I’m a big fan of the show “American Pickers” on the History Channel. If I ever get a chance to watch, I will. The thing about it is that it hits all of the right spots for me – history, people, interesting conversations, trips down the forgotten highways and backroads of a nation. What’s not to love?
I’m sure it goes back to two things I remember from my youth. First, I loved (and still do) history and history books; and second, our family only went one direction for summer vacations – West (of course we turned around to get back, but you get what I mean). Perhaps this is why I have such disdain for the East coast. There’s plenty of history there – I took advantage of my two years in Maryland to see things like Gettysburg and of course all of the history of Washington, D.C., and some time later I visited the Manassas battlefield with my sister. But it just…lacks. Not in substance – it’s got plenty of that. It lacks in space. Everything that I could find good about it is crammed in there with the reminders of things of which I’m not nearly as fond. Ironically, “American Pickers” takes place mostly east of the Mississippi (although they’re based in Iowa). I guess there’s something to be said about having a lot of history packed into a small area.
But even so, I’ll take the West. I’ll take the open spaces and beautiful skies. I’ll take the freedom and independence and wonder of being able to see for miles – and not seeing much, but having what I do see really count for something. I’ll take them any day over the bunch and bustle of the East.
I’d mentioned some time back an author that I’d discovered through the book On Writing Well, Jonathan Raban. His book, Bad Land: An American Romance is hitting all of the right spots too. It’s about the settling of the East Montana prairie through the nefarious manipulations of the railroads and politicians who were building their own empires. It’s a book that describes the weeding out and whittling down of a population to leave only the most hardy and independent behind. It’s full of insight and interesting perspectives that we so often overlook when it comes to human nature.
And to me it really invokes the freedom and space of the West. I can almost feel it settle on me when I read.
I’ve often joked that, if I were to find a nice little homestead in Wyoming on the east face of the Rockies, I could retire right now. I don’t mean it to be a joke because it’s remote or cheap; it’s a joke because I’m married to a city girl. Oh, she loves the beauty of places like the West, but when the sun goes down, she needs to be where there is community and light…so the bad guys won’t get her. And of course, I love her enough that I’ll forego my dream of settling down into that place of incredible quietness and peace where the plains and mountains meet. I’m a man of assessment. I look at the options and come to the conclusions based on what I feel is best. And for now, the benefits of staying the course and not packing up for the middle of nowhere pretty much put the costs to shame.
But I can still dream. I can still go there through books and memories. I can still live where the balance between it all makes plenty of sense.
And in the meantime, I can still enjoy “American Pickers” and a good book. These are the things that always encourage me that there’s a happy medium for us all.