ON REACHING "MIDDLE AGE"....SOME PITHY THOUGHTS

ON REACHING MIDDLE -AGE,....SOME PITHY THOUGHTS

Yesterday another birthday rolled around
and BE outdid herself and fixed us a nice
filet mignon, baked potato (loaded), salad
with great Ranch dressing, and fried crispy
zucchinis !  Wo!

Being a writer and all, I mused all day long,
and wrote down eight pages of wisdom
in my "real writer's" leather notebook.

Oh I rambled and rambled...stuff a bard
is taught not to do; but anyway have
tried to "edit down" (is that a redundancy?)
my "take on things" for you young 'uns.

"THOUGHTS, MUSES, OPINIONS, &
    WISDOM: THINGS I HAVE LEARNED
        OVER MANY  DECADES"

Mil, in thought, on a warm autumn day..

1. On eating--favorite things:  cornbread,
"red beans" & chow chow, hamburgers,
hot dogs, scrambled eggs, biscuits &
gravy, fried okra & zucchinis,  coffee,
iced tea, steak fingers, biscuits with
peanut butter & jelly...diet Pepsis...

2. Texas is one of the Great Places on
 this earth.  Newcomers, please don't ruin it.

3. Women are the grandest beings in
All Creation. Write it down! No contest.
God's gift to all...no, not "nasty wimmin,"
or snarling wimmin' or Marching Ones...
This I have learned, easily...

4. The beginning of wisdom oft comes
to people in their late sixties  "Don't live
your life to please every 'Tom, Dick, and
Harry,' " as the saying goes. Be yourself.

5. Plowing a section of land out at
Ranchvale, on a big orange Case tractor,
on a hot 95 degree summer's day, with a
thousand flies, gnats, bugs,hovering about
you in a hot cloud of dust...was a grand
experience---one I'd like to repeat...one
more round....then I was too young to know
its value. ("Hep me up on that big orange
tractor. once again, will ya'?")

6. This I learned on the farm: when trying
to get that year's-income-wheat-crop
harvested  in June before a hail....and
the combine breaks down...and a thing
needs welding--- you don't cuss life and
fate---you trust God and sing. I myself
went with H.T. to his barn and watched
him weld a part while he sang under
his breath:

    "On Jordan's stormy banks I stand
       and cast a wistful eye
    To Canaan's fair and happy land
        where my possessions lie;
      I am bound for the promised land,
        Oh who will come and go with me,
       I am bound.  for the promised land."

7. Some of the finest people I have ever
known....were farmers....and nurses too.

8. Evil is marching, marauding, devouring
the whole world. Everywhere...

9. O help us: we don't love enough. I
know it sounds preachy. There are a few
people I know, who are ALWAYS thinking
of others. ("If a man love not his fellow
man, whom he hath seen, how can he
love God, whom he hath not  seen?") It's
there...in the Good Book. 1 John 4:20

10. Having spent half my working years
as a church music director (note, all
those new titles for that job bore me
a bit)---and having directed big
congregations of people...in singing "all
kinds of hymns, and gospel songs,"
plus four Cowboy Camp Meetings---
people often ask: "Well what is your
favorite hymn?"

A good question to ask, but difficult
for a short answer.

First of all, I wouldn't give you a dime
for a whole truckload of the so-called
modern-contemporary-church songs,
"guaranteed to attract the youth."

They don't attract the youth and they
rob old-timers of worship. But anyway,
I could write a book on hymns...and
this will surprise you---a favorite of
mine---an old Southern Gospel number,
mostly for quartets, and sung at funerals
comes to mind:
       "I will meet you in the morning
            by the bright riverside
         when all sorrow has drifted away;
         I'll be standing at the portals
            when the gates open wide,
          at the close of life's long weary
             day...
          I'll meet you in the morning..."

11. What are some of your favorite things?
      Pocket knives
      Log cabins
      Lyceum Theater
      The Red Bricks of Main Street, Clovis
      Chevrolets
      Old WWII radio
      The White Cliffs of Dover
       Irish people
       B 17's and P 51's
       Trail Mix, plenty of Chex
        Books, any and all...
        Stephen Foster
        Monticello
        Old barns...and old crumbling
                domiciles in ghost towns
         Photography and darkrooms...
         Poetry

12. "You have known many
people in your years...what is the
maybe the  most important trait
common to the Great Ones?"
       "Without a doubt, the answer is:
              HUMILITY. No person can
         be truly great     without it."
--------
Mil
1 FEBRUARY 2019
(Still learning...)