From: firstinitiallastname@texas.net   
      
   Chris Mark wrote:   
    To me, somehow, California and Texas are distinct unto   
   themselves, while   
   > the other states (including Utah and Idaho, etc.) don't have as clear   
   > identities and more naturally fall into the category of "west."   
   > Anybody else have such feelings?   
      
   Brings to mind last year's thread on Texas: Is It Really Western?   
      
   Opinions on the "westernness" and the characters of various states will   
   really depend on how much knowledge one or another person has of a   
   particular region and what they consider to be the things that typify   
   the old west.   
      
   As to states having a distinct identity, it's not so much that there's   
   any doubt that each state's natives feel a distinct identity as it may   
   be that some states are viewed by the rest of the world as having a   
   unique, one-state identity that sets them apart. It probably is true   
   that far more people could pick out Texas and California and correctly   
   associate particular things with them, while far fewer people from other   
   places could address, say, Montana and Wyoming, and correctly place   
   features and events in the proper state and perhaps even label them   
   correctly on a map. (A safe bet, given the general geographical   
   ignorance rampant today.)   
      
   For that matter, I suspect a great many people's mental images of the   
   "old west" are, even if they don't think about it, images of Kansas   
   frontier towns. Probably most folks think of the "west" in images that   
   mix widely divergent regions. Their images likely mix mining camps and   
   trailheads, border banditos and sheep-cattle conflicts, wagon trains and   
     'Firsco gambling hells. Rather like an Eastwood spagetti western that   
   vaguely western, without being any place in particular.   
      
   And what many, many people think of as "old west" is drawn from very   
   brief periods. Their image of the old west is composed of events that   
   were quite short-lived, although their image may mix events that were   
   not contemporary. If they don't have enough interest to explore the   
   histories of the various regions, they're stuck with the limited   
   perspectives from Hollywood productions that find it easier to rehash   
   conventional, previously treated material.   
      
   Those who frequent this group who have long-standing interests in one or   
   more regions know the variety of facinating things that happened   
   everywhere in every period. They also know that the phenomenon of   
   western American expansion was, no matter the histories of individual   
   regions, characterized by rapid change, and they know that there is no   
   one true "old west" anywhere. Or any one true west, for that matter. If   
   there was one, well-defined old west, we would long ago have said   
   everything there was to say about it and would have gone off to do other   
   things, there being nothing more to learn.   
   --   
                          Gerald Clough   
       "Nothing has any value, unless you know you can give it up."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)