Anniversary Poem--37 Great Years

Finding Beauty in Every Season of the Year

No one on television ever told me how bleak life could be at sixty.

I would not have listened, because I preferred

sounds of summer breezes

when they tossed

curtains softly and made them

billow specter-like amid murky dreams

and because I preferred the sounds

of spring breezes when they

carried songs

laden with musk--trills and chirps

of songbirds, scents

of flowers and trees.

and because I preferred the sounds

of fall breezes

when crispness fell from trees

dancing amid blue skies to light

upon piles of yellow and red and gold

tones that speak of the stains of life and age

and because I preferred the sounds

of winter breezes too, although

my youth's eyes cast aside the metaphor.

Death walks beside us all. Stealth does not prevent
anyone from seeing its crippled gait

amid frigid wastelands. Life is silent here.

It breathes with a death rattle.

Old people hear it whisper to them: "I'm gonna git you dude."

Youth ignores the warning, because

they don't listen to messages for old people, who smell like soap

who smell like stale air

who move in slow paces at the mall
or drive Winnebagos on crowded highways.

No one ever told me life could be bleak.

But now I am old. I smell like old people. I shut my eyes and tilt my face

heavenward. Thoughts of spring

still remain clear
in spite of life spinning earthward: the ultimate

ebb and flow. Times like this make me hope for summer

and every time I hold

the velvet softness of my sweetheart and sense

her caress of hand

her touch of lips. It all

brings me peace. Laughter in her eyes

carries me to a place

without care

without sadness: a spot where I think

of devotion, of love, of meaning. I wrap myself tightly in thoughts

like these. I savor loving moments. I revel

and slosh about those memories

like a child

discovering images of clouds in a shallow pond.

Past and present pass so quickly, like
chevrons of honkers flying toward better places. Hope is like

a sunrise surrounded by red and orange light.

The colorful hues etch and brush stains

on clouds. I never see them the same way twice.

No one on television ever told me how a woman could love like they do.

But youth never recognizes omens that fill skies. They never see

a sparkle in chocolate brown eyes

teasing and nurturing and loving. They never see how love

grows

in spite of age, in spite of pain, in spite of sickness.

Clouds speak of winter storms ahead. I ignore
icy wind that drives

snow and ice. Reality shouts at me--howling at a slice of moon

amid starlight. I hear
the whisper: "Life is bleak, life is hard, life is cruel."

My shout against the wind is for my ears only. I defy age

that haunts me daily. I will not wallow in fear
or waste time with tears.

Life wanes and fades.

I celebrate every step in the dance

Life as a merry andrew. But even a fool has wisdom.
Let age paint my face

accordingly. Hope transforms me.

I am a ship upon the rolling waves of a violent sea. My soulmate is at my side

with each pitch and roll. I bask in her devotion, that silences gales.

It grasp a rose without thorns.

There is pleasure in age, when you join hands with someone you love.

Ward Family est. May 31, 1974

May 31, 1974--We spent the morning in the Salt Lake Temple before driving together in my Ford Rancerho to Maddox Restaurant in the afternoon. It was a treat to go there for the Wedding Breakfast. Ann and I left for Malad after the meal, and we spent several hours going to three or four different businesses--Miller's Jewelry, Evans Co-op, Thomas Electric.

The businesses all had a "Wedding List," where people could leave amounts of money. The gifts ranged from as little as one dollar to $20. From the accumulated amount, the new couple picked out gifts, which arrived at the reception. The generosity of people in Malad still staggers me when I think of what they did then and what they did when I left for my mission.

The reception took place at Malad Stake Center, just across the street from Malad Elementary--where Ann and I went to school together. Occasionally, we were in the same class.

We stood in line for several hours, shaking hands with people from Malad. Ann's family had the largest grocery store in Malad--Stan's IGA.

It was one of three, that existed in my hometown in '74. Three others existed, when I was young, but two closed in the early to mid 60's, and the other one became a snack bar and game center. Needless to say, Ann's dad Stan was an honest businessman, and everyone liked him. Ann's family is incredible.

My family, having lived in Malad since the late 1800's as farmers and ranchers, was also popular, so a large number of people came. I think they're pretty incredible too.

We still have a few gifts from that night, but the one I remember the most is the Römertopf, which was a clay pot very popular in Germany in the early 70's. That was something we found at one of those three stores. The clay pot is how I remember those first months and years of our marriage. Ann would soak it as instructed, and then she would do a pot roast with fresh vegetables.

