Love and loneliness

he quest for companionship is a huge time and money consuming business around the world. In the United States there are thousands of personal queries through just one "search organization" each weekend in many big daily newspapers. The ads seem to be on a grand scale for lonely Montanans and across the country.

Let's look at examples:

"Meet Christian singles local/nationwide-phone/mail-introduction magazine - no fees- donations only..."

"Tall athletic lady, 33, experienced in homesteading and wilderness living. Desires permanent relationship with Alaskan or Northern Canadian gentleman. Drug users or dedicated drinker need not reply..."

"Meet pretty Oriental girls, all ages/area. Select yours from exciting photo directory. Send $1 handling..."

Tens of thousands of ads like these appear each month in American journals, newspapers, flyers and magazines and it is becoming an even bigger business on the Internet. We are talking here about LONELINESS, a legitimate human emotion. Somehow that situation seems tragically ironic alongside the world portrayed by millions of dollars worth of "slick" magazine and TV ads for breath sweeteners, Cadillacs, underarm deodorant, diamond earrings and the right kind of wine.

Once upon a time, I was hunting antelope in a land so lonely and harsh it was perversely magnificent, right on the Montana-Wyoming line between the Main and Little Powder rivers. Closest settlement of any size was Spearfish, South Dakota. Wandered into a remote ranch marked by old log buildings and a modern mobile home. A windmill pumped water from a deep well and ran a battery charger to store electricity. There was no lawn or picket fence, but plenty of barbed wire.

An old man was leaning against the gatepost. He was tough, browned and gnarled as the high plain pines that fought for life on the wind-blasted hills around him.

Dan Westkoff was 18 years old when he built a homestead shanty there in 1900 and he was 38 when he ran a "wife wanted" ad in the Denver Post. He went by buggy and train to pick her up. Lorrie was 18 when she married Dan.

Didn't meet their 22-year-old son because he was on a trip to Miles City to pick up a new bull for his flourishing her of Herefords. I received permission to hunt on the ranch, and met a geologist who was supervising an oil drilling operation hoping it was as a good as the first one drilled for the Westkoffs.

Dan and Lorrie had just each other for the first 38 years of their marriage. They also had bad crops, little money, far away neighbors, blizzards, and no children; but in 1958 they took in a 12-year-old orphan boy from Chicago, who was "down on his luck and runnin' away."

They let him stay longer than planned because he "helped out a lot" and Dan couldn't work "like I used to." They adopted Bobby when he was 15 because, "that boy made our lives complete."

Seems to me, how a person finds a mate ... or a son, is not as near as important as how much love is applied afterwards ... deodorant, dowries and the right wine notwithstanding.

(Note, a version of this column ran in 1986 and I thought it was worth repeating.)

G. George Ostrom is an award-winning columnist and author. He lives in Kalispell.