What with all the scary stuff to focus on this Halloween season, it is worth a minute or two to take a breath and realize WHY we care so much about what happens in the political arena: Our freedom to search out the path to our own brighter future.

Today, we celebrate the founding of Montana’s capital city. Only 145 years ago, four miners chasing the dream of gold and untold wealth, ended up along Prickly Pear Creek and decided to take one “last chance” at finding gold before returning home with pockets empty and dreams dashed. They had no guarantee of success. No government stimulus money to fund their efforts. No promise of a bail-out should they fail. It was all up to them.

We know the story. The question is – have we forgotten the moral of the story?

“Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.”– Theodore Roosevelt

Happy Birthday Helena!