{"id":1161,"date":"2026-11-01T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/?p=1161"},"modified":"2026-10-27T11:29:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T18:29:35","slug":"hip-hopping-along-on-an-old-highway-cigar-store-dream-by-v-william-barrett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/2026\/11\/01\/hip-hopping-along-on-an-old-highway-cigar-store-dream-by-v-william-barrett\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Hip-Hopping Along on an Old Highway Cigar Store Dream&#8221; by V. William Barrett"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>All alone in a lifetime<br>of series of poor, cheap<br>computers trying to tell my<br>story at about the same cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The cowboy looking down at<br>his boots, realizing they\u2019re not<br>Tony Llamas or even real leather<br>but simply something that held together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Had only his life simply been so like<br>that. Yet while it lasted, held together<br>by a dream or dreams\u2026of course<br>never coming true but truly because<br>a dream is a dream, it can\u2019t become real<br>hence then contradicting the meaning<br>of a dream by becoming a reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gone from the days of hitchhiking<br>to \u201cLA \u2026\u201d or \u201cSan Fran or bust!\u201d<br>and somehow parlaying that mentality<br>into the digital age of virtual transportation<br>for like cheap, low cost, or no cost<br>escapism\u2014everything from and to&#8211;<br>places never to be seen except on<br>the screen, he stuck his harpoon<br>into some kind of internet virtual<br>animal, brought it home, cared for it,<br>honed it\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Until one day the landlord broke down<br>the apartment door with the police<br>and put that hound out of business<br>once and for evermore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><br><em>V. William Barrett was raised in the American West. He attended Boise State University and received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona, just short of Edward Abbey&#8217;s departure. He is the author of Greater Than a Tourist: the American West, a guide.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All alone in a lifetimeof series of poor, cheapcomputers trying to tell mystory at about the same cost. The cowboy looking down athis boots, realizing they\u2019re notTony Llamas or even real leatherbut simply something that held together. Had only his life simply been so likethat. Yet while it lasted, held togetherby a dream or dreams\u2026of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/2026\/11\/01\/hip-hopping-along-on-an-old-highway-cigar-store-dream-by-v-william-barrett\/\" class=\"excerpt-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"nfd_image_url":"","nfd_onboarding_generated":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/jerrod-ford-RHrgUmdUT0s-unsplash.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1162,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions\/1162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}