No, it is not Wednesday, but Slim Randles is here as my guest today with a lovely essay about dreams and hopes and wishes. I do hope he is not offended at me putting “lovely” in the description. Most cowboys would cringe, but I have a feeling he might be just fine with that. After reading so many of his columns and books, I think he is just fine with most everything. There is something so centered about cowboys and farmers and others who are integrally connected to nature and they only take offense at an insult aimed at their horses or their crops.
My December dream, among others, often involves a lovely snow, so here is a picture of snow we had here in Texas a few years ago. We don’t have many snowfalls, so I take advantage when we do. I enjoy romping in the snow.
There is a nighttime sweetness and hope that hovers over us this time of year here at home. This is a time for summing up and looking ahead … and a time for dreams.
And at night… ah, that’s the time, isn’t it?
Outside it’s dark, December dark, and we’re inside and warm and cocooned up. The cold makes our world shrink, especially at night.
But we have our dreams.
For Janice Thomas, our art teacher at the high school, it’s that painting she’s planning. She makes starts at it, from time to time, but she’s wise enough to know she isn’t good enough to paint it yet. She paints other things well, but that one … it has to be perfect. It will be the painting of a lifetime, she knows.
Doc will drift off to sleep tonight thinking about that new fly rod. He has half a dozen, of course, that will take about any weight line, and let him catch anything from mouse to moose. But even the most expensive rod isn’t what he dreams of. This year, for Christmas, he’s giving himself a rod-builder’s jig, and he will make his own rod from a Sage blank. That will be the one. It will have his own wrappings and he’ll put the ferrules on it himself. He’ll be able to feel the fish breathe with this one. It will be true and wonderful and last forever.
For cowboy Steve, the December dream is always the same: spending all his time at that little cabin up there in the mountains. Sometimes he’ll sit by that stone fireplace downstairs and sip coffee, and sometimes he’ll be up in the turret he built and sip coffee. Ol’ Snort, his cowpony, will be out in his corral, of course, except when the two of them are exploring the miles of mountains behind the cabin. And in the cabin, while sipping coffee, he’ll hear music on the radio and and the soft sigh of a breeze going through the pines outside.
Yes, there is a nighttime sweetness and hope that hovers over us this time of year.
Here’s to dreams.
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Brought to you by “Sweetgrass Mornings” by Slim Randles, memoirs of an outdoor life. From UNMPress.com
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My short story, “The Gift” is free for Kindle readers until December 12th. This is a feel-good holiday story that is sure to warm your heart. Grab your free copy HERE as my gift to you.
And if you have not entered the mega-giveaway that I am sponsoring with over 30 other mystery authors, do check out the contest HERE. You can win copies of books from me, as well as other authors, and be entered to win a Kindle Fire.
Finally, some Friday Funnies to get the weekend off with a chuckle:
This first one isn’t laugh-out-loud funny, but it did make me smile.
“I could end the deficit in five minutes,” Warren Buffett recently told CNBC. “You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”
Growing old is hard work. Your mind says “yes” but your body says, “What were you thinking?”
Kids today don’t know how easy they have it. When I was a kid, I had to walk through 9 feet of shag carpeting to change the channel on the television.
You know you’re growing old when you can’t walk past a bathroom without thinking, “I may as well stop and pee while I’m here.”
I’ll be the first to admit that I can relate to the “growing old” funnies. I will try not to say “pee” out loud in the shopping mall.
Care to share your December dream? Can you relate to the jokes? Do leave a comment and let me know.
Have a great weekend.