My old Idaho home....

I've bn wanting 2 write some more about Boise, Idaho, where I mostly grew-up, & which is still "Home" even tho I haven't bn there Xcept 4 brief visits since 1982.
But I'm tempted 2 say that if U've Cn the movie NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, U already know everything about Idaho that I could tell U. That movie was shot in Preston in southeast Idaho, clear across the state from where I grew up -- but the houses look just like those in Meridian, where I went 2 highschool, & the foothills & mountains in the background look just like those around Boise. & the bright, dry, sun-bleached look of the scenes outside reminded me of home -- way diffrent from the lite here in Washington. & people really did look like that, talk like that & act like that back when I was in highschool (32+ yrs ago....).
I just thot it was cool that somebody FINALLY got some of the look & feel of Idaho down on film, similar 2 the way Edward Bryant got the mood of Wyoming down in his short-story "Strata"....
I still make jokes about Idaho Bing a Cultural Wasteland, & I really thot it was when I was in highschool & 4 the 5 yrs of dead-Nd retail jobs I held afterward B4 I left. But it was also a nice, safe, quiet place 2 grow up, a nice place 2 have a family, if a little boring. (Even if I couldn't wait 2 get the heck outta there.) & even in Boise, there Cmd very little sense of permanence -- the place was just a big 'ol Small Town up til about 1980. Population didn't top 35,000 til the late '70s, was about 50,000 around '82, & then it REALLY Xploded.
The last time I was there, about a yr & 1/2 ago B4 my Mom died, there were over 200,000 people in Boise, probly close 2 500,000 in the greater Boise Valley area -- it sure weren't no small town no more. Traffic was almost as bad as here in Washington, there were reportedly drive-by shootings & drug problems, & people Cmd about as stressed-out there as they do NEwhere these days -- not that I was really noticing that much, I had other things on my mind.
But it didn't useta B so fast-paced there.
I drove around the area quite a bit during my last visit, & tho things had built-up quite a bit in the 26 yrs I'd bn mostly away, I was still able 2 find my way around w/o getting disoriented, many things were still in Xactly the same place & hadn't changed much -- a lot of it hadn't changed hardly at all. There were just a lot more people. (When I tried 2 visit my old junior-high-school neighborhood here in Washington a few yrs back, everything was SO diffrent & I got so disoriented I hadta pull over & let my girlfriend Mary drive B4 I crashed in2 something....)
There were a LOT more people. The classic late-1950's-ish mobile home my parents lived in 1nce looked out on open pastures. It was now surrounded by condominiums. The open farmland that useta stretch 4 a few miles Btween Boise & Meridian was now completely full of stores & malls. Quiet little farm-community Meridian, which had 3,000 people in it when I graduated highschool in 1977, was now home 2 more than 30,000. The traffic was ... impressive.
I turned on the car radio 1/2 Xpecting 2 hear the same stations in the same 4mats I'd heard in 1982. Uh, no. Did get 2 Xpose my son & daughter 2 The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" on 1 of the local oldies stations, tho. My son, who's almost as big a music fanatic as me, had never heard it B4.
Visited a coupla used bookstores, tho they'd changed 2. Tried 2 look-up some old friends; no luck. Even went & sat in Boise's spacious, almost-2-manicured Ann Morrison Park & fed the ducks, just kinda thinking things over. But it was a COLD day in April, the wind was bitingly cold, more suitable 4 Washington or Wyoming, & I didn't stay long, Nded up going back & talking w/ my Dad, where I probly shoulda bn all along rather than wasting my time wandering aimlessly.
Everything changes. Outside of Boise things haven't changed much, but the city has sprawled 2 the west & southwest & built-up a bit. I never made it downtown 2 C if my favrite used book & record stores were still there, or whether downtown was even MTer than it was in '82.
Make no mistake: There wasn't much going on back there when I left 2 join the Air Force in Dec '82. The economy was just as bad as it is now, 300+ people would show up 2 interview 4 1 job advertised in the daily newspaper. I was unemployed 4 a yr B4 I joined the AF, something I swore I'd never do -- that's how bad it was.
It took me a long time 2 NOT B homesick -- getting stationed in Wyoming 4 yrs later helped a LOT, it was almost like Bing back home, tho a lot colder & windy-er.
Looking back, I think it was probly the small-town-ness I missed, the familiar surroundings, the closeness of family, the reliable changelessness of Home. All the things U take 4 granted.
...Like foggy inversions in the winter that go on 4 WKS. Boise lies along the bottom of a big valley, & in the winter sometimes the air over the city fills up with fog & smog until the weather changes 2 clear it out. When it gets really cold -- say under 32-degrees Fahrenheit 4 a wk or so, that foggy/smoggy layer starts 4ming. Sometimes it stays around 4ever....
The 1st time I remember Cing it was in the winter of '65/'66, when the fog was so thick I couldn't C 10 ft in front of me -- why my parents let me go out in it I'll never know. & it was supernaturally quiet out there. Walking down the middle of the street in front of my house, I couldn't hear a thing, there was no traffic out in this soup -- Xcept 4 some distant voices shrouded in the gloom ahead of me. After a few more steps I saw emerging from the fog my next-door neighbors, Gary & Shelley Davis, wandering thru the fog & singing the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride"....