It's how I remember our first meals together.

The pot is still in its original box with the manual and list of recipes. While doing this blog, I found a German site with additional recipes. I insist on keeping it, because it reminds me of that simple time, when Ann and I sat at a dinner table--sometimes in silence.

Newly married means adjusting to being around someone 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. In the beginning, I remember briefly struggling to think of something to say. You run out of conversation topics, but then the relationship changes and develops in a deeper more meaningful way.

We only sit in silence when one of us is grumpy, or when the situation requires it. On our first cruise in '95, we stayed in a hotel in Florida. A large group of German tourists were there, and the hotel provided a breakfast, a very good one too. It was a slap in the face, because the place did not provide us with a nice room at all. In fact, the hotel workers were very rude.

There were many problems, yet they rolled out the red carpet for the foreign group, a large number of rude old people who shouldered their way around the hotel lobby. The whole situation irritated Ann and me.

The two of us ended up sitting in the area for the Germans. There wasn't a clear explanation of where to get breakfast, so we sat at the first table we found. Ann looks at me with a twinkle in her eye. She understood what was happening, before I realized we were in the wrong spot. My German was exceptional at the time. Germans often mistook me as a native speaker.

"Nur Deutsch," Ann said. She grinned and sat in silence, and we enjoyed a traditional German breakfast before driving to the Cape to catch our cruise ship.

That trip was one we did over our anniversary. I think it was in '95. At the time, German tourists visiting Florida found trouble. They consistently rented large expensive cars, and young gangsters shot them in Miami and in Tampa and in other large cities, before robbing them and stealing the rental car.

I insisted on the smallest car available. Ann did it. The car was a tiny Toyota or Honda. The problem was that starting to move in first gear meant the engine stalled, and it stalled every time. I had to adjust by giving it more throttle.

The day was warm. Oil seeped to the surface of the road, just like it did at home in late July and August. The car's engine sputtered and killed, so I restarted it. A large group of Japanese tourists are walking into the hotel. They all followed in a lengthy line.

Our windows were down, and the sunroof was open. I revved the engine, popped the clutch and smoked the tires. "Wahoooo!" I shouted the words cowboy style.

The squeal of rubber against asphalt happened quickly. Smoke rose slowly into the rearview mirror.

Ann was embarrassed. She looked uncomfortably out the window. The Japanese group was thrilled. They laughed. They pointed at us. They snapped pictures. It was one of the many moments I remember with my Annie.

But that trip had many moments.

Another one happened during the cruise. Ann wanted to go snorkeling.

I went body surfing in the 80's with a German exchange group from Berlin. A large fish, the size of a tree log, bumped my leg. It was still not long after the movie Jaws appeared in theaters. I was not thrilled to be in the water, especially deeper water 200 yards from shore. Besides, I thought it would be cold.

"Can you swim?" The young man asked me the question and waited. Ann stared at me in disbelief. I stammered that I wasn't sure.

I had been lap swimming for years, completing a mile swim before school each morning.

The young worker requested that I take a swim test an hour later in the ship's pool with some "other" people going snorkeling. I showed up in my suit, but I didn't get into the pool. The group consisted of kids under the age of five.

"Shit," I said. Ann laughed. Meanwhile I said this: "I'll be damned, if I'm going to embarrass myself by taking a test with toddlers." I stormed off toward the room.

Five minutes later, there is a knock at the door. I knew Ann had a key. I ignored it. The knock happened again. I still pretended not to hear it. "Mr. Ward?" The voice was a young man, who originally asked me, if I could swim.

"Jon, don't be so damn dumb." I hear Ann's voice, but it wasn't stern. I imagined how her eyes sparkled with mischief on the other side.

I opened the door. The young man told me to show up at the pool in one hour. I took the test in a pool no larger than 20 feet in length. We went snorkeling the next day. He later laughed at the fact, that I never returned to the boat to rest like the other swimmers. We stayed in the water over an hour. Ann and I were the last to board the boat.

The story only gets better. Initially, I was afraid of large predators in the water, but more importantly, I didn't want the shock of jumping into something cold like the ocean.

The cruise ship workers told me to jump off the small wooden platform. I refused and sat down first, before sliding into the water.

Ann and I bought at least ten or 15 small containers of fish food before we entered the ocean.

Ann kept teasing me. She swam up

next to me, tapped my shoulder and when I turned, she moved to the opposite side and wiggled my swim mask. I'm disgusted. I tread water while lifting the mask to empty water. She did it at least five times. I noticed Annie moving in for yet another encore, so this time I was ready.

