Well, come to think of it, I did put one over on Minnie once. I'm really proud of that one and I laugh every time I think about it. When she went to Laramie to finish her bachelor's degree in elementary education, I went to town and bought a TV. When she got home, there it was, the antenna up on the roof as big as life, and we had entered the new TV era and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. I should have done a couple of other things then, too, but I was lucky to get out of that one by the skin of my teeth. I believe in working, but I don't think that woman will ever quit long enough to watch TV. Maybe she'll run down a bit when she gets older.
Actually, I'm sick of farm life. Farming wouldn't be so bad if you could make any money at it, but I don't want to be tied to these damned cows seven days a week, day and night, in 95 degree heat in the summer and howling blizzards with 30 below temperatures in the winter. Sleep for a few hours when I can, then start over. Get out the milking machines. Move the cows in and out of the stanchions. Wash all the gear. Then Minnie's gone all day since she started teaching school again and I can tell you I get awfully lonesome out here by myself all day. And I sure as hell don't want to wait here in Penrose until they haul me up the hill to the Penrose cemetery. Hey Min, let's sell the cows, sell the farm, and move out to Washington where Judy is. We'll build a new house out there and see some different scenery.
Well, we did that. We built the new house in Washington, every bit of it ourselves. I even figured out how to do all the plumbing and wiring. When I didn't know how to do something, I just studied the manuals until I could see how it worked. We fixed up the shop. Minnie planted and raised more raspberries than any human being ought to try to raise. We were close to Judy and Liz and, for awhile, Steve and Ann. But Minnie's been gone for a dozen years and Elna is away from her family and familiar places and I'm actually getting homesick for Wyoming and the mountains. Hey, Elna, let's move back to Cody. Then the unspoken words. I need to see Rattlesnake Mountain and Southfork and Northfork and Sunlight. I need to go back to my roots, to the place where I found a home and felt for the first time since I painfully learned when I was a little boy that my stepmother didn't want me around after my dad died and I soon discovered that my aunt and uncle didn't want me either. Then, miraculously, I found a home with another aunt and uncle in Sunlight who leg me eat all I wanted and for the first time didn't feel like a castaway that wasn't worth a damn, a no-good worthless orphan boy that no one else ever wanted around until I got here and found Minnie.
To be continued . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment