I headed west to grow up with the country

The national professional association for my profession recently met in our fair city. During one lunch I sat between one gentleman from Missoula, MT and another easterner who had ventured west in the '70s after his stint in the Army. They traded stories about the old and current days, skiing, places long ago, etc.

And then strangely I, a skinny little boy from Cleveland, OH, was able to swap some stories as well. I realized that starting with age 15 I spent some or all of my summers out west. In '81 I went hiking with the Boy Scouts in NM; the next year was a time in Utah working on a restoration project; and in '83 I found myself as a "ranchhand" at a camp in Steamboat Springs. During these trips I discovered Jack Kerouac, "Siddhartha", and that some women sprout hair from their areolae.