I emptied six or seven containers of fish food underneath her. Thousands of tiny fish swarmed around her like pirana. Her squeal under the water made me smile.

The story still isn't finished. We finished snorkeling. I walked around the flat boat. People won't look at me. I leaned over the rail to take pictures. Conversation stopped. People sit in uncomfortable silence. And when I turned to look at them, they glanced toward open water. They don't look at the land, which was in the direction where I stood. It was really obvious, that they avoided casting their eyes my way.

I worried that I smelled or that something else was wrong. Ann sat in the back smiling broadly. She motioned me to come back to her, so I worked my way down the aisle toward the rear of the boat. "Ohhh!" One woman snapped her head quickly and glanced away. Ann chuckled out loud, like she did when I did something funny but embarrasing.

I stand by her now. "Feel your suit," she said. I patted my legs. "No, feel your suit." Ann still smiled broadly. I felt the legs of my swim trunks a second time. She stood, walked to me, took my hand and placed it on my backside.

I feel the huge patch of bare skin. I guess I ripped a hole in my suit as I slipped into the water, but it wasn't just a hole. The bare section was the size of a basketball. I felt my ears redden.

I picked up my sweats and retreated to a restroom.

The times we spent, both on days of our anniversary as well as normal life have been a series of incredible and interesting times. There were struggles, but my Annie always remained at my side. She always "had my back."

In the early 80's, we outgrew our first house, but the picture at left reminds me of our three beautiful children, who still are an important part of my life.

The picture is so typical. We planted a strawberry patch, but we sold the house and moved, before we had a chance to enjoy it. It's not as if we can't buy them, but there is something about having your own berries. It's more fun. Going outside to find fresh berries any given morning is something my grandchildren have enjoyed.

My own children, however, didn't get the chance. There were other things we did, which made it impossible to have something like a garden or berry patch. We traveled.

I don't regret any of those trips, especially when my children were young.

It's why I still love going to Disneyland. The sound of children, the scent of baked cookies, the taste of a churro or frozen banana are all things that remind me of any trip we made together to Southern California.

Our life during those years: they were the best of times, and to continue the Dickens quote, occasionally they were the worst of times. Money was never something we had in abundance, but we had enough for what we needed. We enjoyed one another. We grew close bonds with one another.

Our family was something very important to me. My Annie and my little ones are what makes life worth living.

And though we remain scattered across the expanse of this country, we still find times to get together, but more importantly, we have memories of the time we spent together in the past. Those moments together so many years ago established a way of living for our family.

The times we shared and continue to have are vital. They are more important than anything else, because when things get difficult, those people are there for us.

At a time when cancer ravaged me--physically, emotionally, mentally--my wife, my children, my grandchildren were what made me fight for every breath. I continue that battle each moment of my existence, but I still savor the moments, that each day offers. It's what you do when you are blessed with a prized possession: something money can't buy, something that exists forever.

Sammy & The Sour Patch Kids (I Mean Cabbage Patch Kids)

I'm not sure if these dolls are the ones we sent Sammy during the last year or so, but we did put some together in boxes for various holidays. It's incredibly fun to see the animation in her face, to notice the sparkle in her eyes.

A person who knows nothing about passion in life, is one who never really lives. The word passion, although redefined as a result of the pathetic habits of deviance, that portrays the life that surrounds us, is still--in my opinion--a way to live the whole carpe diem paradigm.

James Dean said this: "Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." Ironically, he died, while driving this incredible sports car, but savored life and lived more in a short time than many do in decades, or in some cases, in just short of a century.

I don't worry about that principle in my own family. We had a way of enjoying life. You see it in the laughter we share, in the moments that give us joy, in the things we do.

However, there is a downside to the whole thing about "sucking the marrow out of life." At the end of the day, or even sometimes in the middle of the day, you are pretty much "pooped." I'm only talking figuratively, because when I have to do the Depends thing, my passion for life will be at an end.

In the meantime, I watch my grandchildren right now. Its how they savor moments. There's something about a child and their way of discovering things for the first time. But more importantly, there's something about the sparkle in their eye during that whole process of illumination.

Some people never understand the term epiphany.

The word is what makes life what it is, even when dealing with the most simple things.

Only poets understand or remember what it is like to see the world through the eyes of a child. Their doing that is what makes their work interesting, exciting--worth remembering.

