Remembering Home

October 9th, 2006 at 12:56pm B Jon Traylor 199

The first things I remember are frosty West Texas mornings with a warm fire crackling in my folk's big ol' yellow brick fireplace.

I remember snowflakes the size of goose feathers, the moon the color of new-made country butter, and a night sky like diamonds against black velvet, reaching from horizon to horizon.

I remember when the biggest problems in my barefoot life were grass burrs and red ant hills.

I remember sitting on the front porch with my grandpa and watching the last of that magnificent southwest sun bleed away into the twilight sky.

I remember football, baseball, chasin' rabbits with a .22, dodging rattlesnakes and trying to imagine what God looked like.

I remember thorn-laden mesquite trees, working cattle, a horse named Lady Bug and a little puppy my Dad brought home to me.

I remember training horses the mornings after the Friday Night Lights of Fall, when my muscles and bones ached more than spurs on horsehide.

I remember miles and miles of cotton, row by hopeful row, starving for a sporadic drop of rain.

I remember the sounds of pumpjacks pumping up from the earth the stench smell of crude oil to make the rich richer while delivering hope to the poor.

I remember steam-puffing, fire-breathing, awesome tenth wheel locomotives, and the conductor's watch looked as big as one of my grandmother's bisquits.

I remember my Mother smiling in a red Neimann-Marcos dress.  And Christmas always seemed so far away.  Yes, I remember you Snyder, Texas, grand ol' lady of the Southwest.  I remember you as home.

B. Jon Traylor, Carbondale, CO.

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