Reflecting on mountain glows

Once in a while up here in Whitefish we have these incredible evenings (OK — maybe it’s still late afternoon), when the mountain glows with the sunset’s reflection. It looks magical from town.

We feel blessed to live here. I am proud to have been born here. My father was born here. He’s at rest up on the hill at the west end of town. Christmas time always has me thinking a lot about my father. At 18 years old, a few days before Christmas in 1944, he was captured in Belgium along with (almost) the entire 106th Division during the Battle of the Bulge. After dark on a frigid Christmas Eve, their train consisting of cattle cars referred to as “forty and eights” pulled into a yard somewhere deep in eastern Germany. The cars were made to hold eight head of livestock or 40 men. He didn’t recall how many were loaded in, but they were packed so tightly that those that froze to death couldn’t fall down. It was my dad who, in the sudden silence of that agonizing and freezing night in those cars began to sing “Silent Night” and the entire train load of POWs joined in. They were still singing when the Royal Air Force bombed the yard and the train, killing many. Contrary to the anecdote on page 243 in Stephen Ambrose’s excellent book “Citizen Soldiers,” he did survive the bombing, the war, a stern wife and the raising of six children.

Since his passing in 2003, I fight tears when we sing “Silent Night” every year at our Christmas Eve candlelight service. This year was no exception — but in light of the recent alt-right/Nazi rally kerfuffle I feel an even deeper sense of pride for my father, who, even at 18 years old, knew full well and never forgot who he was fighting, for what he was fighting — and it’s cost. And pride also for my hometown where, freeloading, psychopathic, blow-hard nincompoops notwithstanding, we also have not forgotten.

Happy New Year Whitefish!

Artist Rob Akey lives in Whitefish.