Straight from the Horse's Ass by Lee Hughes

Author:Lee Hughes [Lee Hughes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781775532187
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2015-12-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

ALL THE CIVILISATION YOU NEED

Lots of states have little mottoes on their car licence plates, most of which are predictable like ‘New Jersey — The Garden State’, but some are cool like ‘New Hampshire — Live Free or Die’, and some are just weird like ‘Idaho — State of Great Potatoes’! Wyoming has a picture of a cowboy on a bucking horse called ‘Steamboat’ who threw riders from a dozen states at rodeos in the early 1900s. Wyoming more than any other state is real cowboy country. They still do things the way they did in 1890, whereas in Texas and Colorado and New Mexico, things are a little more modern.

Pinedale is in the western part of Wyoming about 50 miles over the line from Idaho. On the road at the western edge of town is a sign that welcomes you. It announces that Pinedale has a population of 1000. It doesn’t make any little jokes like ‘and growing’ although it is. It leaves that for you to figure out, which is completely in keeping with the local way of doing anything. The next thing is that it casually announces its elevation — 7100 feet.

That, of course, doesn’t really register at first. You have to stop and think about it to realise that Denver, the ‘Mile High City’ or Mt Ruapehu’s Top O’ the Bruce ski field are both a third of a mile lower and that, therefore, the growing season in that part of the state is about 60 days and there are only 30 frost-free days a year. And that is in the river valley. The mountains stand another 7000 feet higher!

The sky above is invariably either IBM blue or snowing. It’s rare for it to stay overcast without snow. Rain comes in brief violent thunderstorms that are blown south-east in minutes. In summer, there are no clouds to speak of for weeks at a time and in winter, when it’s not snowing, it has a fabulous frigid blue sky that blinds you with light reflected off the snow and dazzles you with the leaping sparkling points of moisture frozen in the air, but too light to fall to the ground.

After the signs for gas, food and lodgings at the far end of the four-lane wide street, is a single sign that sums up the town as well as anything. It says: ‘Welcome to Pinedale — All the civilisation you need.’

It’s absolutely true too. Pinedale has a sheriff, a doctor, a vet, a good newspaper, a feed store, three bars, a masonic lodge and a veterans’ lodge, a grade school and a high school, a huge supermarket selling everything from handguns to pickled pigs’ feet, a sporting-goods store, four or five cafés, the best little restaurant in the west, a courthouse, two lawyers, several churches, a big library and a terrific museum. Pretty good for a town of 1000.

Above the sign at the east end of town is a high hill with the clinic, the museum and a baseball diamond on top along with some of the newer houses.

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