OPINION? Everybody had one

My close relative and I loaded up her car and went south yesterday about noon. I wanted to look at a new baler and she just wanted to look.

It was an easy trip and, of course, she packed a lunch so we didn’t have to stop at a steak house and spend any of her precious money.

The chicken salad was awful good and she did serve me a piece of peach pie and a cup of steaming coffee for dessert.

Well, on to the trip. We drove around after we looked the baler over and took some dirt roads so we could really see some country. They, the cattlemen, had lots of hay rolled up and some were baling in square bales yesterday. I stopped and visited with a feller as he was coming out the gate of a field of square bales. He said he needed barn hay and would sell some of it in the field. We chewed the fat about cattle prices and fuel costs for awhile until my close relative began to get restless over by the car.

Drove along the road to some pastures that looked completely green. I know they had some of the showers we missed. The Lord has said it would rain on the righteous and the unrighteous so I guess it did down there! Missed all of us around my place.

We pulled into a little country store for a soda pop - my Pappy would have said “sodie water” - and a rest stop. My close relative bought a basket, an apron, two jars of pickled okra and a watermelon. I got a soda pop and did enjoy the visit with the owner. He was older than dirt and had been around that part of the world forever. He told of wolf hunts and chicken pox epidemics that killed off several youngsters. It was a lesson in history and something you can only find on some small twisty roads.

We found the road home, narrow but paved, and headed that way. It was getting late and chores were waiting for me at the house but I still believe in miracles. There it was, a big old sign blinking hello toa hungry man, and it was advertising steak. We were only 30 miles from home and I figured I would get vetoed but she agreed and I had a fine steak, French fries and fried okra! What a day and then on home to sleep in my own bed!

Not much had taken place at the house. The female offspring was stomping her feet about school activities on Wednesday evenings when the Grands need to be in church, and the Grands were running around the barn looking for the kittens they were sure the old barn calico had produced. Just wonderful, homey things, blessings to be soaked up.

It is my opinion, and everyone has one, a twelve hour vacation and some wild Grands looking for kittens is a very special time in a life spent working and trying to stretch two ends to meet in the middle. I fed the horse, fooled around the barn until the cat led the crew to the new babies, and finished the day with a couple dips of ice cream and Grands.

Try it, you deserve a break and if you don’t take one you are liable to try to break out!

Bill is a pen name used by the Gravette author of this weekly column.

Opinion, Pages 6 on 09/08/2010