Which Way is West A Place or a State of Mind? One Man's Journey to Find Out by Dick Elder

This is the story of a man who gives up a comfortable life to follow his dream. The timeframe for this tale is during a turbulent decade—the 1960’s. It was late in the evening during the fall of 1958 when Dick Elder placed a call to two friends…Jim Dodson and George Horton. He asked them to come over to the Northeast Ohio Equine Institute and give him and Dr. Vasko a hand getting a horse on which they had just operated into the recovery stall. Later that evening at the Horton home, Dick and his friends, all fine horsemen, talked about leaving Ohio, quitting their jobs and comfortable lifestyle to go out west and buy a dude ranch. During the year that followed the idea of starting a new life blossomed into something more….much more! Ignoring good advice and without a commitment for a loan or investment from others with which to finance the enterprise, the trio purchased five-hundred acres of land near Durango, Colorado for $35,00 and set about to build a dude ranch from scratch. Seemingly oblivious to the obvious fact that what they wanted to do was virtually impossible without proper financing, the guys plunged ahead hoping that they would be able to get a loan before all the funds they had invested were gone. But no bank or individual was willing to pour money into what most thought was an ill-conceived project that had virtually no chance for success. Without money to pay the crew, all work stopped. Jim has no choice but to return to Ohio and find work while Dick and his family remain in Durango. Down to their last ten dollar bill, Dick finally finds work as a disc jockey and time salesman at a local radio station which allows his family to survive, but his meager salary means that the good life they once enjoyed is gone. Life becomes nothing more than a hard grind. Dick continues his search for investors without success. Banks aren’t interested but a banker suggests he try the SBA (Small Business Administration). Eventually he gets the SBA loan and construction is finally completed. In 1963 after fighting for the life of his ranch, Dick opens for business. Unfortunately, up until 1970 the ranch loses money and the SBA is ready to foreclose when Dick had a heart to heart talk with the regional head of the SBA who reverses the foreclosure decision, reduces the annual payments thus allowing the ranch to work through their problems and become profitable. In the years until he retires in 1997 Dick, through innovation and out of the box thinking, leads his Colorado Trails Ranch into a preeminent position amongst dude ranches in the west. While the synopsis you’ve just read seems sterile, lacking in excitement and high adventure, nothing about Which Way is West is slow paced or without humor, romance, pathos or boring. The characters you’ll meet throughout this story are brought to life in recreated scenes that leap from the page with fiery dialog, humor and realism. The reader will re-live with the author, those moments of joy and elation, the romantic interludes, the finding and blossoming of true love, the frustration and depression, the wild range of characters that were all part of the struggle and eventual jubilation in his search for that pot of gold at the end of a long and often arduous trip across a rainbow.