The word is getting out. My wife and I — along with Toby the Puppy — are leaving Amarillo, Texas.

I get asked all the time: When are you moving? My answer: I don’t know, but we’re a lot closer to a time line than we were a month ago.

I also get asked: What are you going to miss about Amarillo? Me: Many things.

I’ve told you already about my first impression of Amarillo, which was the bigness, the spaciousness, how one can see forever. The sky is as big as anywhere on Earth, of that I am certain. I will miss the big sky.

I also am going to miss — and this will seem strange — the political climate of this region.

We live in the heart of Republican Country. I lean strongly in the other direction. I mentioned once in an earlier blog post that I’ve never voted for a Republican for president, dating back to the 1972 election, when I cast my first vote.

When we moved to the Panhandle in early 1995, I knew about the politics of the region. I knew about how the John Birch Society was so prevalent in local politics and how Birchers helped inform many folks’ world view.

To be honest, that didn’t dissuade me from coming here. I was able to subvert my own more progressive leanings to write editorials for the newspaper, which had a long tradition of adhering to a conservative editorial policy.

As my wife and I settled in, our list of friends and acquaintances grew. Many of them voted in accordance with the community’s prevailing political leaning. I never let those leanings interfere with our personal relationships.

I understood from the get-go that I was swimming against the community “tide.” I managed to speak the company line when I wrote for the Amarillo Globe-News, which happened to comport with the community’s conservative tilt.

Over time, I developed a certain level of comfort with my surroundings. I knew what to expect of our many friends and acquaintances. I learned to give as much as I got. The needling was usually good-natured.

But … as they say, times and circumstances change. Our circumstance is about to change as we relocate to another community. I am absolutely certain we’ll find our comfort level there, just as we did on the High Plains of Texas.