Cles sent me these pictures, taken on Tommy's birthday. In the middle of the table is one of Lydia's signature chocolate cakes, which reminds me of this: she must bake an Ice Water Chocolate Cake, A German Chocolate Cake and Vanilla Cookies in June.

I anticipate her arrival, and when she gets here, I'll probably have her make me a Texas Sheet Cake too.

It is fun to see all my family together like this in a picture. My only regret is my not being there.

I love the look on Sammy's face as she experiences birthday traditions for the first time.

Celebrating family is something that I love to do. The society we live in right now doesn't understand the importance of being together and having people, who are there, when you need them.

I counted on my wife and children during my darkest times, and even now, I see the same behaviors in my grandchildren.

Whenever I'm sick for even a day, Jack comes to my room a number of times, and he kisses me on the cheek ever so slightly. I wake up, but I keep my eyes closed to savor the moment. I love the way he does that, even when he's old enough not to give kisses to old people.

My other grandchildren are the same way, although I'm not around them as much.

It's what makes life so incredible. It's not about anything that you can buy. Money can't give me the memories I have of being with family, and I miss all of them, when I rarely get the chance to be in their inner circle. That's what this picture is about in my opinion. Being in the inner circle implies loyalty and devotion.

I've been blessed.

Spring Soccer 2011

Jack has fun when he plays soccer, but each week, it seems like he forgets that he had fun doing it. He grumbles about it while putting on his uniform. He talks about not wanting to play next year, which makes Pop Pop angry.

I guess, that when you come from a small town, sports are more important. Growing up there, I found that I was "nothing," unless of course I lettered in several different team sports and played first string in at least one of them.

I guess for me sports was an important thing, because not only did it give me the chance to gain respect from peers, but it also taught me some critical skills: 1) succeeding through specific intimidation tactics, 2) learning that winning is important, and you win at all costs, 3) understanding that you had a short time to completely beat your opponent into submission, so that they let their own discouragement defeat them.

Those skills were important for me to learn.

Each week, we arrive at the game. I tell Jack to do his best, because that is all that matters. He steps out of the car, sees his teammates. Then he begins playing, and all is forgotten.

By the end, Jack is content to be a member of a team. He tells me he had fun, and more importantly, he doesn't regret playing soccer.

I hope it stays that way. It's a great team sport, and it requires training and provides both confidence and agility. The latter two come later. At least that's how it worked for me.

A Road Trip To Driggs

Ann retired--well, kind of retired, but then she found this job that is ideal. It gives her the opportunity to work with schools and help teachers reach important instructional goals. It's a way of continuing to do what she has always done for young minds: help enhance the learning environment.

For Jack and me, it was not a difficult decision, when Ann asked me if I would mind riding with her to Driggs, where she has a current assignment.

The resort in Victor, where we stayed, was interesting. The mountains were beautiful. The air was clear. Morning meant hearing birdsong and feeling the warm sun on your face. It was a beautiful day.

The place was also near the mountains. At night, stars were clear--something I have not seen in decades. Without glasses, I could see the Big and Little Dipper. The night sky brought back memories of my youth on our family ranch.

There was also this huge, outdoor swimming pool. I took Jack. It was impossible to get him out. I thought one hour would work. We stayed in the water over three hours, and finally I talked him into going to get grandma.

Within hours, Jack began seeing the effects of sitting in an outdoor pool without sunscreen.

The next day, I look at Jack briefly. "Next time, you'll get out when I say it's time to get out of the sun, won't you?"

It didn't take even a second for a response. I could tell it hurt Jack to wear a shirt against the reddened skin on his back.

In spite of sunburn, the day was perfect. We ate breakfast the day before at this place advertised as Irish, but I failed to see any kind of connection. Jack, however, loved the food.

The weeder, which was a piece of farm equipment I saw often on our ranch, was in pristine condition.

There were no signs of its having encountered huge lava rocks under the upper layer of soil in any field. The weeder rod was straight. All parts, although coated with rust, were in excellent shape.

The day ended with a visit to a cocoa shop near Broulim's. The sandwiches were fantastic, but the hot chocolate was impossible to describe in words.

Jack loved the weekend, and I enjoyed it too--not just because we took great pictures and found fantastic restaurants, but because we were spending additional time with Grandma.

Besides, it is spring. It is only weeks away from the last day of school, and Jack is pretty much looking forward to summer vacation.

He had an incredible year in school, and we had an incredible weekend in a beautiful place.

Buckeroo Banzai Sammy

In order to understand what is happening in my son's clip of Sammy, I posted a "Banzai" cry, heard by Imperial Forces during the Second World War. My father-in-law and my wife's uncles would never have seen any humor in this.

