I'm a small town girl. Really, I'm a Texas farm girl. I grew up on a farm in Knox County, where cotton was king. My daddy started out to be a farmer but found that it was hard to support a family doing that, so he went to work for the Soil Conservation Service and eventually settled into a 35 year career as an engineer with the Texas Highway Department (now TXDOT). But those farm years were pretty amazing for me.
Now, if you asking yourself "where the heck is Knox County?", I'll give you the answer: 75 miles due north of Abilene. Yep, look on the map - there's not much there. But it is God's country (well, isn't all of Texas, really?). And there's a powerful beauty to the landscape that eludes many, but I find it calming and invigorating at the same time. It is home.
Like I said before, Knox County is a place where cotton is king, wheat is a crown prince and the cantaloupes and watermelons are tastier than any you can find anywhere else. Lots of farms and ranches; lots of cattle. Some oil, for those lucky enough to have picked the right plot of land to settle. We drilled several times and never really had much left to show for it. I'm still waiting for my gusher to come in. Always been windy in that part of the world, and now it's starting to pay off with wind energy coming from those huge white windmills.
Red clay. That's what the land is made of. Strangest stuff. It's very sandy when it's dry (which makes it good for growing cotton - and grapes too!), but when it rains, it turns into the slickest, gloppiest, thickest clay mud you ever saw. Step in it like that and when you finally do pull your foot out, your shoe or boot will still be in there.
I'm an only child, and my days on the farm were spent roaming the pasture and/or fields with my dog, Chipper. Seriously, my mother would just let me go wherever (on 320 acres of land) by myself (and by myself, I mean just me and Chipper). I would be gone all morning and then again all afternoon, just exploring. And occasionally, I would have a bit of a falling out with my mother over something or other. I am an only child. One of these times, I decided it would just be best for all involved if I ran away from home.
So I packed up my teddy bear and a couple of things in my little suitcase and got on my tricycle. (I was probably 4 - 5 years old at the time.) I rode all the way to the end of the sidewalk and began to make my way past the gate into the driveway. Did I mention that it rained the night before? No? Well, it did. So when I hit the driveway, which was made of the aforementioned clay, the front wheel of the tricycle sunk into the clay, throwing me over the handlebars face-first into the river of mud. I had red clay mud from head to toe. My mother just hosed me off in the front yard. But I never tried to run away again.
Me, the tricycle and the sidewalk - in front of the house my parents built with their own hands.
So what brought on these memories of a childhood long gone but not forgotten? I decided to wear a spiffy new pair of colored jeans this morning. While I was ironing them (I iron everything), I was considering what color I would call them and it hit me that they were the color of red clay. And I smiled.
Here's hoping a memory triggers a smile for you today.
deb
