I'd like to dig into a little bit more now, is when you do hear a segment on public radio or you watch something uh or maybe, you know, on the off chance, you read a piece of news in a newspaper you pick up or something like that, how do you make sense of it? How do you determine if that information is trustworthy, factual, reliable? Um can you just walk us through your process of analyzing or evaluating the reliability of the information? 

 

BB [00:22:14] Um well, the first thing I always try to think of is that, you know, no matter what story is being told, it's gonna have a bias from the teller. And so that's the first thing um the second thing is, is there money being made off of the information that I'm being given or paid for or whatever? Um I tend to think that public sponsored radio is or television either one is more accurate because they don't have a bottom line that they have to to um sell so much soap or cars or whatever to pay for this thing that they've got going. Um so I think I tend to think that it's more trustworthy if if it's publicly funded than if it's privately funded. Um Rupert Murdoch being a prime example of of a privately funded for profit, you know, news quote in quotation marks um organization. So I'm pretty leery about anything like that. And um, you know, being an Earth science major and people that are skeptical about climate change or, you know, pollution and, you know, all these things are really complicated. And they want just a simple answer. So I think that if if the story that I'm being presented with pretends to have a simple answer, I think I probably discount it at a higher rate. 

 

JS [00:23:58] Sure. So. The absence of a bottom line and maybe the uh tendency to shy away from the simple uh answers seems like those are two of the big criteria. When you're listening to news information, is that correct? 

 

BB [00:24:15] Yes, that is correct. 

 

JS [00:24:16] Okay. Um and a couple of times in our conversation, you you've uh made a distinction between uh news and then, you kind of like, news in air quotes. I guess maybe is this how you're referring to it. So I'm wondering if you could walk us through the distinction between uh maybe what is what is news and maybe something that's posturing as news maybe is a good way of describing it. 

 

BB [00:24:48] Um well, I think things that are posturing as news are things that are trying to um carry some political baggage, you know, um posturing as news would be, you know, denying the fact that um human beings are the cause of climate change. Uh there's, you know, we've got six hundred thousand years of data on CO2 levels um and people tend to just want to ignore that because they say, well, you know, the climate is always changing and that is true. That is true. The situation that we find ourselves in, however, is that the climate has changed more in the last 150 years than it has in the past 150,000 years. So that those are the kind of things that I, you know, that I try to draw a distinction of and as and um, you know, especially news that tends to um vilify a certain segment of the population. Um you know, I think that we're losing um track of the fact that everybody that's in this country is an immigrant or a refugee. And unless you happen to be an Indian, you know, if you're Native American, then, yeah, you you probably have been here for a while, but everybody else kind of either snuck in. I know we snuck in from Canada, my family um back in the 1700s or maybe the early 1800s. Um so I just think that when they vilify or when news tries to vilify a segment of the population, I would definitely shy away from that, you know, when you and I also think that it works both ways that just because you have a differing political viewpoint of somebody, that doesn't mean that they're the enemy, it just means you have a different way of trying to solve problems. And I think what the what the news um in air quotes has done is to easily vilify a whole segment of the population that just has a different opinion on how things should be done. And that's really detrimental to the republic and I, quite frankly, worry about that on a daily basis. 

 

JS [00:27:22] Yeah, definitely, I think that's that's a very keen understanding of that uh and to to follow up on uh some of those comments a bit more over the last couple years, there's been growing attention to concepts like alternative facts and fake news and the concept of post truth in the media. So I'm wondering if you're familiar with any of those phrases, alternative facts, fake news, post truth. Uh and if so, what uh what do they mean for you? Where what sort of context do you encounter them? 

 

BB [00:27:55] Well, usually um it's uh, you know, the fake news has been made famous by um Donald Trump. Um alternative facts, the same. Um and as a scientist, there is no such thing as an alternative fact. There's a fact, 'A is A,' you know, 'X is X,' it has this much mass. You know, it has this much weight if you're on the moon, has this much weight if you're on the earth, it has lalala. You know, it's so so to me, it's such a disingenuous argument to to call it um anything other than what it is, which is basically um fake. It's when you say it's an alternative fact, you're just it's it's not a fact. Science does not work that way. And yes, scientists are wrong. They're wrong all the time, but the thing that separates and the thing that I was most drawn to about science is if you're wrong in science, nobody burns you at the stake like if you wrong at religion, you know, our chops your head off or any of that kind of stuff. Not usually. Um basically, what happens is they go, 'well, yeah, okay, so you're wrong about this, but, you know, because of your work, we're able to go here. And we found out that that's wrong.' So, you know, everybody's trying to push knowledge forward and understanding forward. And I think that that's really, you know, that's kind of the key to the whole survival on this planet is um education and understanding and and not, you know, propaganda and vilification. So when I hear alternative facts, I know somebody is trying to, you know, blow smoke. 

