country poetry & more

My sister, Peggy Gunn McCracken, has done a superior job working in all capacities of the newspaper business for the Pecos Enterprise over the past 50 years or so. Now that she is semi-retired, she has published a book of some of her columns about growing up at Flomot, Texas, complete with pictures. Titled simply Squarely Pegged, it is available through Amazon.com, a very interesting read.

Peg was one of my heroes, a dark beauty who could do just about anything well, especially in the athletic department. Very photogenic, with any chance at all she could have been a famous model. But marriage at the age of sixteen took her in another direction, and even breast cancer metastisized to the bones hasn't slowed her down yet.

Way to go, Peg!

Cora Gail Trent
www.cgtrent.com
cgtrent@att.net

Thank God this fading “jar of clay” is not the real me! Unlike the wrinkled old lady in the mirror, my soul improves with age and will live forever in an immortal body, a gorgeous mansion. No more stringy white hair, sagging skin, failing memory, aches and pains.

Miraculously, the more like Christ I become, the fewer hang-ups I have. His spirit within me overcomes the dying brain cells, giving me assurance that the best is yet to come. Love and forgiveness become easier. Gleaning fruits of the spirit is a pleasant task, considerably more fun than pulling bolls or shocking feed! Anger’s ugly face seldom shows itself these days, jealousy is but a dim memory. The temptations of riches and fame are buried under piles of blessings and contentment. Wishing for youth again is asking for a slide downhill.

People sometimes ask if I’m afraid, living by myself. Afraid of what? Death? Since my Lord overcame death, it is only the gate to a great adventure waiting to happen.

When this earthly tent drops away into dust like the husk of a homely cottonseed, my spirit will burst forth as an irrigated green stalk covered with an abundance of bolls, plus beautiful pink and white blooms that will never wilt or fade.

Cora Gail Trent
cgtrent.com
cgtrent@att.net

“There’s never been a horse that couldn’t be rode, never been a man that couldn’t be throwed,” is an old cowboy truism that never changes.
Daddy was a wonderful story teller, and all his cowboy stories were from real life, the life he loved and remembered with relish. He had left home at the age of 13, working on area ranches, especially the Merrill spread, with no dream greater than owning a good horse and saddle. He could relate the name, coloring, personality, and bucking pattern of every horse he ever rode. Before local rodeo became organized, owners of especially bad broncs would bring them to Flomot, gather a crowd, throw up a rope corral, collect a “purse” and Houston Gunn was given the chance to show his stuff. Pictures of his bronc-riding prowess can be seen in the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.
The Motley-Dickens County Reunion was first held near the waterfall on Pease River near the little town of Roaring Springs, an unusually beautiful place for arid West Texas. Rodeo activity was held in the sand of the mostly dry river bed, with onlookers standing on the cliff above. Some of Hute’s kin lived in Dickens County, and this was their annual get-together. Later it grew into the Old Settlers’ Reunion, which still happens in Roaring Springs every summer, now having a rodeo arena, dance floors and other concessions.
Later, at the waterfall, a swimming pool was built, a dream land for kids during the years I was in school, and now part of a private club. No more rodeo in the sand.
When I watched Daddy break a rodeo bronc to ride in the early ‘50s, I didn’t know his style of “breaking” wasn’t the norm. He used kindness to tame the wild mare in only a few hours. Before sundown that day, Dink and I were riding her double.
As a child, it seemed to me that Daddy’s love for horses was stronger than what he demonstrated for me. But years and wisdom finally showed me that giving up his favorite way of life to raise a family took a very special kind of love.

Cora Gail Trent
www.cgtrent.com
cgtrent@att.net

Bear Facts

Most of us have had some kind of an acquaintance with bears. If we have not seen them in the wild, we have seen movies about them—both factual and fictional. Zoos always have a number of bears which are usually good attractions. As scientists study bears of all kinds, amazing facts come to light on how they live and the designs built into them to enable them to survive in some extreme climates. Consider the following:

Off-and-On Baby Techniques. Black and brown bears do not mate in the fall when fattening up for winter is a major concern. Instead, they mate in late spring and early summer. Once the sperm meets the egg, the egg begins to divide and then it just stops, dropping into a state of suspended animation. It stays in this state for several months until the bears have gorged on fall food in preparation for winter. Once that is accomplished, the eggs resume their development into a baby bear.

