Editorial / Opinions

Patience is a virtue — especially when it comes to handling livestock. I can’t remember the number of times in my life that my father chastised (a nice way of saying “cursed”) me for failing to exhibit any patience in dealing with animals. 

I remember really big snows growing up. It’s possible, since I was much smaller then, that “really big snows” were not actually all that big. But I remember my dad playing in the snow with us, digging tunnels a time or two, tunnels that I could nearly walk into. I was very young, but that still seems like what must’ve been a really big snow.

Random thoughts while looking out the kitchen window at daybreak…

Patience is a virtue —especially when it comes to handling livestock. I can’t remember the number of times in my life that my father chastised (a nice way of saying “cursed”) me for failing to exhibit any patience in dealing with animals.   

There’s a lot of speculation and facts, even, that say 2009 is going to be a really hard year.

In the 1960’s when I was busy ranching on now I-540 south of the Hopper Tunnel — I said ranching, well, actually teaching school, auctioneering, selling real estate and trying to make a living — I met a millionaire from Sunset, Ark. Sunset is about ten miles east of Winslow in the middle of the Ozark National Forest. It consisted of a grade school part of the Greenland system, and the older kids were hauled up there for school. The area had no more than a church and several farmers scattered over that plateau with poultry houses.

Do you remember when you found out that Santa wasn’t real? I remember being pretty devastated for quite some time. Other revelations in life were disappointing as well; the girlfriend who didn’t really “love” me after all, the first teaching contract I signed for $9,600 per year only to find out that “after taxes” net only equaled $599 per month, and of course, finding out that the “great” politician I supported with a donation, yard signs, and vocal support ended up being like all the rest of them. You’d think I would be getting used to it by now, but….

There’s a lot of speculation and facts, even, that say 2009 is going to be a really hard year.

"Once upon a time...” he wrote.

Well, it’s New Years Day again and I’ve just finished my yearly ritual of eating a big mess of fried ham and black-eyed peas in order to assure a year of good luck. When my parents were alive, I once asked my mother why this meal was supposed to bring good luck throughout the year. Her only reply was that both her parents and my father’s parents had always held true to the tradition and she wasn’t about to break it. Neither will I…but, why?