They lost a brother in the Pacific Theater. Ann's Uncle Fred was a prisoner of war. During transfer to another location, Fred was on a transport ship with other American prisoners. He went below deck briefly, and while gone, an American torpedo hit the ship. It sank.

You never mentioned buying Japanese electronics, cars or watches in my wife's family, so I know how they would have felt to see this first clip. I may delete it later--especially if no one needs it to understand what Sammy is doing.

During the time that Cles and my daughter-in-law Leslie were with Jeff, Lydia and the kids for a visit, they watched a war movie. Between the gunfire and explosions, Cles told me that Sammy started to scream and put her hands in the air.

Cles asked Lydia if the movie was scaring Sammy. Lydia wasn't sure. I guess they paused the film, and Cles tried something.

"Banzai!" he said loudly with both arms in the air. Sammy did the same thing and made the identical scream she did earlier. She only imitated what she saw in the movie. Cles laughed about how cute it was.

For the time after the film, Cles would either do the cry, or he had Anna play something from his cell phone that reminded Sammy of the same thing.


Cles also made a clip of Anna and Sammy at Disney World.

Pete's Shanty

This old shack was originally for my grandfather's hired hand. He was a hard worker. He was a good family friend. But after arriving from where he'd been during the winter, he brought bed bugs, so the family built something for him that was away from the house. Besides, the family--my grandparents, my father and my aunt--already lived in the small house.

There wouldn't have been room for a hired man.

When I was a child, we stored oats for the horses there. Ropes, with a smaller loop at the end, hung from the ceiling. We placed the loop in the rope around the saddle horn, leaving them off the ground so no animals could gnaw at the leather.

Both saddles were old, but we took care of them. Besides, we only needed them when we moved cattle, which happened two or three times a year.

The Feedlot

I-84 is a section of Interstate that runs in front of our ranch. In the late 70's, dad sold gravel to Parsons: the road construction company, that received the contract to build the road.

At that time, they did something new--constructing a road of cement instead of asphalt.

That fall, the company was pouring cement and trying to finish the road. Earl Matthews was a neighbor and family friend, who often enjoyed working with us on projects. He designed and poured the cement on the cistern at the spring above the ranch, and on this feedlot, we began getting the reject material that trucks brought in loads--sometimes multiple--of over ten yards at a time.

Dad and Earl devised a system. We found the frame of an old threshing machine lying in the brush, and we used that on top of some old well casings to slide the cement into place. The well casings became the main cement form.

We began shoveling first. Earl would use his Ford tractor to lift the threshing machine frame into place above the cement forms we put into place. We constructed two large pads. One was forty feet wide and 150 feet in length as I remember, and the other was a bit longer.

The work in cement was very hard work, but the reward of having cement pads like that was incredible. Once appearing strong, the cement pad is now weathered. It still is usable, but the stones of gravel are now at the surface, and the smoother cement surface is now gone.

That happens to something like reject cement after 30 years. Nature reclaims things we assume will last forever.

In the area above that lot, you can see the small ravine with our spring that supplied water for the ranch. Anyone who stayed there talked about the sweet water from that spring.

Snowville's water had the taste of brine. It was the negative effect of being close to The Great Salt Lake, but more importantly, it was the result of the ancient Lake Bonneville, that later became The Great Salt Lake.

Water in the area had that taste of brine and a faint mossy smell to it. Looking up into the brush above the feedlot, I hoped to see the old grave. Three lilac trees were always easy to find in spring and summer, but I couldn't see them at all.

When my dad was in his final weeks of life, he was uneasy about leaving that grave unprotected. He made me promise that Keith and I would drive some steel posts in the ground, forming a small encasement around that grave. Between each post, we wired a heavy metal mesh that dad used for some fencing purposes. Nothing remains of what we did to keep our promise to my dad, and I couldn't see the grave anywhere.

The grave was that of a young man. As I remember, my dad told me that he was between 15 and 19. During a rabbit hunt, he died as a result of a gunshot wound. The Dilly Family buried him on the ranch, and for years, we tried to keep cattle away from the grave. I remember that my dad told me that relatives of the Dilly Family made a trip once during the 80's to see it.

Jack's First View of The Ranch

My mistake was telling stories about close calls with rattlesnakes. Jack didn't want to get out of the car, but I convinced him that I would watch carefully, where we walked, and besides, we were walking on sections of gravel or trails. It was not difficult to see that the path was clear.

