Saturday, November 01, 2008

Entering the west

Where does the western part of the United States actually begin. Is it when the radio stations change from WNEW to KNEW west of the Mississippi River? When people begin to call soda-pop? When the cashier in the grocery store says do you want a sack with that instead of a bag as we said in New England? Is it when the cattle are seen crowded in their corals like commuters on the subway at 5pm on a Friday? Or is it when the sky grows large and the fields go on as long as the horizon?
Perhaps it is all those things but it is a state of my mind when I walk the streets of Cheyenne Wyoming and see guys that have bowlegs, dusty old cowboy boots and appear like they wore that same cowboy hat their whole life as if it were a part of their natural anatomy .
Names like Stagecoach Avenue, Rattlesnake Saloon and Appalosa Motel are commonplace and I feel totally foreign wearing a Gloucester Lake Pond Ice Tee Shirt and a Red Sox baseball hat.

1 comment:

jherz said...

That's a great question about where does the west actually begin.....I also noticed the word Sack vs. bag. In Calif. it's "Bag" and so not quite sure if that's a "western"term. I'd love to see your photos of Wyoming.
The weather has turned sunny again...ahhhhh.