City Slickers

I was driving back from a river rafting trip near Jackson Hole last week. There I was in my pickup truck driving through parts or Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming listening to country music. What would my younger self have thought if he would have seen me!

True, I was born and raised in Wyoming, and by all rights I should be wearing boots and a hat, driving a pickup truck and listening to Country Music. But that does not describe my youth. I was considered a "City Slicker" by the true cowboys in Wyoming. I had longish hair most of the time, listened to Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull, and wouldn't be caught dead with cowboy boots.

Well, I have to admit that as time goes on, I find myself wanting to be more of a cowboy. Folks where I grew up had common sense. Arguments in school were settled with fist fights. No one would blink if I carried a hunting rifle down the hallway in high school. And nobody was shooting anybody. Weird huh?

I know a few people who hold contempt for small town folk. They think they are uneducated and ignorant. But I'll take the common sense and attitudes of a small town over west or east cost sophistry any day.