Out Where The West Begins

 

        

            I have a little confession to make. That is, though almost all of my life was spent in the cloudy cool state of Washington on the rainy, sometimes, west side, I never felt that it was my true home.
            This may be, and probably is, because while her children were young and she wasn’t working outside the home, my mother used to take us to spend the summer break down to Idaho to stay with her parents on their farm in Wendell.

            Her excitement to be going home was infectious. We caught it, or at least I know I did. We often rode the train there. Hence, the love of trains too. Pulling into the Gooding station was so wonderful. There her father, in his farmer’s overalls would pick us up and we would make the short drive to the farm outside of the very small town of Wendell.
            What followed were endless weeks of relative freedom. My grandparent’s first grandchild was me! They prized me very highly. That’s really something, to be not only loved, but prized.
            I remember every inch of that old farm. It wasn’t very big, maybe 40 acres. My grandmother milked cows and grandfather raised beans and alfalfa, but also he raised things for their seeds, such as carrot seed. You don’t need a huge lot of acreage to raise carrot seed!

When they were very young.

            It was a pretty relaxed operation.
            To get to the subject I have in mind, and back on track, one of the things they liked to do was to gather whichever relatives were handy and have me perform. I remember singing Shenandoah for the assembled family. I believe I did America too. They compared me to Kate Smith, which I didn’t appreciate when I found out who she was. But I believe they meant it kindly. I was not a skinny kid.
            Once my grampa wanted me to read aloud a poem about the west that he liked. Just now, I wasn’t sure which poem that was, but I found it online, because it’s pretty ubiquitous really. I have copied it below:

“Out Where The West Begins”
Out where the handclasp’s a little stronger,
Out where the smile dwells a little longer,
   That’s where the West begins;
Out where the sun is a little brighter,
Where the snows that fall are a trifle whiter,
Where the bonds of home are a wee bit tighter,
   That’s where the West begins.
Out where the skies are a trifle bluer,
Out where friendship’s a little truer,
   That’s where the West begins;
Out where a fresher breeze is blowing,
Where there’s laughter in every streamlet flowing,
Where there’s more of reaping and less of sowing,
   That’s where the West begins;
Out where the world is in the making,
Where fewer hearts in despair are aching,
   That’s where the West begins;
Where there’s more of singing and less of sighing,
Where there’s more of giving and less of buying,
And a man makes friends without half trying,
   That’s where the West begins.
Arthur Chapman

            I’ll include a link to the story of how the poem came to be written. It's a pretty interesting story.

            An Enduring Western Poem

Getting picked up at the Gooding station.