I was born in Burley, Idaho on February 11, 1977. I remember nothing of Burley. My folks ended up moving to Boise a few months following my birth—a place which resides in only the earliest of my sepia-tinged memories. Over the intervening years, my pilgrimages to and from Utah have taken me through Burley on occasion. My Burley points of contact, now some thirty years later, consist of a Burger King and a handful of worn-down truck stops.
And while I feel no palpable affinity for the place, a part of me resonates with the wide open agricultural feel of Southern Idaho. Admittedly, it isn’t difficult to stifle, gag, and hog tie that roguish romantic urge. Featureless expanses and open range have never appealed to me much. And yet, even while sitting here in this innocuous climate-controlled environment some 32 years and 300 miles away, I can almost taste the dewy alfalfa and stock-yard fragrance so characteristic of small-town Idaho.
Legend holds that my father spent at least one summer of his High School years hauling pipe over Idaho’s finest potato fields in pre-dawn chill. Perhaps that experience etched itself with testosterone-laden ink into his genetic makeup and passed to me undetected, a y-chromosome stowaway. And now, several years later, this latent ardor emerges unpredictably—rendering me momentarily wistful for a place I’ve largely visited only through a car’s windshield.
I love this. I want more. MORE, MORE, MORE! what happened after that, huh?
ReplyDeleteThat photo is beautiful and a very romantic view of southeastern Idaho. It reminds me of a perfect summer morning or maybe evening. What it mercifully leaves out is the wind and cold. There's a lot of that in Burley too, especially when you're fresh out of Southern California. :)
ReplyDeleteWhen we lived in Burley we had our first baby, bought our first house and practiced being grown ups. When I told some of the women in Relief Society that we were moving to Boise they said, "Oh,no!" Paused and then, "Oh, but you're from California, you'll probably like it." And I did.
As I recall you were 14 months old when we moved and I was expecting Amy. It's a good thing you were the perfect child because when we first got to Boise we lived in the old Beneficial Life office (in a strip mall)and I swear if I kept the room dark you slept most the day and all of the night. I'll tell you, everyone deserves a kiddo like you!