 | A WRITER'S WIT |  E. Pound |
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the fortieth post of fifty.
Idaho (2008, 2010, 2015)
Some places you visit because you know people who live there. In teaching graduate students at Texas Tech summer school, my partner Ken introduced one of his female students to a young English professor who was teaching creative writing at the same time (I believe this to be true). The couple later married, and the professor was instrumental in getting me into the MA program at TTU. Before I could finish my degree, Ann and Daryl moved to Boise, and years later, after Ken and I retired, we visited them at their home, once in summer and once in autumn.
Boise is a well-kept secret, with a fine university. A river running through it (couldn't resist), in fact, a cultivated green belt for athletes, zoo-goers, museum attendees, and fresh-air breathers of all kinds. A great center for cinema, especially the Egyptian Theatre. A breeding ground for writers and authors. Most of all, a humane population. One night, after the four of us had attended a play at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival Amphitheater, the crowd strolled toward a huge parking lot. I figured, as in Texas, that there would be a huge push—cars streaming in all directions—to scramble to the closest exit. I was astounded when, as we reached a certain nexus, a four-way stop, each line of drivers took his or her turn heading for the exit. Ken and I asked if that was normal, and our friends quietly insisted it was. A state that uses a saying like “Drive Friendly” could sure learn something from that genteel bunch of Idahoans. Ken and I confessed that if we’d only encountered the place ten years earlier, we might have retired there. Of course, it just could have been a bunch of talk.
Idaho was the forty-third state to be admitted into the Union on July 3, 1890. Its state bird is the Mountain Bluebird, and it boasts a population of 1.7 million people.
Idaho was the forty-third state to be admitted into the Union on July 3, 1890. Its state bird is the Mountain Bluebird, and it boasts a population of 1.7 million people.
HISTORIC POSTCARDS AND TRUNK DECALS
If you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link:
1-Kansas 13. New Jersey 25. Michigan 37. N. Hampshire
2-Oklahoma 14. Delaware 26. Wisconsin 38. Maine
3-Texas 15. New York 27. Minnesota 39. Rhode Island
4-Louisiana 16. Connecticut 28. Iowa
5-Missouri 17. Colorado 29. Hawaii
6-Illinois 18. Arkansas 30. Georgia
7-Indiana 19. California 31. S. Carolina
8-Ohio 20. Florida 32. N. Carolina
9-Pennsylvania 21. Mississippi 33. Alabama
10-West VA 22. New Mexico 34. Kentucky
11-Maryland 23. Tennessee 35. Massachusetts
12. Virginia 24. Arizona 36. Vermont
NEXT TIME: My Book World | Alexander Chee's How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
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