My Uber driver showed up within seconds. I climbed into the front seat of the jet-black suburban, and settled in for a ride. I was in New York City! Apparently, making polite conversation- something we do in the south- hasn’t been invented in NYC yet.  I asked, “Where you from?” He smiled and said, “Queens, New York.” I asked, “Where are your from originally? India? Nepal? Pakistan?” I was guessing. I admit it. I was judging the book by the proverbial cover. He smiled again and replied very concentratedly, “Queeeensa… New Yorktt”. He was obviously not originally from Queens. The word “originally” was much too much of an advanced English word for him to comprehend, to have been originally from “Queeeensa, New Yorktt”. “Alas,” I thought, “I’ll never get your story...”
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I can remember as a small boy, sitting near the fire place in a tiny, crowded, dusty old living room, staring fixated at a huge Zenith T.V. Its clothes-hanger-antennae, wrapped in aluminum foil, forking toward the ceiling like the rabbit ears they took their name from. I watched in rapt wonder as the black and white screen displayed the cowboy, as he sat lazily atop his gorgeous, golden palomino stallion, strumming his guitar, white hat cocked gleefully to the side, singing…
 
Oh, give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above
Don’t fence me in
Let me ride through the wide-open country that I love
Don’t fence me in
 
Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze
Listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever… But I ask you please!
Don’t fence me in!​