The moment when I first knew...really knew... was when he asked me to come with him in the pick up and go to Hereford and get a pop. I couldn't believe it. This was big.
I'll never forget walking through the creaky old door and in to the Hereford Store. I can see it like it was yesterday. An old wood counter that filled two sides of the room. On part of the counter were rows of antique mail boxes and an old cash register sat on the other. Lois's kitchen door behind it. The excitement though was in the corner where the pop cooler stood. The kind where you opened the top and pulled out a glass bottle and opened it on the side of it.
I'll never forget walking through the creaky old door and in to the Hereford Store. I can see it like it was yesterday. An old wood counter that filled two sides of the room. On part of the counter were rows of antique mail boxes and an old cash register sat on the other. Lois's kitchen door behind it. The excitement though was in the corner where the pop cooler stood. The kind where you opened the top and pulled out a glass bottle and opened it on the side of it.
On the way home he told me that he was celebrating because this was our day. The day I became part of his family.
I loved being his helper whether driving so he could throw bales, moving cows, holding the light for operations, handing tools and even had my own REAL tool box that I carried everywhere and my own set of saddlebags and fence pliers!! I didn't just pretend play-work was play! I love that I grew up learning to be strong and independent by doing it day in and day out. He knew that we were capable.
He was so proud that his girls were independent and when men would say how sorry they were that he didn't have any boys for help..he put them in their place! "My girls can do anything any boy could do and do it better!" I still check my own oil and tires and look under the hood because we were drilled on it.
He taught me to have vision. To keep my head up and look around. To be aware of what was happening around us and to think for ourselves. That questioning and doing things different was just fine.
Things that drove me crazy about him makes sense today. For example-he was a tree hugger way before it was cool and organic. He quit giving calves implants and kept them grazing more then feeding. He taught us that working with nature including the animals that we worked with always got you further.
He was an athlete in High School and spent the summers with Aunt Marjorie on her ranch where he learned all about horses. He went to the South Dakota School of Mines and then later had to go back to the ranch to work.
Then he met this free spirited girl in New Underwood at a fish fry and she had beer cans for rollers in her hair. She raced and ruined his car. He brought us out to the ranch.
My favorite place in the world was riding out in a remote wide open pasture with him and the girls. I used to do the pick up race with him at a play day. In fact I'll never forget the hurt look in his eyes when I chose a much younger cowboy one day. Close to the same look as when I brought home David.
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| With Josh |
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| Me with Dad and Mom and Dad and Vicki. I'm blessed! |
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