September 1, 2000

Like many people over 50, Mel has spent a great deal of time talking about and longing for the “good old days” lately.

“Whut I wudn’t give to git stuck an’ have to call Phil Vaughn to come pull me out with his bulldozer, an’ then Phil bury his dozer belly deep an’ have to have somebody else come in an’ dig us both out,” my husband sighed.

“I don’t recall you thinking it was all that much fun to get stuck when it really happened, or when the rain washed out stock gaps and created potholes and fell on fresh-baled hay.”

“Well, remind me never to gripe about rain, to just be glad whenever we git it. Man, wouldn’t it be nice to git about an eight- or 10-inch rain right now, and then turn around an’ git a real good un? I don’t know how much more o’ this heat an’ drought I can take.”

I had to agree with him on that. Seems Texas is in a perpetual state of drought anymore, and each summer seems hotter than the one before. Not much of anything green out in the country now. What hasn’t burned up, the grasshoppers have eaten.

“You know, Central Texas had a pretty decent corn crop this year, some really high yields in places, but of course, the prices are rotten. Sure looks like the dryland cotton out around San Angelo is struggling. Thin stands and some of it is only five or six inches tall,” I observed.

“Yeah, and that’s the big stuff,” Mel replied. “I don’t know how them guys keep on keepin’ on. It’s got to be mighty discouragin’. Used to, you got a rain ever once’t in a while, to kiney help pay back whut you lost in nem dry years. Now it’s all outta kelter so you don’t never make any money whuther you make a crop or not. Sump’n ain’t right.”

“Yeah. It’s a crying shame.”

“No matter how bad thangs git, a good rain always puts folks in a better mood,” Mel said. “Remember when we lived at Brazos Point an’ it come a gulley warsher an’ we couldn’t git outta the driveway an’ when we finally did, water was over the Brazos Point bridge? Or how ’bout in 1973, when we built the house west of Cleburne an’ just before we moved in, we got stranded out there ’cause it come a flood an’ we couldn’t cross the creeks to get back into town? Rained cats an’ dawgs all night. You an’ me an’ Eric all three bedded down on that deep shag carpet an’ let ‘er rain. An’ if I could jist climb up on the roof one more time an’ try to hammer down a tarp or snake my way through the attic to place pots an’ pans under the leaks, I’d be happy as a pig in slop.

“Nuttin’ wud make me happier than to git a real rain, like we used to, the kind whur I could bog down to my axles an’ have to git out an’ walk all the way back to the house dodgin’ lightnin’ bolts. That ol’ black gumbo squishin’ between my toes wud feel mighty good...”

“I think you’ve just given new meaning to that old saying of Dad’s— ‘He’s crazy as I was in that dry year.’”