The day was beautiful, a perfect time for taking pictures.

I wish that I had had a movie camera. Meadowlarks sang. Like my grandfather did for me, I taught Jack how to recognize their simple trill: more melodic than the chirp of a robin or even the wail of a killdeer, but all three are sounds I love to hear. There were, however, only meadowlarks out there.

When I was young, I don't remember ever hearing one of those. There were robins, starlings, sparrows and a strange looking bird, that my dad called a king bird. They are marked similar to a robin and even the size of a robin, but their breast is lime green instead of red.

They were also aggressive. Anything below their nest was fair game. They would dive and peck at dogs or children or even adults. I hoped to see one, but there was no sign of them. And the trees were mostly dead now. That was one of the sad things about seeing the ranch.

Dad kept sprinklers going from early spring through the summer and well into fall. The grass was always green, and the trees were alive and well.

Nothing remains in the orchard. The apple and cherry trees are gone. The pines are now mostly dead. And even some of those trees that sent seedlings all over the ranch are now gone.

Piles of branches are everywhere.

Spots on the farm, where there were once pole fences are now mostly gone.

Those are the first things that begin to vanish. Deep snow and moisture rot the wood.

I've seen sites, dedicated to areas reclaimed by nature. Some are former vacation areas or resorts. It's depressing to see the changes, yet the pictures were also artistic in many ways, but having lived on that ranch, I took no pleasure in looking to find art among the ruins.

Rulon's chicken coop was a building, whose poor construction initially meant it wouldn't stand for a long time, but I never expected to see the roof gone.

Just to the right of that coop is a gully, one never having water in it for a very long time. I remember some water from the spring trickled along in a small stream when I was a child, but the town of Snowville wanted access to the Ward spring. The water was sweet and clear.

It never happened, because we took care that no water ever appeared being wasted, no water ever appeared flowing in a ditch, so that gully remained empty--except for the massive storm that hit the ranch in the late 80's.

I had finished working the ground on the other side of the road. Clouds were coming, and I could hear thunder, so I unhooked the tractor and took it to the house and parked it near the diesel tank. I filled the 250 gallon tank just as the storm entered the small valley of our ranch.

One large cloud tumbled over the Cedar Mountain at the left. Another, which was orange in color tumbled over the lava ridges above The Water Lane, and yet another massive thundercloud tumbled over the mountains behind the house in the area we always called The Big Pasture.

It became dark as night, although it was only four or five in the afternoon on a summer day. The miracle was that we didn't have a tornado there. That seemed impossible at the time, because I always believed the mountains surrounding the ranch would prevent storms like that, but since that time, stranger things have happened.

The lightning and thunder began. There were strikes ever 20 to 30 seconds. I watched out the large picture window of the house, but I stepped back. The sound rattled the windows. Suddenly I heard the roar of water. I ran to the window on the side of the house that looked at the chicken coop. A deep stream of water was in the gully, 30 to 35 feet wide and at least 12 feet deep. Water splashed around the base of the coop, and I feared the building would collapse.

I ran to get the two dogs locked in the coop, but it was dark as night. Lightning filled the sky. It sizzled and cracked loudly. It hit small cedar trees and fence posts, making the strike point glow. Then darkness would ensue for a moment before the next strike.

I returned to the house.

When the storm finished. I ran to the coop. The water between the house and coop was still three feet deep in spots, but I found a shallow area. I forced open the door of the rear spot, where we had two cattle dogs. It was completely silent. I thought both dogs were dead.

I whistled, and suddenly they swam to the door where I waited for them. They jumped to me and were excited to see me. I always had a connection with those two dogs after that.

Dad had been in Snowville just as the storm hit the area of the ranch, and he called me several times during the storm, but the electrical storm affected the phone. He could hear the static on the line, and he was nervous about my talking on the phone. He told me to stay in the house and avoid being near trees or anything tall or metal like a barbed wire fence.

In an area, where we fed cattle during the winter as long as I could remember, the storm brought out rocks as big as our current VW Bug and left piles of rocks 10 feet high. It was the kind of storm you hope only happens, when you are in a safe spot, but I learned that day, that a safe spot might be an illusion.

Memories like this are what I thought about during this return to the ranch. I hoped somehow to remember what my dad's voice sounded like or to see something familiar. Instead I saw how time changes things. I am foolish to think otherwise. All I really have to do to see proof of that is to look in any mirror.

Nothing stays the same. Life is never static but remains ever changing.