Letter From America: The Code Of The West
The Code of the West encourages folk not to crowd their neighbours, but to keep an eye on them and, unbidden, turn a hand to their welfare whenever it is needed. Ronnie Bray writes of some of the things he will miss when he leaves Montana.
Ronnie and his wife Gay are in the process of moving to Mesa, Arizona. The good news is that he will continue to regularly contribute to Open Writing. From now on his columns will appear under the title Letter From America.
As Gay and I prepare to quit our home in Troy Montana for Mesa, Arizona, many thoughts race through our minds. Some of them are minimalist, even trivial, such as why has no one invented a self-stirring pudding? Others are more momentous; such as what good things and experiences we are abandoning, and what precious things and encounters will welcome us in our new location.
We will miss the enjoyment of isolation amid a people seemingly carved from the good pine trees that cover our mountains. We shall miss being as rudely independent as them, and sharing their good humour in their make-do world where the better things of their lives are wrested from the soil, teased from rippling waters, or taken by stealth with bow or rifle from the wild animals that they respect and eat.
In one sense, isolation is a spiritual experience in which one has time to think about the grandeur and providence of nature, at the same time considering the hand that framed it in all its infinite variety. Isolation makes people dependant and independent at the same time.
The Code of the West is that while you do not crowd your neighbour, you do keep your eye on him and, unbidden, turn your hand to his welfare whenever it is needed.
You might never see your neighbours, but you know that when you need them, you can depend on finding them on your doorstep ready to help. In the wild place, there is a level of caring and concern unknown to those whose interests are selfishly bound to the limits of their lands and the strictured perimeters of their lives.
The odd thing about isolation is that it brings people closer together. Adversely, shoulder-rubbing propinquity drives them further apart.
In our beautiful Montana, there is an average of one person to every four square miles. In sun-soaked Arizona, there are tens of thousands of bustling homo sapiens to the square mile.
In Troy, almost everyone over the age of seven has a firearm, yet gun crime is virtually unknown. In Mesa, guns are rare, but gun crime is an almost daily event.
In Montana, people leave their keys in the ignition with the engine running and the windows open. In Arizona, it is better not to take that risk.
In North West Montana, there are four seasons: winter being the longest and most wonderful. In Arizona’s Valley of the Sun, there is one season with two cycles - hot and hotter.
But the warmth and light that matter most comes not from the sun, welcome as that is. We know that just as we have been warmed by the generous and good hearts of those we must leave behind us in Montana, we will yet feel the amiable warmth that flows from breasts of good folk we shall dwell amongst in the desert fastnesses of Southern Arizona.
Well has the poet expressed:
"O brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother.
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there;
To worship rightly is to love each other,
Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.
John Greenleaf Whittier, "Brotherhood."
With nomads such as Gay and me in mind, Goethe prescribes:
There are three lessons I would write,
Three words as with a burning pen;
In tracings of eternal light,
Upon the hearts of men.
Have faith, though clouds environ round.
And gladness bides her face in scorn
Put off the darkness from thy brow;
No night but hath its morn.
Have hope, where'er thy bark is driven,
The calm distorts the tempest's mirth,
Know this, God rules the Hosts of Heaven.
The inhabitants of earth.
Have love, not love alone for one,
But man as man thy brother call,
And scatter as the circling sun
Thy charities on all.
With this divine sense of mission, we move on in our life. Sorrowful to leave a place and a people who have afforded us great love and joy. But with a bright optimism that we are being led to a place where we can find new challenges, new opportunities, new friends to love who will love us no less in return.
For, in our new home we will not abandon the Code of the West, but transform it into the Code of the South West.
Copyright © 2004
Ronnie Bray
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
