Eons Ago or so it seems today I decided for no clear reason to travel to California with my ponies, my wagon and my oldest son leaving bag and baggage behind.

This of course, was simply emulating the Americans who opened up the West fleeing the confines of the East for the somewhat illusionary freedom of the uncharted territory, the open land.

I had all the right reasons, all the rationality I could muster; the hubris of my vast ignorance of what lay ahead

In the late 1960's I was at the tail end of a stint studying journalism at a Riverside, California junior college.  I was taking the course to discipline myself into becoming a better writer of fiction and such romantic dreams.  Of course, I belonged to the local writer's club.  Family necessity created a need to find a "job" and a visit to a private employment agency led to my stint as a cub reporter at The Ontario Daily Report in the California city of the same name.  At the interview the managing editor asked me if I was a photographer.  I looked him straight in the eye while lying through my teeth, "yes!"

Yes, we change as life changes leading us down paths never envisioned.  First day on the job I walked up to the paper's chief photographer and told Ralph what a dummy I was with a camera.  He laughed handing me a Mamiya C330 telling me "F8 at 125 leave the strobe on and we'll do the rest."  Before long I was producing Sunday photo features along with the de regueur city mayor with a groundbreaking shovel pix.  I learned basic darkroom while my city editor seemed to hover over me while I wrote obits and the Saturday help column.  This on a afternoon daily still using linotypes and the photos were engraved on plastic plates.

Ed, the city editor drummed into me and it took a lot of drumming to use "he said, she said," not to get fancy with "stated, explained, brought out and other ilk."  the newsroom used to have contests to whom could write the shortest most pungent leads that could get by the copy desk.  I also found myself like our restless pioneer forefathers somewhat unable to hew the party line.  As a young reporter without an established beat I went out and found my stories both news and features.

To this date I admire not just the prose of Ernest Hemingway because "Papa's" discipline at rewriting was held up for all aspiring journalists to emulate, but the lean style of Robert Parker (famed in his genre for "Spenser", the wonderfully terse dialogue of Elmer Leonard; John McDonald's "Travis McGee" private eye series with his characterization coupled with dialogue.  I greatly respect James Lee Burke for all aspects of fiction styling.  My special hero or heroine though is Margaret Mitchell of whom I will go into a detailed "why" much later.

I had learned to spread my wings easily as a photographer gradually eclipsing my desire to become America's latest and greatest novelist.  My overt reason for uprooting though was to write a book about what turned out to be a decades-long odyssey down America's Pacific Rim behind a four-hitch of ponies riding the seat of an authentic reproduction of Charles Goodnight's famed cowboy "chuck wagon."  I had read a wire service feature about a man traveling the Eastern Seaboard area with an antique peddler's wagon drawn by a single large horse taking people pictures ala Matthew Brady style.  Mr. Brady of the Civil War era traveled about taking pictures using a large format camera with "wet plates," which are and were made of highly breakable glass developed with chemicals a HazMat team would be called out for in this modern time.

Ignoring that by then I had moved from Fontana, California to Tacoma, Washington leaving prose for the ups and downs of owning and operating a portrait studio I flashed that this was the coolest way to meet people and write about them and my journey.  Oh, I was aware that I already had the basics needed.  I was working three ponies as a business sideline to my portrait studio and had a small motorcycle-tired wagon with harness.  I was learning about working fairs and festivals, the ins and outs of booking, insurance.  I walked Tacoma streets peddling Polaroid snapshots after discovering the time spent in the darkroom in no way covered the selling price of the photos.

Like a man possessed; like a man obsessed with "moving out west" I plunged into it.  This become on intensely personal journey through time and space; a journey during which I was called an "American eccentric," which mantle I wear proudly.

I soon discovered that daily survival become my mantra casting aside any writing or photographic aspirations.  During my years on the open road I surely "saw the elephant" bout six times but admit to losing track.

I have never felt insecure on my photographic eye and will walk down the street with any other photographer taking photos and more than measure up although landscapes bore me.  Never in all my years have had I felt as excited as a photographer with the advent of digital, the wonderful cameras and the clean darkroom of the computer and the earnest fellowship of others worldwide.  I will enlarge in a dialogue with those who wish and especially to all the pony people both amateur and professional add encouragement for no better animal can we have than the pony and the joy this small equine brings to the most important people in our lives, our children.