Take a trip to First Night Missoula with reporters Betsy Cohen and Tim Akimoff.Just ask the thousands of people who were part of the wonderment during Missoula's First Night celebrations.
There were endless pony rides. People's hair stood up on end.
“It's pretty incredible,” said Kristen Roth, 23, as she took in the day's revelry. “This is my first First Night, and it's pretty cool to have all these different and diverse offerings to be a part of.”
At the SpectrUM Discovery Area, children and their parents wallowed in hands-on science experiments hosted at the Missoula Children's Theatre.
The static electricity station - which made people's hair friz out - prompted riotous laughter from people of all ages, just as the cow eye dissection captured people's fascination with the gross.
Krista Hellem, the mother of two young sons, looked at peace among the high-energy organized chaos.
“It's great there are so many kid things to do because we are definitely at that stage of life - we are kid oriented,” Hellem said. “For us, we can't take part in the evening stuff, but that's OK - this is fun, too.”
Despite the wailing of toddlers and the excited shrieks of grade-schoolers, Hellem smiled serenely and sat calmly with her 2-year-old busy with building blocks.
It was, for her, a time for reflection.
“A lot of lessons have been learned this past year, and I know I have more to come,” she said. “I think the No. 1 thing I've learned is patience - and selflessness.”
Madison Vandertuin, 8, was overwrought with joy. For her, Wednesday was the best, most magical day of the year.
Thanks to her father Greg, the horse-crazy girl was allowed to ping-pong back and forth between riding live ponies at Caras Park and rides on A Carousel for Missoula.
Too excited for words, Vandertuin smiled and burst out over and and over, “This is so much fun.”
“This has become our family tradition and my kids have been asking me about First Night for the past two weeks,” said Greg Vandertuin. “We love it, and it's such a nice way to end the year.”
At the Missoula Art Museum, Ryan Bundy was looking forward to being the star attraction.
The folk singer explained he usually plays in restaurants where he is the background music. To play in the museum among the great works of art and to have an audience come to hear him play was a whole new experience.
“It's really nice,” Bundy said. “It's really nice.”
Museum curator Steve Glueckert was thrilled with the traffic that traipsed through during the day.
“It's pretty cool to be open on the last day of the year and to see so many people here,” Glueckert said. “A lot of these people have never stepped a foot in here, and that's important to us.”
“It's important to have art in your life,” he said. “Anybody involved in art, dance, music or any of the visual arts understands the power of its healing in your life. Certainly at the end of the year it allows us to reflect, and that's part of the healing, which draws us together as a community.”
As the ice-carving team chiseled and chipped its medium into recognizable form, an ever-flowing crowd of admirers watched and then returned later to see the progression.
In his 30-some years as a chef and competitive ice-carver, Tom Siegel, executive chef for UM's Dining Services, has learned one thing for sure: People are mesmerized by ice and ice sculpture.
“It's a diminishing art is what it is,” Siegel said, and because of that, it's an appropriate medium to work with during the close of the year and the dawn of the new one.”
“Ice, it's kind of meant to come to conclusion,” he said. “A lot of time, we will carve ice with the intention that it's not really done when we finish.”
“It looks its best when it shrinks and melts some and gets really shiny,” he said, “and that's when it begins to disappear.”
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)
Thomas wrote on Dec 31, 2008 10:35 PM:
I've stepped in more dog crap than any cat residue. At least a cat buries it when its done!! If any of the above individuals complaining about cats owns a dog, you better hold your tongue. "