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Torn between the lapping waters of the Salt Fork River and the stretches of wide prairie lands finds me wandering in my mind between the two, lost in the slow moving guitar and this man’s music.
Dad always said, “You pay for your raisin’, and am I ever doing that as I “run”
this acre of the Rhonda Lou. How in the world does my friend and her husband manage the 1000's of acres where they grow the beef for our hamburgers? I do remember Dad working the prairie with horse and shotgun for the rattlesnakes, a far cry from how things are done now. The cattle came running to his sheltered feed lot beside the 100 foot wall he hand builtk as he whistled to their leader, “Cherry.” Today you will see a cowboy with his boots on the window of his truck as he waits for the herd to come to the feed he has tossed out there on the prairie pasture.
As for the land along the Salt Fork River Dad managed the Pecan trees so we had a goodly income from those. The leaf covered spaces beneath the trees were our playground as we cooked out and had picnics there. A precious past experience, too.
Today, Rod’s heart and mind goes to the contributing to the greater endeavor of working on keeping the campus of Norther Oklahoma Campus functioning, as far as electricity goes so that young minds can be enlightened and taught to “run” this
great nation. I’m with him there.
Consequently, I’m left on the home front to do the best I can. We’ve gone from a
“Gone With the Wind” status of Republican battles for land and family to a place I’ve never been before. Not to count out Dallas.
I can only pray for memory to know how Dad functioned in his striving for a better world. To watch him think through a project was an experience to be treasured and remembered and I love trying to do the same.
So it is, I get wonderful thank you notes from people who read my books, enjoy the emails, some walk through my gardens and are lifted from their own life’s trials and they are fed the spiritual food of beauty and the free gifts from our Creator.
With this realization I continue to battle the seemingly unsolvable problems of “running” the Rhonda Lou, quite alone but, nevertheless, as happy as a “hog on ice!” Dad’s favorite saying. I always wondered about that saying. Does it mean the hog was dead or simply had found a cool place where the summertime heat of Oklahoma was a reality