Jan. 26, 2005 - 18:48 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Afield

While going from Denver to Greeley to see our daughter today. I rode shotgun more or less because Heather feels more comfortable at the wheel. But this gives me time to watch as the scene unfolds.

We went up to Greeley to see our daughter where she lives. A trip of maybe fifty or so miles.

Of course, being pretty deaf conversation between Heather and I in the car is shouted by her to me, which keeps it to a bare minimum. So I have the choice to write in my notebook, work crosswords or look at the world as it passes me by. We do stop and have coffee or a bite and catch up on talk while one on one.

In a whimsical mood and some what sad I saw development after development along side the highway where once were fields, cattle and in season stands where field produce is sold. Stands are still there, bare due to the season -- yet there.

But, and here it comes, when I was younger the trip was different.

Denver and the nearest town in that direction had a fair amount of space between, now pretty well filled with Commerce City and various roadside businesses. Then every-so-often a small town would appear amid the fenced farm country. Off to the side once were farms which kept those little towns alive. They seem to be on the seedy side, those I could see as we passed.

It used to be interesting to this city kid to see what things looked like in farm country, especially in the green part of the year. But even in the cold, scenes out of town are attractive, especially when the mountains to the west are plain to see.

Being close to the Platte River along side the west side of the road were sand pits, but they appear to be in the process of being filled in and developments multiplying like mad. To my mind it seems that perhaps that stretch and the stretch on I-25 between Denver and Cheyenne, Wyoming are in the process of becoming one heck of a long bedroom community. Quite obvious perhaps when rush hour (lasts from 2:30 to 6:00 most of the time) traffic is seen bumper to bumper as far as the eye can see.

I think possible things like this are what caused people to move west. The innate need for space that seems to exist in the human soul. My idea on that anyhow.

I first noticed my need for space when first I lived in Illinois. I was used to city life from infancy, but the closeness of towns no matter which way I went was suffocating to me. Then when we lived in Florida it felt the same to me. There was enough country in both places to give one a glimpse of how it used to be, but each farmyard seemed to be next door to town. Orange groves the same, city right next to them. Florida where we lived did have one great advantage for me, the limitless stretch of the Gulf of Mexico gave my eyes plenty of room to roam and imagine.

But for me to go out from Denver and drive by one development of houses after another is depressing to say the least. Makes me wonder what the people who live in those little communities do besides drive back and forth between their homes and Denver -- both for work and amusement.

Remembering back to those long, long stretches of country, mountains to the west, cattle in the fields, farm equipment in use or in evidence. There was not the sameness that seems to be existent today. Each little town had its own personality, its differences from the others self evident, different buildings of different styles and when stopping people who talked a little bit different and maybe had different opinions. There seemed to be exciting new things to encounter in each new place.

In our mountains here it was pretty well the same. Little town in a valley and miles to go to another one. All of them little and their means of support for the populace varied. Some of them still mining towns, but other than the resort types, who knew what kept them going, but on they went. Stopping to eat, coffee or just shop a bit was truly an education in the differences between folks. Ah, but the big cities have moved to the moutains too. It used to be that the houses and buildings cozied up to the hills, nestled in the crook of the arm of a hill, low, brown or dark green, unobtrusive and interesting to one's eye in passing. Some had antlers on shed doors, some places had rocks along the edges, rocks that came from right around there.

Now ? Big flashy homes which would be big and flashy in a big city are extremely visible excresences seen from the road. In my mind that stuff doesn't compute really. Thinking about the money involved in making access roadways up to each home is staggering to my mind.

Then of course up into the hills is the rush hour traffic of those who spend an hour and sometimes a staggering amount more commuting from "home on the hill" to work in the big town and after eight or more hours goping through the same exercise. I sometimes wonder just how much enjoyment time those folks have.

It is so very true when they say, "You can't go home again," but wouldn't it be nice to go back to the way pleasurable things once were ? Of course the population of this country has grown immensely, that I realize, yet there seems to be a lack of common sense in the way we go about things. Perhaps the philosophy of people from the big cities, away from the West is much different. But if there were a cabin built on each side of mine (the one I don't have and never will), this old boy would be looking for something not quite so crowded. To some of us the lure of the hills and mountains includes that extra bit of being out away from the "city smug."

Where can a person go now to have that man against nature feeling ? The core of a live volcano perhaps ?

But today I was wandering Afield . . . . . . . . . .

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