 

JS [00:29:43] Certainly. Uh so with respect to alternative facts and fake news or the concepts thereof, do you think those concepts are problematic in all forms of news journalism, in particular forms of news journalism, particular outlets? Um, how pervasive do you think the alternative facts, fake news problem is in contemporary news? 

 

BB [00:30:10] Well, I think it's always been a problem in any kind of news because, you know, you had the muckrakers back in the 1800s and um you had, you know, there's there's newspapers that were definitely pro right and pro left um pro Nazi papers. I mean, all kinds of stuff so it's not anything new. It's it's nothing really new. What it is now it's just so fast that you don't have to read a newspaper. You can go to Facebook and have, you know, 500 things, you know, being being streamed into your um feed on any day. Um and I think that no matter what your source of news is, those um the people that are reporting the news, cannot report the news without having a bias. It's like three people watching a car wreck. You're going to get three different stories of what happened. And that's just human nature. You can't you can't un unhook yourself from yourself to give a perfectly factual, unbiased telling of any kind of story. And you can try really hard and I think a lot of people really do, but you still carry that bias with you and it colors your reporting even if it's just, you know, you to your neighbor, that kind of reporting. 

 

JS [00:31:39] Definitely, yeah I like your your mention of the muckrakers and all the various uh news outlets that we've had since the beginning of news that have had these these same problems with uh spin or slant or, you know, the various uh inherent biases. 

 

BB [00:31:56] Yeah. And sometimes, you know, it happened it's happened since people could write that they would just, you know, make up the most hideous things about people that disagreed with them and print it. And a good friend of mine used to say, 'well, just because you can set type doesn't mean you can tell the truth.' So and it's kind of the same, you know, to this very day, only just we've got digital type now instead of, you know, actual letters and a box. 

 

JS [00:32:28] That uh that's a great uh saying. I like that. 

 

BB [00:32:33] Yeah. 

 

JS [00:32:35] Um so now that we we've chatted a little bit about your processes for evaluating the trustworthy of news and information, a bit about fake news, alternative facts or the concepts of those at least. Um I'm wondering if you could chat about uh how you decide uh to share information, if you share information, and not necessarily personal information, but more so uh you read an article, you listen to a news segment on public radio um do you share uh the news information that you receive with other people? And if so, how? And if not uh why not? 

 

BB [00:33:11] Well, sometimes I do. And sometimes I find that, depending on the person, um that it would be more detrimental to the relationship that that we have to insist that, you know, you know, 'you're out your mind. This is really what's going on' because nobody really likes to be told, 'oh, you're totally crazy, you know, you don't have a clue. And here's really what's happening,' you know. Um as a former teacher, I fight that tendency quite a bit because it's like, well, you know, I've educated over well well over 2,000 people, you know, in my career. And so you think, well, you know, everybody else wants to hear what I have to say too and that may not be the case. So I try to um, and especially with family members, kind of limit what I what I know because I because they do not have the same uh core beliefs that I do and all it does is um cause hard feelings. And and, you know, so there's really no reason to go down that rat hole, in my opinion. If somebody asked about it or, you know, like when I do my brand inspections, I've been wearing a bandana and uh nitrile gloves because sometimes I have to be in, you know, real close quarters, like in a scale shack or something. It's probably less than the size of this office that I'm in right now with three or four other people and most of them, you know, don't have protective gear on so um what I have found is that since this whole thing started, more people are taking what I've been doing as kind of uh well the fact that I'm trying to take care of them and they sort of appreciate that. So I think that that's good. I think people, you know, when when confronted with um harsh realities, do change their mind about, you know, certain things. But I still think, like, one of the worst things that I think is happening now is there's people that are just saying that this thing is a hoax and, you know, made up by the left or whatever and and I always am tempted to say, 'Oh, so you're a doctor. Oh, you're a microbiologist. Oh, you're a virologist, okay. Well, that's so then why are you driving a cattle truck?' Or something like that, you know, kind of a little bit snide, I understand, but, you know, it's like you're you're passing yourself off as this um cornucopia of misinformation, really so.

 

JS [00:35:58] Yeah and so I'd like to chat a little bit about Covid-19, about Coronavirus and information uh exchange. So obviously this is a topic that the globe has been uh concerned with for a number of months. And in Montana, it's really been about since early March that we've been dealing with it locally and that has created changes in the way individuals interact, they way businesses operate. A lot of changes in the educational arenas. So I'm wondering, uh in the time period from early March, in March to now while we're just in the early days of the second phase of reopening and people are starting to move around more freely and businesses are open closer to, you know, their pre-Covid-19 uh status. So I'm wondering, do you find yourself consuming uh or striving to consume more news information, or less? Or is it about the same? Uh yeah, so more or less news since Covid became a more pressing topic. 

