You can’t live in fear of something as basic as fire.
The barn was dark from the storm, and we couldn’t find the harness, which no one had used in years. Old Jake, who had sprained his good foot falling off a horse and was hobbling around worse than ever, started getting panicky at the idea of the dam giving out and washing away the cattle, but I told him to hush his mouth. We all knew what was at stake, and if we were going to save the ranch, we needed clear heads.
Ironing was a particularly galling waste of time. You’d spend twenty minutes pressing one shirt front and back, spraying starch and getting the creases sharp, but once the man of the house put it on, it would wrinkle as soon as he bent an elbow; plus, you couldn’t even see whether the danged shirt was ironed or not under his suit coat.
I’m not so sure,” Dad said. “Every damn thing in the universe can be broken down into smaller things, even atom, even protons, so theoretically speaking, I guess you had a winning case. A collection of things should be considered one thing. Unfortunately, theory don’t always carry the day.
The tree burst into color and we all gasped at the red, yellow, green, white and the blue lights boldly growing in the cold night, the only lights for miles around in the inmense darkness of the range.
She kept saying that the flood was God’s will and we had to submit to it. But I didn’t see things that way. Submitting seemed to me a lot like giving up. If God gave us the strength to bail – the gumption to try to save ourselves – isn’t that what he wanted us to do?
A wind picked up, rattling the windows, and the candle flames suddenly shifted, dancing along the border between turbulence and order.
We each needed to respect the religious practices of others, seeing as it was up to every human being to find his or her own way to heaven.
During the sermon, the priest discussed the miracle of Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth. “Virgin, my ass!” Dad shouted. “Mary was a sweet Jewish broad who got herself knocked up!
Mom waved at the crowd. “You know you’re down and out when Okies laugh at you,” she said. With our garbage-bag-taped window, our roped-down hood, and the art supplies tied to the roof, we’d out-Okied the Okies. The thought gave her a fit of the giggles.
We’re becoming a nation of sissies.
Crockett and James Bowie got what was coming to them,” Mom said, “for stealing this land from the Mexicans.
We raised our glasses. I could almost hear Dad chuckling at Mom’s comment in the way he always did when he was truly enjoying something. It had grown dark outside. A wind picked up, rattling the windows, and the candle flames suddenly shifted, dancing along the border between turbulence and order.
Elvis Presley’s death was a turning point in news coverage;.
What turns to stone is inside you.
That was the way man was meant to live, he’d say, in harmony with the wild, like the Indians, not this lords-of-the-earth crap, trying to rule the entire goddamn planet, cutting down all the forests and killing every creature you couldn’t bring to heel.
I began to feel like I was getting the whole story for the first time, that I was being handed the missing pieces to the puzzle, and the world was making a little more sense.
Sad state to spend your life in. Being afraid of your own self.” Rex Walls.
Even more important than saving money is making it.
If you want to live in the farmland, haul your sorry hide off to Pennsylvania.