Impressions of the West: Robert Penn Warren

Another in our series on Impressions of the West by great authors:

“…I drew some money and got my car out of the garage and packed a bag and was headed out.  I was headed out down a long bone-white road, straight as a string and smooth as glass and glittering and wavering in the heat and humming under the tires like a plucked nerve.  I was doing seventy-five but I never seemed to catch up with the pool which seemed to be over the road just this side of the horizon.  Then, after a while, the sun was in my eyes, for I was driving west.  So I pulled the sun-screen down and squinted and put the throttle to the floor.  And kept on moving west.  For West is where we all plan to go some day.  It is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach.  It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered.  It is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and see the blood on it.  It is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the tide of empire. It is where you go when you hear that thar’s gold in them-thar hills.  It is where you go to grow up with the country.  It is where you go to spend your old age.  Or it is just where you go.

It was just where I went.

…Then I was traveling through New Mexico, which is a land of total and magnificent emptiness with a little white filling-station flung down on the sand like a sun-bleached cow-skull by the trail….”

All the King’s Men (p. 376-377), by Robert Penn Warren      



The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels

by Donna Poulton

The Pioneer Woman is my favorite blogger. I admit that I check her blog every day and I care about Charlie, Kitty Kitty, the Pesky Brother-in-law and of course the illusive Marlboro Man, but most of all I enjoy Ree’s stream of consciousness ramblings about the ranch and her life. She is a gal’s gal, the sister I never had, the best friend who lives 345 miles from me. How can you not like a woman who admits to a huge crowd that she’s wearing two Spanks products and can’t breathe or asks if she can borrow someone’s anti-static cling spray? And she admits to cooking with mountains of butter with no apology. 

The Pioneer Woman was in town to promote her book The Pioneer Woman: High Heels to Tractor Wheels, an autobiography filled with hilarious mishaps as this city girl falls for a handsome cowboy and moves to the country. The event felt like a high school reunion, not a book signing—the common denominator was charismatic Ree Drummond.  She was funny, disarmingly candid, charming and brave enough to belt out an Ethel Merman imitation of the song “There’s no Business Like Show Business.”

This event was sponsored by the King's English Bookshop:

Photo courtesy of Jenny Lyons.