Some families vacation at the beach. Some even go to Europe. Every summer, we went out west.
This picture is of my brother, me and my sister in Mesa Verde, Colorado. It's only one of the many places out west that my family (dad's part of the family) travelled to at some point over a childhood summer.
When we stayed in Mesa Verde, there was nothing there but mountains lined with one precarious, two-land road, remarkable red clay ruins of Indian architecture, our humble rooms with no telephones or televisions, and a couple of drink machines at the tourist compound. The three of us siblings were not too excited upon arrival. We couldn't even admire the view when we entered Mesa Verde, because the fog inhibited sight, and we just thought we were either a) going to die from driving off of the mountain accidentally or b) from discomfort sitting three-deep in the backseat of a rental car for countless hours of driving through desert and mountains.
You can't tell from the picture, but there was a rock overhang above those Indian ruins, much like they were built in a large half-cave. The most striking thing about Mesa Verde were the handprints on the underside of the overhang, hundreds and hundreds of feet above ground. The handprints had somehow fossilized--they belonged to the Indians who inhabited the area. We marvelled at how those beings might have been defying gravity in such a way to put their handprints on the underside of the highly elevated dome. In retrospect, it still seems impossible. I doubt they had yet developed the ladder.
We would trek across New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana for a couple of weeks at a time. I can't recall even a story of my father ever camping, but he loved to rough it out west. We would drive for miles across those states, and stop at whatever rinky-dink hotel was in the middle of who-knows-where-in-the-vast-desert, New Mexico. We of course complained, elbows and legs tangled together in the backseat of the rental cars, while my father told us, "Kids, you can't see the West without driving across it."
We drove up and down Yellowstone numerous times. We drove through the Badlands. We saw it all.
I bartered with Indian women for their jewelry in Santa Fe. In fact, in this picture, I am wearing two bracelets: a sterling silver engraved cuff, and a cuff with lapis inlays. My dad taught me the art of negotiation in the market square of Santa Fe, which I always found incredibly awkward.
We would drive through Gallop, NM in order to peruse the pawn shops for family heirlooms that the Navajos became too poor to keep.
But it wasn't all about the Indians. In fact, it was mostly about the cowboys.
At the introduction of each summer, we would each receive a new pair of cowboy boots. There was some unspoken family rule that we were to wear these on our Western adventures, even though at the time, I hated them.
We would pull on our boots, and then we would go ride horses. Seriously, we rode horses across the West. We rode them through herds of buffalo. We rode them on five-hour trail rides across Yellowstone that ended in a dinner or ranch beans and cowboy songs around a fire.
This might seem like a strange family hobby, and I agree, though I find it so American it's endearing.
It just so happens that my father had a thing for all things Western, as he rode in the rodeo professionally when he graduated highschool to pay rent on his trailer. His parents were immigrants from Ireland and Wales, and being hard-hearted immigrant Catholics, they didn't much coddle their five children.
My father's antique Western saddle now hangs by a stirrup in the den of his home; a den where he often sits and watches old Westerns while drinking nocturnal bourbon.
In his rodeo days, which occurred before he met my mother who was in graduate school at Clemson (and who then motivated him to go back to school until he achieved his Ph.D.), he had a collie named Chance I (who I never met). I think Chance I started a collie theme in the family that I proudly uphold to this day. Apparently, Chance I would always run about the feet of my dad's horses just as you might imagine a herding dog to do very agilely, but she never imposed.
For my dad to be raised by European immigrant parents, I find it interesting for him to be so deeply rooted in American icons--to the point that it seems the obsession began from rebellion. But there was always that symbol of James I/Britannia era that was never denied and intermixed with staunch Americanism--the Scottish collie--that still remains a recurring symbol in the Price family.
When we stayed in Mesa Verde, there was nothing there but mountains lined with one precarious, two-land road, remarkable red clay ruins of Indian architecture, our humble rooms with no telephones or televisions, and a couple of drink machines at the tourist compound. The three of us siblings were not too excited upon arrival. We couldn't even admire the view when we entered Mesa Verde, because the fog inhibited sight, and we just thought we were either a) going to die from driving off of the mountain accidentally or b) from discomfort sitting three-deep in the backseat of a rental car for countless hours of driving through desert and mountains.
