We Like Mike

You might remember the adventurous Scotsman, Mike Slavin, who started his trip to all 20 of the Glasgows in the United States right here – sticking around four weeks and swigging more than a few brews over at Montana Bar.

Well, Orrdinary People caught up with the Great Scot this week by phone while he was in oceanfront Hilton Head, S.C. And you know what? After having visited all those Glasgows, it didn't take long for the Glasgow, Scotland, native to get back in a Montana state of mind nine months after he left.

“I stayed at Campbell Lodge,” he says with his unmistakable and hearty Scottish accent, “though I spent most of my time in the Montana Bar. Ha! Ha! Ha! It was one of my favorite places.

“It's unpretentious, full of good old people who wanted to talk. That's what I particularly like. Glasgow, Montana, was a great place to start my trip. I'm glad I started in Montana. It was a good place to find my feet.”

Mike shares many of his experiences here in free-spirited detail online. You can read his daily blogs at MikeSlavinGlasgow.BlogSpot.com – and if you do, plan on visiting the website just as Mike visited Valley County – for a while. This will take some time, and you'll like your stay.

“Glasgow, Montana, owes much of its success to being a long way from anywhere,” he writes in a May 28 blog. “One side effect of this is the brilliance of the stars. I used to think I knew my stars. Living in a big city, all you can see are the constellations. Here, away from the street lights, it was hard to see the constellations for the stars. I was lost, reminded of my childhood wonder at what could possibly be going on up there.”

The retired computer programmer, 68, also blogs about the Montana Bar scene, the railroads, seeing calves being branded, the Grown Ladies Shuffleboard Team, visiting the high school, the Glasgow chamber, the Kiwanis lunch when he made a presentation to Mayor Carney, the Milk River, Fort Peck Lake and Fort Peck Summer Theatre, Memorial Day in America, and local history about homesteaders and Lewis and Clark.

Then there was the Blues & Brews Festival. How could he forget? Well, maybe there's a better way to put that.

“They had assembled 20 local beers for me to taste and pass judgement on,” he blogs. “I tried them all and declared a winner, but I can't remember what it was. The transit bus brought me home, and I can't remember that either.”

Mike initially planned on visiting only our Glasgow because he knew of Big Sky Country and wanted to experience it. Then he says he “discovered the others by a curious mistake,” while trying to show someone back in Great Britain where he was going to in America.

“Which Glasgow,” the other asked, “do you want?”

All of them, it turned out.

With so many Glasgows – and American beers – under his belt now, Mike says he does mistake one Glasgow for another at times. He says he visited three Glasgows in Pennsylvania, two in Alabama and his last one in Georgia in February. He says the one in Kentucky has school sports teams named the Scotties – must be a fine place – and threw a memorable Scottish Hogmannay party on New Year's Eve.
And in south Philadelphia, his car was broken into.

“Apart from that, it's been great,” he says. “But even the police there (who assisted him) made it an experience. I've had a terrific time, the time of my life.”

Mike left Scotland last April the same way that he'll return just about one year later: on the grand Queen Mary 2 luxury cruise ship. He's driving his way up the East Coast now and later will head for Minneapolis, where he started out his Glasgow tour in the States. There, he says, he will “say hello-goodbye” to a cousin.  

Oh, one more thing.                        

“I'd just like to say hi to all my friends in Glasgow, Mont.,” Mike says. “I'll be back someday.”

Orrdinary People appears in the Glasgow Courier. Please suggest special people to Jim Orr at 406-228-9301 or publisher@glasgowcourier.com.