Rhonda L. Wilson: Go West Young Woman, Go West!
As told to the Outdoor Neophyte
Being born into a family of privilege and material wealth is not necessarily everything it's cracked up to be. My father, a hugely successful designer and developer had been in the right place at the right time- Orange County. Even then, southern California was an image conscious place, and as the only daughter, it followed that the plans my parents envisioned for me, included the country club, art school, bridge parties and marriage to a wealthy doctor. We didn't see eye to eye.
In 1967, at 17 years old, I enrolled in art classes at Orange Coast Community College. The rigid structure the classes imposed on my creativity had the same effect as fingernails across a chalkboard. Rebellious and eager to see myself on my own terms, I quit school, ratted around for a while, and finally decided to leave southern California for the mountains. For as long as I can remember, I have always had a shadowy image of myself, a Dale Evans cowgirl type woman. As a child, the old west intrigued me; it still holds me in its grip.
My friend Melanie decided to leave for Newport, Washington to meet up with her boyfriend. We hatched up a 60's-style plan to caravan with our two VW Beetles and I would put-in with them until I could get settled. Myrtle, my light green Bug, followed Melanie up north, the scenery getting prettier and prettier with every mile. Somewhere between southern California and Washington, Melanie's dog Spanky gave birth to a litter of 13 puppies. Her VW Bug, now a nursery, rolled on.
Once we reached Newport things fell into place. Melanie, the puppies and her boyfriend lived in an old trailer and I slept in the back seat of my car. You've got to wonder why a person would give up a beautiful home in Laguna Beach in exchange for a car seat to sleep on? I have to say, I was really happy and even when things got thin in the money department, the apple orchard next to the trailer park kept the three of us from starving. I was on my way to becoming a woods woman; tying my blond pigtails or braids, a la Indian style, with leather thongs. During those early years, I once counted a total of 52 odd jobs that I worked to make ends meet. Dreamers have to pay bills too.
At this point my parents plans were fizzling fast: no country club, no art school, no bridge parties, and as it turn out, no wealthy doctor either.
Buck stood at the end of the bar. Dressed in Wrangler jeans, a blue denim work shirt, battered cowboy boots and a worn-out-old hat that looked like it had been trampled in a cattle stampede. Bearded and weathered, his looks fit the part he played. Buck and his brother Dusty, like their father before them, were linemen "for the county". That is, for six months of the year. For the other six months, Buck worked as a sheepherder in the mountains of Idaho. The icing on the cake was his John Lennon glasses and the fact that his family followed down-to-earth western-style values. Their roots were deep. Buck's dad had worked construction on the Grand Coulee Dam. It was a kind of pedigree my family would never comprehend. I didn't bother to tell them. Next Part.