Moving Out West

When the ol' man got orders back to California from Italy in 1962 we were all ecstatic. California was the promised land. It was a grand place. San Berdoo was the foothills of the San Gorgonio mountains; I hunted quail, dove, rabbits: fished Arrowhead; skiied Big Bear: surfed Newport to Ventura. Bought a 57 Chevy and traded that for a '58 Vette and then a Ranchero. My buddies and I ran to Tijuana and Ensenada; Dived from Coronado to September Reef off of Cabo all the way up the other side to Guymas and San Felipe. It was truly magic.

They re-introduced turkeys and we hunted them. We walked the PCT which runs from Mexico to Canada; climbed Tuolumne Meadows, many pitches on Half Dome up to the Salathe. Heck, I even hunted quail with the security cops at Cal State Univ San Berdoo before class 2-3 mornings per week in the abandoned vineyards behind campus. I'd come to class with my pump shotgun and vest in the trunk and we'd take turns blocking.

To say that it was Shangri-La wouldn't be an exaggeration. The schools were the best in America. The freeways were the state of the art.

I'm not sure what happened.

My mom still lives in Anaheim. Dad moved there because it was within a 50 mile radius of the best ballroom dancing in the world and a poker game could be found every night.

It had already started in So Cal. In 1978 I followed work to San Fran. I remember being so glad to finally be out of the smog and congestion. By 1982 I had lived from San Jose to Sonoma and like a dog circling to find a comfortable place to lie down; I finally gave up and moved to Jackson Hole WY. The sign at the Wyoming line says, "Forever West".

That's about right. And it's about right where it starts, too.

Years ago I was on an airplane coming back from a trade show in Chicago. Whenever I travel I wear my cowboy hat and I was aware that the lady in the seat next to me had been watching me intently as I carefully stowed it upside down in the overhead. 

When I sat down she asked, "where are you from?"

Proudly I said "WYOMING".

She said, "Really? Wow... I've never been that far west and I'd love to go sometime."

Wanting to be polite I asked, "Where are you from?"

She said, "California."

That's about right. The map may say otherwise, but we all know that they moved the line.