As long as I can remember I wanted to be Annie Oakley. One of my earliest memories is of a little silver cap gun with a pearly (ok, plastic) handle and the smell of the gunpowder when the cap went off. I loved those pinky red rolls of caps that fed into my gun.
I came across this picture tonight of me when I was 4. I have a flash of memory of pulling those boots on and what it felt like to walk in them.
Growing up, I loved all the westerns on early TV and I was ready at a moment's notice to fill in for Dale Evans or Annie Oakley. All they had to do was call!
Throughout school, I read every outlaw biography I could get my hands on and devoured the history of the Old West, legends and fact, it all speaks to me to this day. I read Native American authors for history with a different view and discovered a deep sense of kinship for ways so different than my own. It always seemed a little odd to me, with a New England childhood, to have such a longing for the West, both old and new, legend and truth. It seems to have started early, doesn't it? Anyone up for a rodeo?
1 comment:
I don't think any of us ever belonged in New England. It's something we had to leave there to figure out though. Our younger sister has yet to learn but I think she will.
I always thought New England was the best... that's what we all told ourselves... but it wasn't until I left and got to South Carolina that I felt like I was home for the first time in my life. I often wonder what would have become of all of us if we had all left CT long ago. How would it have been different? Different could have been a good thing.
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