 

BB [00:37:02] So pretty much the same. My my routine is pretty much the same. I get I turn on the news in the morning. I don't know, I didn't even think about it until I was telling you earlier about my grandparents and I listening to the radio in the mornings on the way to school, but it just seems like that habit has sort of stuck with me. So I'll drink a couple of cups of coffee, listening to the news and then, you know, after it's after I've heard about two hours, two and a half hour hours, it seems to be plenty and then go about the day. So really, it's been pretty consistent for years, actually. 

 

JS [00:37:37] Okay and uh have you been getting news about Covid-19 from the same sources, public radio, public tel or I guess mostly public radio? 

 

BB [00:37:45] Yes, sir. Yes. 

 

JS [00:37:47] Okay and then uh sort of the million dollar question is uh what's your understanding of Covid-19? And you mentioned a little bit about this, but I'm hoping maybe I can get you to elaborate a little bit. 

 

BB [00:37:57] Well the way I understand it and kind of, you know, viruses mutate all the time. And that's one of the challenges of of trying to deal with a virus, is that they can mutate so rapidly and us humans just don't have that luxury. We we it takes us a while to, you know, evolve. You might as well call it that because that's what your body does when it builds up antigens, you know, or something to fight um a virus or bacteria or whatever. Um I do think it probably started in China. I don't think the Chinese are to blame for it. No more so than with the pandemic of 1918, you know, it started in Kansas. And a lot of people don't realize that because it's called the Spanish flu. So most people think it started in Spain, but it, you know, started at an army post in Kansas and then it was immediately sent to the trenches and in Europe in World War One and, you know, now now people I first when I first started telling people about this because I accidentally had a history class, and learned about a little bit as an undergrad, they were like totally clueless. And then I and I didn't know that it started in Kansas. I thought it started in Spain, too, because of the, you know, the moniker on it. And um and then the reason that it got the Spanish flu is because Spain was the only country that was actually giving out their infection rate and their death rate. Um President Wilson never mentioned it once in his whole term of office, and neither did the Kaiser or whatever the guy that was in charge of Germany never mentioned it. And it took, you know, quite some time. Um my granddad was a he was 14 when that happened, but they lived in such a remote part of Idaho that I don't think it ever even it never even crossed his mind because they never told me any anything about that. And, you know, if you if if you were 14 years old now, when you have a grandson, you know, you're probably going to be telling him or at least a couple of stories about, you know, what you went through. But I'm guessing that that's why, you know, I'd never really heard about it until I accidentally stumbled on it in college. So, yeah, I think that that um people really need to pay attention to it. They don't need to be panicked about it, but they do need to understand that the best way to keep it from infecting people is, is to, you know, wear some kind of a mask, um don't shake your hands, wash your hands all the time. Um and just kind of be aware and and take care of each other is sort of the bottom line, I think. I'm pretty nervous; we're going to play on Saturday at uh our first outing with the band since this whole thing started. It's going to be an outside gig, which is a plus, um you know, and we're going to be up on a stage, which is also a plus, but it's like there's going to be people there that are I guarantee you there's going to be the majority are not going to be wearing masks and they're going to be drinking. And it's just kind of like, I don't know, you know, there's a part of you, if you're a musician that you really want to play, and especially, you know, this this band that I've been in, the bands over 20 years old and um we've been playing together for a long time. The bass player and I since the beginning. So there's that desire to get out there and make some music together, but on the other hand, it's like, well, are we really encouraging uh behavior that's going to be detrimental? And you know that um that weighs on my mind. 

 

JS [00:42:14] Yeah, definitely, it's a good example of the ongoing uh sort of tension that we have to deal with as individuals and communities as we we continue to move through the uh the ever changing dynamics with with Covid-19, for sure. 

 

BB [00:42:29] Right. And we did have a bar that we were supposed to play at later in the month and they decided that we were just going to postpone it, which was what we were had made the decision as a band. It's like, you know, this is just this too much. You know, it's not going to be outside. There's not going to be, you know, a chance to be anywhere distant from anybody. And, you know, the singing part of it, um you're putting that whatever is in your lungs, out in the air. So we're going to have, you know, those little pop screen things for recording. We're gonna have those in front of our mics so that, you know, that we will try to cut that kind of stuff down. Um but still, you know, that we were really thrilled that the bar owners decided that, no, that was just too risky for everybody. 

 

JS [00:43:18] Definitely. Yeah. Um well, I hope the concert goes well and everybody stays at least a little spatially distanced and safe. 

 

BB [00:43:28] Well I'm hoping so too, but I don't think that's going to be in the cards. Maybe it will be. 

 

JS [00:43:33] Yeah. Uh so I have one uh one final sort of big uh question to ask you to speculate a little bit. So my conversations with with folks over the last handful of months have focused on people in Montana, and communities in Montana, and how uh those people, you know, access and evaluate and share information. And what I what I've been asking folks is, um based upon your experiences as an individual in Montana, do you think people in Montana access, evaluate and share information differently from folks in other parts of the country? 

