"Go West, young man, go West. There is health in the country, and room away from our crowds of idlers and imbeciles."
Almost two hundred years after Horace Greeley made this famous suggestion, my wife and I finally took his advice.
At the time, we were living in Baltimore, our home for almost 10 years—the city where we met, married, and bought our first house together. In all those years, I never gave much thought to living elsewhere.
Then, in 2007, my wife was offered a dream job at the University of Montana in Missoula. Moving from Baltimore to Montana would require quite an adjustment, we figured, but how often do you get a chance to work your dream job?
Why not, we decided. We can give Montana a try.
So we went west, and I’m glad we did. For the first time in our lives, we are surrounded by beauty every day, even standing on a downtown street corner.
There is world-class hiking, fly-fishing, and hunting thirty minutes’ drive from our house.
We live in a city, but the river that cuts through downtown is clean enough to swim in.
In many ways, Missoula is the best place I’ve ever lived. It’s not perfect, of course, but the contrast between Missoula and the big eastern cities where I’ve spent most of my life is helping me think about what’s ideal in a community, and so far Missoula is coming out ahead.
In addition to the physical and aesthetic pleasures of living here, moving west has exposed me to new perspectives, values, and ways of life. Now, people who were easy to dismiss as “the other side” in various debates are my friends and neighbors, and I can see more clearly the many things we all have in common, even as we disagree on some issues.
And our disagreements finally feel worth talking about: in blue-state Maryland, it’s barely worth voting if you’re a Democrat, much less trying to convince your Republican friends (if you can find any) to change their minds. But here in Montana, a state that went from a 20 percent majority for Bush in 2004 to within a hair of voting for Obama last fall, I finally have the sense that political conversation matters.
Interestingly, this also means civility matters.
I’m also grateful for the opportunity to live in what feels like such a healthy community, and I’m talking about more than all the joggers and bikers down on the river-front trails. Missoula is one of Montana’s largest cities, but it is home to only about 60,000 people. That’s a good scale for a city if you value things like family-friendly activities, citizen involvement in civic life, and the ability to get around efficiently on bike and foot.
Among other things, it feels like a great place to raise a family, which is good news for Amy and me: our son was born in September. Out of everywhere I’ve lived, Missoula feels like the most positive place to raise a child—finally, a good place to put down roots. That’s a nice feeling for me: in my thirty-five years, I’ve moved eight times among seven states, and I can’t say that I really feel like I’m “from” anywhere. I’d like my children to have a different experience, and maybe Missoula will make that possible.
So that’s what Went West is about: what my new vantage point in the Rocky Mountain West is helping me learn about myself, about how to live, what to believe, and how best to act on those beliefs.
Of course, I’m also interested in bear stories, shooting a deer, true crime, good books and movies, newspaper comics, and the way people live day-to-day in the Treasure State.
Please check back soon, and let me know what you think.
Now based in Missoula, Montana after three decades on the coasts, Sutton is a freelance business writer and journalist. He writes the Missoula Notebook for the nationally-award-winning online news source New West, keeps a blog, and can be found on Twitter and Facebook.
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