This is my West

‘’YONDERING’’ & ‘’RIDE AWAY’’

Now, I’m not a cowboy, and I don’t own that big spread on the far side of the Divide.  But growing up in northern California, the West has always been part of me, and no music is closer to my heart.

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The rhythms of the Big Bands, in which my dad played, echoed through the house, as did the blend of The Sons of the Pioneers following every Roy Rogers movie my folks took me to.  Their harmonies captured a longing in my soul for far horizons.  Like many boys of that time, in my heart I lived on that ranch on the big screen with Roy and The Sons of the Pioneers.

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Each summer between semesters at college, I set out to hitchhike through the West, seeking adventure, or maybe seeking that mythical ranch.  Along the way I picked up work - helping a cowman build his home high up in the White Mountains of Arizona, picking fruit in a northern California valley, helping out at a lonely crossroads store.   With enough pocket money, I’d take off again across the open country of the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, finding back roads, little towns and big ranches.  One memorable afternoon I found myself on the Cheyenne Reservation – strictly forbidden - among the descendants of those Cheyenne who had helped the Sioux wipe out Custer in 1876.  A wrong turn had deposited me on their land in Montana, not all that far from the Little Big Horn. The Coca Cola delivery man spotted me on the road, and instead of being picked up for trespassing I got to spend a magical few hours with a people I had long felt drawn to but would never otherwise have been privileged to experience. 

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