The fog returned in Feb '76 when I was in highschool, & it hung around 4 a MONTH. In the middle of that foggy month, I remember riding 2 the local A&W drive-in w/ a car-full of my friends from the school Newspaper class, acting like stupid teenagers just released from school, Bing loud & silly, & when we got 2 the A&W they let us try out their chocolate milkshakes 4 free cos I'd just written in the school paper that the local Red Steer drive-in made better, thicker, chocolatey-er milkshakes than either McDonald's or A&W....
...I remember riding bicycles all over the city of Boise at age 14 w/my cousin Jim Steep, putting MILES on R bikes -- Xercise of the sort I doubt I'd even SURVIVE 2day (tho some part of me thinks it'd B fun 2 try -- not my legs tho, I bet). We knew every off-road trail a bike would fit down, & could get across the whole city in less than 15 mins -- not that speed was important, it was what we saw along the way (that other people DIDN'T C Bcos they were in cars) that was important.
We'd ride or push our bikes all the way up Highland View Drive, up in2 the foothills that overlooked the city -- up there where the rich people lived -- and then coast down, swooshing around curves & barrelling down hills & straights, always on the edge of crashing, reaching the mindbending speed of -- oh, mayB 15 or 20 miles an hr, coasting 4 MILES along those winding foothill roads.
We'd try the same trick by pushing R bikes up the dirt trails practically straight-up 2 the top of Camelback Hill, & try 2 ride back down w/o plunging over the handlebars head-1st.... & if we survived we could coast 4 blocks thru the tree-lined north-end-Boise streets....
I 1st discovered book & record stores in Boise, including the store I later worked at, + a few others. The guys at The Musicworks knew I was an EZ sale -- if they had something a little weird, they knew I'd take a chance at it, especially if it was British. London Records' rather skimpy BEST OF CARAVAN? As soon as I heard the driving "live" version of "For Richard," I grabbed it. THE ROCHES? Soon as I heard Robert Fripp's guitar & the girls' gorgeous haunting vocals on "Hammond Song," they had another sale. Moody Blues, Gryphon, Genesis, Camel, Pat Metheny, Sky, Group 87, Gentle Giant, Renaissance, Illusion, Barclay James Harvest, Mike Oldfield, Kevin Ayers & many more I 1st heard in Boise.
I kept the bookstores busy, 2 -- 1 used bookstore just a few blocks from my house I visited 2 or 3x a day now & then, Dpending on how much spare change I had -- this was back in the day (late '73/early '74) when U could buy 2nd-hand paperbacks 4 25 cents.... I bot & traded back in more stuff than I can even remember....
...I remember hanging-out at 1 of my favrite pizza places, The Brass Lamp on Vista Ave., & popping quarters in2 the well-stocked jukebox 2 hear great non-radio songs like Jethro Tull's "The Whistler" & Kansas's "Questions of My Childhood." & I remember how every1 in the place turned & stared at R table after my best friend Don Vincent put-on Dean Martin's "Everybody Loves Somebody" -- a real #1 classic from that magic music year 1964 -- but not Xactly a ROCK&ROLL classic, of course.... & Don laughed like an idiot.... 4 a min I thot we were gonna get lynched....
I learned how 2 drive in Boise. 1st car was a blue 1962 Buick Special w/ no brakes. Later cars got slightly better. Remember driving 2 my job at the record store in my jacked-up '72 Chevy Nova w/ the rumbly engine & the big wide tires in back, screaming along w/ Caravan blasting on the 8-track tape-player! (2 mo's later the transmission fell outta the Nova. So much 4 Bing cool....) 1nce had a '62 Chevy Impala SS that was so fast it scared me. Why can't I remember whatever happened 2 that car...?
I remember nighttime drives up in2 the foothills north of Boise, winding up & around the hills while songs like Abba's "SOS" & "Mamma Mia" & Steve Miller's "Rock 'N' Me" & Earth, Wind & Fire's "After the Love Has Gone" came outta the radio -- each 1 sounding way better, more perfect, more cosmic, as the sounds reverberated off the desolate foothills & up in2 the night....
I remember driving 1/2way up in2 those foothills 2 get a better view of a total lunar eclipse, & in addition Cing a meteor streak low across the night sky over Boise -- blindingly bright 4 mayB 5 seconds! & apparently my friends & I were the only people in the world who noticed it, Bcos I never saw NEthing about it in the newspapers or on TV....
Living in Boise shaped my life from the time I played w/ toy cars in the dirt thru the time I had my 1st highschool romance & my 1st post-highschool heartbreak. However I turned-out as an adult was 4med by living in Boise, where things were pretty laid-back & mostly unhurried & people were open, honest, trusting, friendly.
The last time I was there I couldn't really tell if the current residents R still like that. But it didn't Cm 2 much like it, on the surface. & I think that's sad.
In Reno, Nevada, their gateway 2 the city includes a sign that calls Reno "The biggest little town in the world." I think the Dscription works better 4 Boise. At least the Boise I remember....