Kidneys Lock Up. Most animals that hibernate wake up every so often to urinate and get rid of wastes. Black and brown bears go through their entire winter sleep without urinating. This is especially amazing when you consider the fact that their body temperature does not drop anywhere near as much as hibernating animals like ground squirrels. To continue to have fairly active body function and yet no removal of waste is amazing.

They Are All Cousins. 77 years ago, scientists recognized 86 species of bears. Today science recognizes just three. The design features we have mentioned are so universal that every one seems to agree they are all one. The problem is something like some anthropologists who tend to classify every hominoid as an exotic new species of man when, in reality, they are all one with racial variations explaining the differences.

Superbear. Bears are capable of smelling something that is 40 miles away—especially food sources. A 150 pound bear can move a 300 pound rock. Brown bears can run 40 miles per hour, and polar bears can swim 40 miles.

Like all animals, bears are designed in an incredible way to survive in the environment in which they live. Polar bears do not have white fur, but rather have translucent fur that conducts light to their skin. The incredible capacity of bears to live in hostile environments in very successful ways is a testimony to the brilliance of the design of their bodies. This design is beyond capricious accidental chance. God has designed life to live in incredible places in incredible ways.

Source: International Wildlife, October, 1994, page 30-34.

—John Clayton, Dandy Designs, September/October, 1995

CortGaill Trent
www.cgtrent.com
cgtrent@att.net

Mama's cousin, Ruby Kidwell Yount, was 93 when I first met her. So much like Mama, she immediately became one of my favorite people. She was in such great shape that folks would tell her she might live to be 100.

"Why would I want to be 100? All my friends are gone, each day is such a struggle," she said.

But now that Ruby is 98, she is looking forward to her 100th birthday with relish. She still drives to the senior center for lunch and fellowship each day, plays the piano and sings beautifully at the nursing home to entertain "the old folks", lives alone in her 98-year-old house full of antiques and memories. If a tree limb needs trimming, out comes her saw. Raking leaves while carrying a cane may be slow, but she gets the job done. Wouldn't you love to know Cousin Ruby?

Cora Gail Trent
www.cgtrent.com
cgtrent@att.net

I wandered around through Oklahoma a few days last week, pestering friends and kin. Near Wynnewood I expected to see an old basketball buddy from Flomot, and was surprised to find her two sisters also. What a wonderful slumber party we had that night, two delicious meals of real "farm food", bales of country memories. If her sons are good representatives of their late dad, I'm sorry I never got to meet him. Love at first sight!

Nola, Jewel and Bobbie were about the middle of the big Starkey clan who lived on a farm west of Flomot that was first owned by Uncle Lee Gunn, next to the one my Grandpa Lycurgus Aurelius Gunn homesteaded in the early twentieth century. An unusually close-knit family, they still gather at the home place each Easter for a huge celebration and again in July to can garden produce and just enjoy each other. Their mother was a few months short of 100 when she finally lost the will to live, and her 11 offspring are well up in years now, keeping her legacy intact.

The Starkey kids were some of the best athletes in the Flomot school. Hard work on the farm seems to do that to a kid. We often climbed the rocky, rattlesnake infested hill behind their house, rode horses, shared clothes. After the house had been emptied of kids, about 1970, I knocked on their kitchen door. Charlie, with his usual friendly grin, opened the screen and I asked, "Recognize me?" Nope. "Would you know me if I was riding a bareback mare?" His eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. Good old days indeed!

The Wandering Widow
Cora Gail Trent
www.cgtrent.com
cgtrent@att.net

Awash in a sea of grey hair, with the occasional bald island, friends and kin said our last goodbye to Charlie Cupid last week. Especially remembered for his wonderful sense of humor, Charles had more jokes than a cow patty has flies.

I fell in love with this outstanding athlete when I was a freshman in high school and he a senior, the last time we were the same height. His growth stopped at about 5'3", and he eventually broke my heart when he said, "If you don't quit growing, it looks like we'll just have to be friends." Then, a year or so later, he cured the pain by finding me the perfect soul mate. He and Harry were working together as bridge carpenters, building a blacktop highway up the Caprock west of Flomot during the summer of 1954. Thanks to his role of cupid, two bashful country kids soon became one, a marriage that lasted 47 years, producing five kids and enough great memories to last for eternity.

Thanks again, Charlie. Flomot homecomings will never be the same without you.

Cora Gail Trent
www.cgtrent.com
cgtrent@att.net