 

BB [00:44:17] Well, I really really have no idea because I haven't lived in other parts of the country very you know, I've always lived in the West. Um I would guess that maybe um Montanans maybe talk to their neighbors a little bit more, but I think that's just kind of a huge guess um based on a whole lot of inadequate information on my part. Um I think everybody's a bit parochial about where they live. I think that they always think that it's the best and, you know, we're always doing things the correct way. And if everybody would just be like us, the whole world would be awesome and, you know, blah-blah-blah, but um I I do think that um people in Montana are are a little more likely to believe things when they're when they're couched in the argument that, well, you know, your Montanans and and this is awesome, so you're awesome. And um, you know, this is how this is how the West was won or whatever. I think that can I think that gets kind of confusing to people when they when they do that to each other. And I think really we're all kind of pretty much the same um and so I would have to say that we probably communicate pretty much the same, whether you're in New York or or Birmingham or Boise or, you know, pick a place, Wolf Point even probably you might see people that you know better more often, but I think you probably communicate with them about the same, I would guess. 

 

JS [00:46:08] Great, yeah and definitely, I think your remarks about people more likely to believe or more willing to believe things when it sort of aligns with their their self conception. Definitely. Yeah. 

 

BB [00:46:21] Well, I think it's a lot like that in the Harry Potter book where uh they found that mirror. I can't remember what the name of the mirror was, but anything that you desire, whatever you desire the most, if you looked in the mirror, that's what you saw. And I think that a lot of the news um is like that. It's it's just kind of your self propagandizing in a lot of ways and it's really hard not to because you don't want to, you know, you don't want to feel like you're a total idiot. You know, you want to feel like you know what's going on. So if you have a news source that kind of reinforces, 'oh, yeah, you're you're right. Look, here's what's going on.' So, you know you're correct about this. Um I think it's easier for people to to do that versus, and I'm sure I'm guilty of it, too. I'm just a regular human being um, than it is to really challenge your beliefs and to find out what really is happening, you know? 

 

JS [00:47:24] Definitely, yeah that's uh that's a good takeaway. I like that. Uh so, Buck, I want to thank you so much for taking time to chat with me today. I really appreciate your your openness and thoroughness and uh and thoughtfulness as well in response to these these questions. Uh and one final thing, I've I've just been providing everybody with sort of a blank space. Um so if there was something that you thought we were gonna talk about that we didn't talk about or if you have any questions for me, I just want to provide you the space to ask those questions or provide some additional comments if you'd like to. 

 

BB [00:48:00] Um well, as far as information goes, I think that um being an educator, one of the things that we could really use in our school, and I know that there are some schools that do it to more and less extent, is is have a media understanding class so that you, you know, are taught. Okay, this news source is funded by this and, you know, this is maybe why they're saying it like this or, you know. Um that would be part of it, and I think that it also would be really helpful, and this is kind of a bit of an aside that the economics of the whole situation and economics in general, I really feel should be a requirement for anybody to get out of high school because it doesn't really matter how much money you have, you need to know how to deal with it. And then if you understand the economics behind the news, then you might be able to make better decisions. I mean, maybe not. But I think those two things could really help. Not just not just Montana or not just, you know, the West, but I think, maybe, you know, the whole world. But definitely the country. In particular, especially if you could combine those those two things, you know, media media savviness and uh economic savviness probably would would really help to, you know, ensure that we're talking in this democratic republic another 225 years from now or whatever, you know. 

 

JS [00:49:41] Yeah, I really appreciate how your your your role, your career, your training as an educator has run throughout a nice thread that has run throughout all of your responses. So it's really shows how powerful the power or how powerful education can be to to address a lot of things. And I think media savviness and economic savviness certainly are two foundational uh pieces of of knowledge that that everyone, as you indicated, can benefit from. So. 

 

BB [00:50:12] Yeah. Well, I just, you know, I know what education um has done for me. And it just really literally changed everything. And I think that everybody deserves that, you know? It shouldn't be it shouldn't be just for, you know, privileged people or or, you know, any particular segment. You know, everybody needs to be educated so that they can make up their own mind and I think that's, you know, maybe something that we're a little lax in in this country is is well I know we're lax in as far as our education goes, because we don't spend the same amount on on all the same kids. It depends on where you are born, the kind of education that you get and that I think is doing us a lot of harm. 

 

JS [00:51:03] Definitely good uh good final thoughts. Uh so again, Buck, I want to thank you so much for your time and for your responses. Really appreciate the opportunity to chat with you. 

 

BB [00:51:13] Well, thank you, Justin. I've enjoyed it myself. 

 

JS [00:51:16] Fantastic.