When I Came to America:

once upon a time In the west

I grew up in West Texas, and hoped desperately that I could migrate to New Mexico. There were many childish reasons for my unfulfilled wishes, but just because they were childish, doesn’t make them invalid. However, aside from visits to ranching relatives and a couple of camp summers i didn’t really get to live in New Mexico until years later — as an adult. I will confess that the main attraction to me was that there was water and trees in New Mexico. West Texas was short on water, and suffered from stunted mountains (with the exception of El Capitan — the only actual elevation in the state. It wasn’t all bad. I got to see ancient pictographs in the hills southeast of El Paso, and wasn’t all that far from the New Mexico border. The pull was from family stories of grandparents and great-grandparents that lived through the silver strikes in New Mexico, and visits from Pancho Villa in Arizona. And all of the antics and events of that earlier time. It was real people and not sanitized and distorted western movies and television.

But the real travel of my lifetime was from the panhandle of Texas to the Pacific Northwest. In 1984, in Texas, I found myself alone with a divorce (relief) and children moving into adult lives (inevitable). At that time in my life i found myself being asked by a banker in cowboy boots why I didn’t have a father or a brother that could co-sign on a re-finance of my auto loan post-divorce. This came as somewhat of a surprise since I had made the down payment and all other payments by myself with my wages. I was naive back then, 39 years old, and under the mistaken idea that there had been an emancipation of females back in 1924 or so. As it turned out, the university where I was employed had a credit union. They were quite happy to assume the loan and that was that. Except, after 5 years of Savings and Loan defaults in Texas during the BushI administration, I decided that migrating to the Pacific Northwest was just the thing to do. As a bonus, western Washington had a plethora of mountains, trees, and water.

I soon found myself driving on I-5 along Lake Washington looking for work. This was a new experience for me. There was a lot of wealth in the area. I was looking in the Seattle/Bellevue area, and found myself sharing the road with Bentley, Rolls Royce, Jaguar, Mercedes, Lincolns, etc. you get the picture. My poor Mercury Zephyr was slightly overwhelmed at the skyscrapers and aristocratic auto representatives that I passed by. I remember one day, as I was driving into Bellevue to a job, that there was a man standing on the corner selling newspapers. The lone headline that was printed in large letters, read: “Homeless Man in Bellevue”. It was at this point in my new life that my automobile had a severe mental breakdown, coughing and sputtering along the roads. There was nothing I could do to improve Mabel’s feelings except that I gave her the new name of “Mabel, the Mercury”. Gradually, poor Mabel was able to clear her mind and raise her head. My situation was also greatly improved shortly after this by an extraordinary event.

Lake Washington goes on for miles. Information from the internet describes it thusly: With an area of about 21,500 acres, Lake Washington is the second largest lake in our state (after Lake Chelan). It is 22 miles long and averages about 2.5 miles wide. The surface is about 20 feet above sea level, and the lake has a maximum depth of 214 feet with a mean depth of 108 feet.

And if that is not water enough, very close to Lake Washington is a second lake: Lake Union. Our ubiquitous internet again provides handy statistics:

Lake Union is a natural lake in Seattle that lies north of the city's central business district. It is fully ts by urban neighborhoods and highways. Lake Union is the smaller of the two major lakes in Seattle, the other being Lake Washington.

That’s a lot of water! But I have digressed. As mentioned earlier, I was driving along the lakes of Seattle on my way to a job interview, I came up behind a long group of other drivers stopped in the street next to Lake Union. At first, I couldn’t figure out what the delay was. Then, finally, the delay was clarified by an unusual sight. Walking sedately down the sidewalk toward the stoplight, came a family of geese. In the front was the gander — head held high. Behind him was a line of small goslings, rushing, one by one, behind him. And at the end of this parade was Mama goose, working diligently to keep the last of the goslings in place at the end of the line. Her head would move snake-like, side to side, near the sidewalk.

Ahead of her, the last gosling rushed quickly, staying close behind its siblings. The entire parade stopped at the light, looked both ways, and crossed — in the marked crosswalk. It appeared as though they were late for an appointment, but obviously intent on training their young ones on traffic etiquette. After clearing the street, the geese hurried their children along. The light changed to green, and the traffic went slowly on its way, as did I. I was not at all worried about the interview. I had seen the geese, obeying the traffic laws, and moving on their way — intent on their task. For all i knew, they were going to Nordstrom’s for a fitting, and I was finally home with water, mountains, and trees galore.