A Helping Hand

Please welcome Slim Randles as today's Wednesday's Guest with another one of his tales featuring the guys at the Mule Barn Truck Stop Think Tank. This story really resonated with me, as I could relate to Mrs. Morris, and thank goodness I have neighbors like Windy, although my neighbors talk purt near normal. 

While Slim is entertaining us here, I am over at the Blood Red Pencil blog with a bit of mid-week humor to help you over the hump. Do stop by if you have a chance.

It is bitter cold here in most of the United States, and I'm sure in plenty of other places across the world, so let's have some hot chocolate and stay warm. Enjoy....

 Windy looked out the window. A great day for helping. Windy Wilson sets one day aside each week for helping others, you see, and this was helping day.

Mrs. Morris, he thought, checking on the calendar. Yes, Mrs. Morris’s poor ol’ shed that’s leaning dangerously to one side.

“I can just whup over there today and see that gets fixated,” Windy said, smiling. “By dark, she’ll have a perp-up-and-dicular shed she can be proud of.”

Windy talks like that. A lot.

Armed with enough tools to recreate the city of Troy, Windy arrived at Mrs. Morris’s house and set to work. He rigged a come-along to a tree and used it to straighten the shed. Then, while he had it straight up, he attacked it with bracing.

Mrs. Morris brought him coffee a couple of times, and later had him in for lunch. Mr. Morris had passed away several years ago, and some of these bigger chores were beyond her abilities.

Windy hadn’t asked Mrs. Morris about fixing the shed, because that’s part of the fun for him. You just show up and do it. Do it until it’s done. Do it right. Fortunately, Windy has always been pretty handy with tools.

By three o’clock, that shed was up and braced, and several loose boards had been nailed back in their homes again. He brought the can of paint out of his truck and started painting it the same light green it had always been.

Inside the house, Mrs. Morris looked out upon the wonder of a reconditioned shed in her back yard. She picked up the phone.

“Mr. Johnson? This is Mrs. Morris. That’s right. Look, I know I’d asked you to take down my old shed, but I’ve changed my mind. No, I don’t think the old shed will fall on anyone. Thanks so much anyway.”

Nothing like a good helping day, Windy thought, rinsing out his paint brush and dancing a little jig carrying the tools back to his pickup. Nothing like it.
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Brought to you by Saddle Up: A Cowboy Guide to Writing 

A Girl And Her Horse

Girls are notoriously horse-crazy. I know I was as a child. I collected plastic horses and ceramic horses, and the first stories I wrote were about horses. One of the stories won the Scholastic Writing Awards contest when I was 12, and created a writing monster. (smile)

I couldn't have a horse of my own back then, but when I got old enough to work and earn some money, part of that money was spent at a riding stable. Since then, I've been fortunate enough to have three horses at different times in my life, and currently have my pal, Banjo.

I think he loves me, but it's really the hay.

Most girls outgrow this obsession with horses, but some of us don't, and I imagine my neighbor, Haley, will be in that latter category. I welcome her as my Wednesday's Guest today because I was so impressed with her hard work as she competed for Junior Miss Rodeo Queen for the Franklin County Sheriff Posse Rodeo held this past weekend.

Waiting for the judges decision

Unfortunately, Haley did not win, but she did her best, and she sure sits a horse well. She is also a lovely young girl. She lives next door with her mother, sister, and grandmother, and they are really nice people who help me out a lot with my animals. It is so great to have neighbors like that!

When the family first moved in with their four horses, I remember seeing Haley jump up on the old mustang a few times and ride him with no saddle and no bridle; just hugging the horse's neck and ambling along. Right then I knew that there was a special connection between this little slip of a girl and a horse. 

Still waiting with her mother

At the rodeo, I took the next three pictures after the decisions had been made and the awards given. The girls then took their horses back to the trailer area to be unsaddled. I thought the progression of expressions on Haley's face was very telling.

I will not cry.

Here comes pure determination.

I'll get it next time.

And finally:

Okay, I'm over it.

It's hard to handle disappointment with grace, but I think she did a fine job, and I was glad to be a part of all of this with Haley and her family. My kids and I were some of her sponsors, and we were so happy to do that and support her efforts.  Looking forward to next year!

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Are you a horse lover? Do you like to sponsor young people for various activities and events?

Fits of Temper

Back in June I started posting excerpts from my new book , which is a humorous memoir titled A Dead Tomato Plant and A Paycheck. This latest installment is from the chapter tentatively titled, The Silly Things We Do

This particular piece was inspired by a neighbor who was known to do some pretty amusing things and was always willing to let me write about them. I was saddened to hear recently that he passed away and it was ironically about the time I was working on this chapter.

I hope you are making them laugh up in heaven, Dick....

In all honesty, most of us will have to admit to being overcome with childish fits of temper at one time or another in our lives. Whether that happens frequently, occasionally or twice a day, we all have given in to the urge to throw something across the room and watch it smash into a million pieces. (We mothers have to be most careful when the impulse is to throw one of our kids).

Although we all fall prey to this type of behavior, it really takes a big person to admit it, and that being the case, I'm going to tell you what this friend of ours once did. This friend, who shall remain nameless, got mad at his telephone one day. He was so mad that just slamming the receiver back in place was not enough to satisfy him, so he ripped it off the wall.

Then he threw it down on the floor and jumped on it once or twice.

That still didn't ease his frustration, so he kicked it around the floor a bit, kind of stirring up all the little pieces.

Then he picked up all those little pieces, put them in a brown paper bag, and went to the nearest payphone to call the phone company. (Keep in mind this was before anyone had even thought of a cell phone.)

He told the girl in the service department that there was something wrong with his phone, and she said she would have someone check the lines and they would get back to him.

"'You don't understand," my friend said. "There's no trouble on the lines. My telephone is broken."

"Sir, do you mean the instrument itself is broken?"

"Yes, Ma’am, that's exactly what I mean."

"What is it that's broken on your telephone?"

"Well, you could say the whole thing is broken. In fact, you might want to send out a whole new unit."

“Oh, okay. I’ll have a technician come to your home.”

At that point, I would have skipped town and let someone else greet the repairman, but this friend is given to great shows of bravery as well as terrific temper tantrums. He acted as if it were nothing out of the ordinary to hand a telephone repairman a bag of junk that used to be a telephone and tell him that a Mack truck ran over it.

If I had been the repairman, I might not have been able to resist asking how the wall fared.