Connecting With The Old West

"Those old pilgrims believed stories in which the west was a promise, a far away place where decent people could escape the wreckage of the old world and start over.  Come to me, the dream whispers, and you can have one more chance."

--William Kittredge, Heaven on Earth

This last weekend I was able to make a drive down with my family to spend some time in Boise, Idaho for my sister-in-law's wedding.  Usually we make this trip as a family once or twice per year.  It's an 8 hour trip (each way) through country that is - for the most part - vast and empty.  I always enjoy making this drive.  

After crossing over Snoqualmie Pass and leaving the lush vegetation of home behind, we begin a long trip through the mountains of central Washington.  Passing by old mining communities (hidden from us on the interstate) we eventually arrive in Yakima and pass by the orchards and farmlands of the Columbia plateau.  Once we get to Oregon things get very desolate from Pendleton (just over the Columbia River) all the way to Ontario on the Idaho border.

This is beautiful country that follows the old Oregon Trail.  It is country that - in large measure - appears to be almost unchanged from the time the pioneers began crossing over it with their wagons and handcarts nearly 200 years ago.  Driving along the Columbia River one can easily imagine Lewis and Clark leading their expedition downstream - excited to know that their long-sought destination was only a couple hundred easy miles away.

In my urban life I find that I crave these connections to the past from time to time.  The American West has been a place of myth and legend since even before the first settlers arrived.  There exist enough stories of cowboys and Indians, outlaws and lawmen, prospectors, trappers, explorers, missionaries, and pioneers to fill all the pages of a forest of paper.  These stories captivate me.

Driving through eastern Oregon on I-84, one sees dozens of old abandoned farm buildings and at least one large abandoned cement plant (in Lime) in an advanced state of disrepair.  Each time I pass one of these structures my curiosity is piqued and I long to know its history.  When was this home abandoned?  What were the circumstances?  The people who lived and worked at that now-decrepit, lonely factory - where did they come from and where have they gone?  The old abandoned motel at Farewell Bend - why did it close?  What failed dreams does it represent?

Part of me wants to stop at every historical marker and read every Wikipedia entry about every fold in the topography to get a better sense of this area and the people who came before.  Of course, a car full of kids ensures that the miles don't slow down for such detours.

So many of these places are slipping farther into the past as nature reclaims them.  As I drive through this country I think about my ancestors who heard the whispering of the dream as Kittredge describes it.  In the mid-19th century they longed for a new start on a new frontier in one of the last great (largely) unexplored places on the Earth.  Leaving everything behind they came across oceans and continents and carved their dreams out of the land, coaxing crops out of the hard Utah and Idaho soil in the generations before my grandparents were born.  Eventually my grandparents made their way to Seattle where my parents met and from there the history is mine.

I have so much respect for these pioneers - the ones through whom I trace my lineage and all the others who walked new paths and charted new courses.

In today's world I find that I am constantly considering new paths.  I am trying to navigate my professional and personal life in light of the wisdom of generations before - purchased and passed along at such great cost.  I want to learn the lessons of my history to ensure that my efforts - and all the efforts of those who walked these paths before me - will not be in vain.

As I start my new job next week this whole idea is very heavy on my mind.  I feel like I am forging a new path for myself as I walk out a bit into the unknown.  Practicing law or working in public accounting is all very well and good, but unlike those well-trod professions my new position is one I will largely have to make work for myself.  There is nobody who has walked this particular way before who can show me which way to go.  Although I'm not seeking to fly away from the wreckage of an old world, I do long for the promise of a new start.  I want to explore.  I want to work hard and coax my own success out of a different kind of soil.

I'm so excited for the challenge as I follow these whisperings in pursuit of the same dream of generations past.