There doesn’t seem to be a great deal going on this week in Ryan, so this is going to be one of those times that I ramble until I get to where I am going. Robert Frost wrote about the two paths that diverged and he took the one less traveled and it made all the difference. I do that and sometimes I find that there is a good reason that the road isn’t used much, but sometimes it really is more about the journey than about the destination. I need to keep reminding myself not to get into a rut. Don’t be complacent and go with the comfortable.
I am writing this on Monday evening so that it will be ready early Tuesday when they do the lay out and send it to press. Before going home I had supper with a childhood friend. It has been years since we had a chance to talk and get caught up on the goings on of our lives. The subject matter was much what you would expect, work was put behind us and then on to who we had lost in recent years. Family and shared history were the subjects that we spent the most time discussing. Having known each other so long, we knew the same stories, but we managed to share a few laughs. He was on his way to a drag race, so of course we spent a good deal of time talking about old cars. Besides the 1955 Chevy that he drag races, he still owns the 1968 Chevy step side pick up that his grandfather bought brand new. It was passed down to his father and then to him, he drove the pick up when we were in high school. I’m not as much of a car nut as he but I can appreciate the continuity of passing things down through the generations. I still have tools that belonged to my Grandfathers. The difference is that he still drives that old Chevy pick up, I don’t intend to use Grandpas cross cut saw any time soon. I have done that once and let me tell you that the romance wore off of that real fast. If any of you are on the Facebook, check out a group called “Forgotten Oklahoma”. There is a lot of neat stuff on there. I shared some photos of Grandpa Bell on his old tractor. An older gentleman of my acquaintance looked at the photos and told me that there were at least three different makes of tractor put together. Grandpa made it work but this just proves that not everything is genetic. My Grandfather, my Father and two of my brothers were or are mechanics and for the life of me the modern internal combustion engine remains a mystery.
I rambled so much that I almost forgot to mention how the High School Girls Cross Country team placed at State. The team finished sixth overall and Miss Lilybet Harmon finished in twentieth place individually. These young ladies have done themselves, their school and their town proud.
