Editorial / Opinions

I wonder what the real amount of time is between, “You know, some day we’ll all look back on this and laugh,” and the day everyone involved actually does look back and laugh. Well, I’m going to jump out on a limb here and tell a story that will certainly get a few laughs. But I will preface it by saying, to some who may be still recovering from this situation, I apologize for the accident again, and I apologize for bringing it up in this column so soon.

Labor Day Weekend and we were off to the Bar Eoff Ranch at Clinton, Ark., for the 23rd annual National Chuck Wagon Racing Championship.  My wife Pat and our friend Lorna Wilson came with me.  I no longer co-announce but help in various ways. Four to five hours announcing the fast pace action of the championship out in that hot sun got a little tough on this old cowboy.  Andy Steward of Louisiana, who does lots of PBR and PRCA rodeos, handles my former part of the co-announcing.  This year he was worried about things in his home state because of hurricane Gustav bearing down and had received several reports via his cell phone and gave  advice for folks going back home on Sunday evening.

Overkill.

I wonder what the real amount of time is between, “You know, some day we’ll all look back on this and laugh,” and the day everyone involved actually does look back and laugh. Well, I’m going to jump out on a limb here and tell a story that will certainly get a few laughs. But I will preface it by saying, to some who may be still recovering from this situation, I apologize for the accident again, and I apologize for bringing it up in this column so soon.

My favorite department in Missouri government has always been, and remains, the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Overkill.

I’ve been encouraged lately to consider the importance of our inherent right to life, liberty and property. No doubt, we all take these simple entitlements for granted all too often. All political concerns of right to property aside, to me, the saddest infringement on our right to property is when citizen robs citizen.

The symbol of the American farm scene has been the red barn. The first farm I owned had one on it.  And you can still see the old gable roof structure today on the right of I-540 before you drive uphill to the Bobbie Hopper Tunnel.  There was something about buying an old, run down red barn. I had grown up on an Ozark farm and owning a red barn gave my partners Monty and Sumner Smith and I some pride.  I can’t explain it now, but in the midst of all those persimmon sprouts, rundown fences and eroded patches of once-fields, there was always that barn.

"This one will do to watch,” Harold stated as the red bull made his third lap around the corral before loading into the trailer with his two buddies.

I’ve been encouraged lately to consider the importance of our inherent right to life, liberty and property. No doubt, we all take these simple entitlements for granted all too often. All political concerns of right to property aside, to me, the saddest infringement on our right to property is when citizen robs citizen.