You can't tell from the picture, but there was a rock overhang above those Indian ruins, much like they were built in a large half-cave. The most striking thing about Mesa Verde were the handprints on the underside of the overhang, hundreds and hundreds of feet above ground. The handprints had somehow fossilized--they belonged to the Indians who inhabited the area. We marvelled at how those beings might have been defying gravity in such a way to put their handprints on the underside of the highly elevated dome. In retrospect, it still seems impossible. I doubt they had yet developed the ladder.
We would trek across New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana for a couple of weeks at a time. I can't recall even a story of my father ever camping, but he loved to rough it out west. We would drive for miles across those states, and stop at whatever rinky-dink hotel was in the middle of who-knows-where-in-the-vast-desert, New Mexico. We of course complained, elbows and legs tangled together in the backseat of the rental cars, while my father told us, "Kids, you can't see the West without driving across it."
We drove up and down Yellowstone numerous times. We drove through the Badlands. We saw it all.
I bartered with Indian women for their jewelry in Santa Fe. In fact, in this picture, I am wearing two bracelets: a sterling silver engraved cuff, and a cuff with lapis inlays. My dad taught me the art of negotiation in the market square of Santa Fe, which I always found incredibly awkward.
We would drive through Gallop, NM in order to peruse the pawn shops for family heirlooms that the Navajos became too poor to keep.
But it wasn't all about the Indians. In fact, it was mostly about the cowboys.
At the introduction of each summer, we would each receive a new pair of cowboy boots. There was some unspoken family rule that we were to wear these on our Western adventures, even though at the time, I hated them.
We would pull on our boots, and then we would go ride horses. Seriously, we rode horses across the West. We rode them through herds of buffalo. We rode them on five-hour trail rides across Yellowstone that ended in a dinner or ranch beans and cowboy songs around a fire.
This might seem like a strange family hobby, and I agree, though I find it so American it's endearing.
It just so happens that my father had a thing for all things Western, as he rode in the rodeo professionally when he graduated highschool to pay rent on his trailer. His parents were immigrants from Ireland and Wales, and being hard-hearted immigrant Catholics, they didn't much coddle their five children.
My father's antique Western saddle now hangs by a stirrup in the den of his home; a den where he often sits and watches old Westerns while drinking nocturnal bourbon.
In his rodeo days, which occurred before he met my mother who was in graduate school at Clemson (and who then motivated him to go back to school until he achieved his Ph.D.), he had a collie named Chance I (who I never met). I think Chance I started a collie theme in the family that I proudly uphold to this day. Apparently, Chance I would always run about the feet of my dad's horses just as you might imagine a herding dog to do very agilely, but she never imposed.
For my dad to be raised by European immigrant parents, I find it interesting for him to be so deeply rooted in American icons--to the point that it seems the obsession began from rebellion. But there was always that symbol of James I/Britannia era that was never denied and intermixed with staunch Americanism--the Scottish collie--that still remains a recurring symbol in the Price family.
This painting was given to me for my 25th birthday. When my father gave it to me, I said, "God, I love horses." He replied, "You know, they are so prominent in artwork, because they are such a symbol of our culture. They've been with us throughout the history of the world."
I grew up listening to songs such as this: Willie, Waylon, Johnny Cash, Jerry Jeff Walker--I knew their songs before I was six. Then I graduated to Lyle Lovett, the "long tall Texan," whom I've seen in concert probably six times throughout my childhood and adore to this day, partly because he sings a song about a pony on a boat (in which he actually references John Wayne's horse Trigger, which is what I will one day name my own pony on my own boat, because it can't get much better than that). Anyway, my brother (above) didn't grow up to be a cowboy. He actually grew up to be a lawyer. And as for me, well, I doubt I'll grow up to be a cowboy, either. But clearly, I have the Western boot collection (above) to pretend I still have a shot.
(Yes, that pun was intended.)
(Yes, that pun was intended.)
