Writers Workshop

A childhood memory that has lived with me forever and I’m sure subconsciously had a part in shaping my life.

When I was three years old, our family lived in a rented house on the outskirts of Curlew, Washington. That is a little cattle and logging community up near the Canadian border. Our house sat out from town where it met the open prairie. I can remember a covered front porch and a uard surrounded by a white picket fence.

It was open range country. There was a herd of cows and calves that grazed close to our place. A couple of times a day they strolled past the picket fence going down to water at the river and after a while they came grazing their way back. They didn’t pay any attention to me but I sure watched them as I poked my stubby little nose through the fence.

Occasionally, some cowboy rode by wearing a big felt hat and a red bandana, with his spurs jingling and saddle leather creaking. I knew that someday that was going to be me.

And now, if anyone even mentions the name of one of those border towns, a vision of a meadow dotted with cows and calves flashes before my eyes and I’m peeking through the white picket fence once again.