WEBVTT

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For the past few
years, I've been

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going backpacking in
Idaho, and to get there,

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you have to go through
southwest Montana

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through the Missoula area
south toward the Salmon River

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through a little
town called Hamilton.

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And although that
little town is being

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ruined like many
other little towns

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by trailer parks
and such things,

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it still retains,
for me at least,

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the kind of nostalgic
aura of the '40s.

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It's got a very-- once
you get off the highway,

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you get into a beautiful
neighborhood of large houses

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and elm trees or whatever
they call them, maple trees,

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sycamores.

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It's a very pretty little place.

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It's got a library,
it's got all the things

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that we don't have anymore.

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It has a nice
little stone library

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with a brook, believe it or
not, going through the library

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grounds.

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The drugstores have the old
fashioned canvas awnings

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on them.

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Good place for nostalgia.

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So this is a poem about that
little town called Hamilton.

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"To be surrounded
by so many peaks,

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great astounded maidens, and the
forests running like happy cows

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across the fields, jumping
the fences in the town.

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Druggists' awnings,
a stone library

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at the center with
a brook, thin asters

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leaning on the banks toward
suicide in its shadows.

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There's any wonder that
the divorcees drive

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like mad over the freeways
from Missoula from Denver

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to live among weeds and flimsy
trailers by the airport,

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to dance with cowboys and
electricians of the MSG&E.

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Or that leaving,
tourists heading

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south for the wilderness
across the land warping

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toward the salmon
stop their cars,

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get out, stand in wonder
in their own short pants

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at the rivers, all white,
attacking the bridges

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beneath the passes rising
in mudslides, rubble,

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then facile with snow
arching into the west

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back into the east."

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