where do YoU gO?

 If you're pouring, I'm drinking

You got me thinking,
Pretty girl what's on your mind

something's got you down for you to be wearing such a frown

Your too young for your old lady eyes

you need a break from everyday

I want to call you up and say

Where do you go when you get lonely

Where do you go when you get scared

Where do you go when you get lonely

Let me know and I'll meet you there

I've been screaming at the top of my lungs

No one seems to hear a word I've been saying

and I've been talking to Heaven

It sounds more like begging

I need a break from everyday

I want to call you up and say

Where do you go when you get lonely

Where do you go when you get scared

Where do you go when you get lonely

Let me know and I'll meet you there

There's an airplane flying over me 

Wonder where its going, wonder if I know anybody there

But if there's nothing there for me
There ain't much for me here either

I hate flying to get me in the air

Because I'm tired of toiling over chords

and I'm sick of trying to talk in rhymes

Where do you go when you get lonely

Where do you go when you get scared

Where do you go when you get lonely

Let me know and I'll meet you there

"Where Do You Go", Matt Powell

Listen to the FULL song for FREE here

Pride.....more puny than powerful

PRIDE PRODUCES MISUNDERSTANDINGS

Humility gives insight

PRIDE PROVOKES ARGUMENTS

Humility brings peace

PRIDE PREVENTS INTIMACY

Humility builds closeness

PRIDE POSTPONES RECONCILIATION

Humility admits mistakes

PRIDE PROMOTES ITSELF

Humility encourages others

Tripped over this last week via a FL Radio Blog so I thought it was bout time for me to get around to sharing. The author wrote that the Bible mentions PRIDE 62 times. (I'm going to take their word on it....for now....although I do like to do my own fact checkin'...someday;>) I do have a hunch that few of those mentions would be positive. Humble....humble.....humble....maybe if we turned it into a catchy kids song it would be easier to remember. It does rhyme with quite a few words: humble, bumble, tumble, heck throw a thimble in for good measure......just sayin'!

       ~Enjoy this Tuesday Train O' Thoughts Derailment  segment....Tomorrow brings a tour at the Port of Seattle AND a vessel!!!!!!! Not sure if my puncation usage properly relays my exCITeMeNt!!! Only thing that would make it better would be if 20 or so containers of Hawaiian Cattle were being loaded onto chassis while we were there! ....another tour for another season;)

CrazY cowBoy DrEAm

Crazy Cowboy Dream

“The miles that I have traveled, the places I have seen

Just won’t let me put a saddle on this Crazy Cowboy Dream”¹

          

A few days ago I took my niece up on the invitation to join her at school for “hot lunch”. When your nephew and nieces range in age from 13 down to 7, it is easy to see the GIANT handwriting on the wall. Those pending teenage years have the possibility to make those invitations a thing of the past ! A scheduling conflict resulted in the need to move our original lunch date from the coveted “salad bar” day to a standard “hot lunch” day. Have no fear, this school brought it’s noon hour A-Game. My nephew and nieces attend a private Catholic School in Yakima. Most of the teachers recognize me by now as I have been picking up at least 1 child a year for going on a decade! Despite what most folks would consider a less-than-friendly locale, the school proves friendly & welcoming to the weary lunch maven or afternoon courier. On this recent voyage I found myself likening their school to a small, rural town. The kind of town where the lunch is hot, the smiles are warm, & crazy cowboy dreams are still dreamed.

Back at the cafeteria my small town euphoria was kindly interrupted by a sweet voice, “Aunt Jenna, would you like milk?” Don’t tell the health officials, but typically the only time I reach for milk is when it comes served as a double in a tall glass with ice, a few choice ingredients, and a name that sounds suspiciously like a famous handgun!  On this day, nostalgia won as chocolate milk beckoned its way to my tray. As I found my way back to a table surrounded by 11 year old girls and not a boy in sight, I found myself wondering when that fateful day arrived so many years ago that took away the choice of chocolate milk and took our crazy cowboy dreams right along with it.

One of the great blessings life throws our way are the times when a philosophical theme of one kind or another takes residence in our mind. This philosophical battle invokes pondering that may last for days, weeks, even months. As we drive to and from the kids’ school, ride through that group of pairs, or fix the familiar fence line we may not even realize what our brain fervently ponders day after day. If we are lucky we will reach the pinnacle of all great pondering…the much lofted after revelation. Cattle ranchers are blessed to be an intricate part of nature that includes few others. They are able to take in the wide open spaces, fresh air, understand the delicate balance of all life that surrounds them. All that oneness with nature is great but let’s face it; 'em ranchers are slightly scant on human interaction! It has been a long time since they saddled up to a lunchroom table with their chocolate milk, unless you count those bi-yearly trips to the sale barn cafe!  However, this lifestyle makes them far from short on philosophical ponderings or even a profound revelation now and again. Rather than send our ranchers to “Mingling 101” down at the local Eagles, let’s keep them out on the range & tap into that pondering mind. How intriguing it is to sit down at the lunch table and hear a group of folks whose crazy cowboy dreams may very well be alive and kickin’.

My penchant is strong for anything that takes me back to a time when the worry was less and the “living and doing” was more. Typically that means a great deal of enthusiasm at every 2/$1.00 candy rack where the packaging hasn’t changed since Reagan was in office. However, if you look beyond the Cinnamon Bears, Bubbletape, & Slurpees you just might catch a glimpse of the “good ole days”. The Good Ole Days are not limited to the 1880s or the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder. We all have our very own version of good ole days. That school lunchroom with its choice of “white milk or chocolate” is just one small peek into our glorious yesteryears. Those days when our minds were full enough to be present yet empty enough to dream.

Someone reminded me this week of the saying about doers and dreamers. My personal rendition goes something like “There are three types of people in this world: Dreamers, Doers, and those that let others do the dreaming and the doing.” I believe we cannot successfully do until we have successfully dreamed. When is the last time you let yourself dream or even turned those dreams into something you did? We all know that no one has successfully ever kept us down without our consent but sometimes it takes a good hot lunch, carton of milk, and a kickball game to remind us to start living our crazy cowboy dreams.

“....The miles that I have traveled, the places I have seen

Just won’t let me put a saddle on this Crazy Cowboy Dream”¹

(¹ Robert Earl Keen. “Crazy Cowboy Dream.” Bigger Piece of Sky. MP3. Koch Records, 2004.)

Originally published in WCA Ketch Pen November 2010.