Tell you what, when I think about living in Wyoming, I think about the famous line from Thoreau's
Walden, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately."
For "woods," substitute "Wyoming."
Sure, sure, I've only visited the state twice. Am I letting my imagination run away with me? More'n likely. But, so what? A man can dream, can't he?
I'm in love with those mountains, the Big Horns and the Absarokas. It'd be a sweet life, me an' my partner, if we had us a little place in or at the foot of either range, though the Big Horns would do just fine. It wouldn't need to be a big place. I always wanted a cabin like Fess Parker lived in on
Daniel Boone. That would be plenty big enough. A place to live deliberately. Just the basics, him and me.
We'd have us a couple of horses, named for the regional tribes, like Cheyenne, or Shoshone, or Arapaho, maybe a bay and buckskin, or a chestnut would be nice. Maybe even an "applesauce." We'd ride every day the weather wasn't too bad for the horses, because, like the sign over the fireplace at Goff Creek Lodge said, "The best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse."
And we'd have us a pickup and an SUV, or maybe a pair of pickups, one with a king cab.
Yes, sir, when I feel my life is overburdened with responsibility and swamped with
things, it sure is nice to think about making a fresh start and getting back to the basics, to living simply, just me and my partner.
So what's the problem?
Well, for starters, there is no partner.
Probably won't be, either. And, at my time of life, I can't imagine taking off like that on my own. I fear isolation. That's what keeps me in the heart of downtown Philadelphia instead of moving out of the city. My church is around the corner. My gym is three blocks away. After twenty years in a community I have only to stop into any of our bars and I always run into someone I know to exchange a few words, have some human contact. I have a network here.
I also have a widowed, elderly father only an hour and a half travel west of here--and no siblings. Just after my mother died, when he was feeling sorry for himself, he blurted out that he and my mother should have given me a brother or sister somehow, so it wouldn't now all fall on me. Well, Pop, you should have thought of that 40 years ago.
Now, what kind of a man would I be to abandon him to pursue my own dreams out West?
There is also the question of earning a living. A man's first responsibility is to support himself. I have a limited set of marketable skills, and a good job here. Just what the heck would I do for a living in Ten Sleep, Wyoming?
Open a bar, maybe? Maybe call it the Silver Spur? I have some limited amateur experience as a bar tender, and I imagine folks drink pretty simple out there--no fancy-ass cocktails with pink paper umbrellas in the Ten Sleep Saloon, I expect.
Although the bartender at the Mint, in Sheridan, did know how to make a Liquid Marijuana. ...
But, I don't know the first thing about running a business. ...
But if the right Cowboy wanted me to move to Wyoming to be with him, would I do it?
What do you think?
Hell, yes, I'd do it! I'd trust in God and redline it all the way, wouldn't be able to get there fast enough. ...
A man can dream, can't he?