Idaho

Have you ever considered quitting your job, packing all of your worldly possessions into your truck, along with your 4-legged companion, and moving across the country to a town you had never been to, all because of a picture in a Geography book? I can. Because I did it.

I’ve always had an adventurous spirit like a modern-day Christopher Columbus. While some people can vacation at home, catching up on projects around the house, I can’t. When I know I have free time coming up, I get out my beloved Atlas and look for places I’ve never been, and start planning. Perhaps that explains why I have been to all of the lower 48 states and have lived in seven of them. Alaska and Hawaii are on my radar screen.

I was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, and it was a great place to grow up. Go Mud Hens! But, we also had a family cabin in the north woods of the lower peninsula of northern Michigan, and that is where my family spent our summers, which were memorable. Then, between my first and second grade, we traveled by train to Colorado as my father had a conference in Fort Collins, and decided to turn it into a family vacation. I rode in the second deck of a passenger car and gawked out the window. My oldest brother, Tom, would show me where we were on his Atlas. Maps are an obsession in my family. I was amazed by the Great Plains, and even got to get out at a stop in Grand Island. I touched Nebraska! It was a memorable moment for me, because I was obsessed with maps, and, for reasons only a kid could understand I had identified Grand Island as the town I wanted to move to when I got older.

But soon, the Rocky Mountains appeared on the horizon. I was transfixed, and I smashed my face against the window in awe, and my mother had to pry me away to make me eat dinner. It was an amazing trip, and the seed of moving out west someday was planted.

Fast forward my life to after college graduation. I had a job in HVAC, installing and repairing furnaces and air conditioners. I am proud of my history degree, but my work experience was more practical and was very geographically portable. People in all 50 states need either heating, cooling, or both.

So I quit my job, and loaded all my worldly possessions into my truck, along with my hound mutt and buddy, Sputnik. It’s an odd name for a canine, but I wanted a historical name for her since I held a history degree and found her as a stray on campus my senior year. Yes, I know Sputnik was the name of the satellite, but I couldn’t pronounce the name of the dog that went to outer space, and got there before any human, so the name of the satellite was a tip of the hat to my college education at the University of Toledo.

Although I only lived in Idaho for a year or so, the experience changed me. I learned the satisfaction of pursuing a dream, and no small measure of self-reliance. I greatly enjoyed my year in the Gem State, with surprises such as almost getting hit in the head by a rock dislodged by a mountain goat while I was fishing on Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced "ponderay") in my canoe.

So why did I move back to Ohio if I liked Idaho so much? It will probably not shock you to find out that it was to pursue a girl that I met as best man in my best friend’s wedding. We were together for twenty-plus years if you include dating, engagement, and marriage. I do not regret either the move to Idaho or the move back to Ohio.

Now, I am back out west, this time in Arizona, and I am happily married to fellow Vocal writer, Julie Lacksonen.