Proper use of modern grammar

This phone keeps me connected to the world that I enjoy
I can touch the screen and learn anything
about the world and everything that's in it.
I can play games and Facebook whomever I please
Taking calls? Sure it does that, but I don't really use it
Just for texting things like 'wut u doin' and 'lol'
To all those that I am close to.
I had to stop using real words to fit in with the cooler crowd
so I went back and deleted all the punctuation and
rearranged wurds like- that came from my mouth.
I even took a college class to learn more and become profishent
'tho I don't know y. I don't need to no wut they say
But I paid for wut college tot. Isn't this so much better?
Now I'm dope and super cool because I write like I say
and who needs those lame wurds anyways?

Great Grandmother's Quilt

Great Grandmother’s Quilt

Great Grandmother stitched with care

A quilt made from her husband’s old shirts;

The patterned old westerns he had left behind.

Her smooth wrinkled hands were normally cold

But with every stitch they warmed with the memories told-

Of her life with him and the children they made

Of the farm and the valley-of the sheep and the hay.

Picking blackberries in the creek and holding baby lambs

Of horses pulling hay wagons and separating out rams.

She remembered meeting her husband and falling in love

Riding through the hills and watching the doves.

All these she stitched with a smile on her face

Pulling all the good memories with rhythm, color and grace.

Grandmother inherited her mother’s incomplete work; she was taken before her time.

When she opened the box, a tear formed in her eye.  

She was reminded of her mother stringing thread in the morning sun

Before she got the cancer and her last thread was spun.

Grandmother still remembered that loving smile which seemed to warm the coldest days.

And the farm and the valley- of the sheep and the hay.

She remembered picking blackberries and her mother handing her lambs.

Of horses pulling hay wagons and separating out rams.

She remembered following her daddy and falling in love

Riding through the hills and watching the doves.  

Grandmother nostalgically picked up a torn piece of shirt in that old dusty box

And her hand trembled at all of the warmth that it brought.

With a tear in her eye that she couldn’t face, she pushed her sadness back inside

along with the memories she could never replace.

Years later, Mother stumbled upon the box; hidden in mothballs and cloaked with neglect

Her fingers spanned the fine needlework and the old western designs;

The bonds were all still intact- surviving three generations in time.

Sheep, horses and trees all connected with thread

Decorated the work of the family she had only known in her head.

Like the colors on the quilt, the memories were faded away

It was the only thing she had ever seen from Great Grandmother’s day.

‘What a wonder’ she thought as she knew what she must do

Mother opened her sewing machine and set about finishing the family heirloom.

Diligently she went about mimicking Great Grandmother’s work-

With her machine setting the pace; pulling thread with rhythm, color and grace.

And when she finished, Mother breathed a happy sigh of relief.

Three generations of work were now at her feet.

 Carefully, she threw the finished quilt over my bed

And for a while we just sat staring at all the colors of thread.

I yawned and crawled in to sleep while mother smiled and tucked me in with her hands

And instantly I nodded off to sleep- transported to another land-

Of the farm and the valley-of the sheep and the hay.

Picking blackberries in the creek and holding baby lambs

Of horses pulling hay wagons and separating out rams.

I saw my Great Grandfather on his horse- riding through the hills

And Great Grandmother was stringing thread in the morning sun

She looked up at me and put a warm hand on my face

Then she went back to work-Pulling thread with rhythm, color and grace.

The Perks of the Middle of Nowhere

The Perks of the Middle of Nowhere-

Jessica Smith

August 2014

               The stranger placed a 24 oz. soda on the counter to buy. “Why DO you live in the middle of nowhere?” The man looked in his late 40s, with a surfer tee shirt and wavy combed back hair. He lowered his rose colored glasses and gave a smug grin, “This IS the middle of nowhere isn’t it?”

               From behind the cash register I couldn’t help but grimace as I scanned the soda. The dank musty smell of his cologne was drifting towards my side of the counter;  it didn’t do much to appease my situation. Bleh, I was doing just fine up until about 10 seconds ago. Why did this man have to stop here? And then I remembered, oh yes; because we are the only gas station and restaurant for miles. Most wayward tourists did stop here. Any person driving from the south of Nevada to the north going into Oregon and Idaho were undoubtedly forced to travel North on Highway 95. The stretch of road was typically long and lonely. When people pass the little town of Orovada, a significant number of them almost always had to use the restroom or needed to stop and stretch their legs.

               “I suppose…” and I diverted my eyes to look at the view of the Sawtooth Mountain outside the window of the store. “…it’s for the wide open spaces and the mountains…and the smell of the sage after a good rain…”

               Not wanting to wait for me to finish, the man rolled his eyes. He acted like someone trapped in an annoying situation. I suppose he was wondering, ‘Why would I even justify living here? Who would want to live in a place like this?’ Most people could never possibly understand, because they had never experienced the joy of a small town like this. They were merely passing through; on their way to and from a better place (in their opinion). What could possibly be in it for them?

               I realized my manager was watching the whole situation. Steve, normally a quiet man of solid disposition, was getting just as annoyed by this man as I was. He turned his back and pushed his tuft of graying hair over his brow. I saw him cross his arms as I went on. “That will be $1.10. You know, I suppose it’s all a matter of opinion. We think this place is wonderful.”

               The man shrugged his shoulders as he swiped his credit card. After it went through he took the tea and left the store.

               The bell dinged as the man exited and Steve, still with his back towards me said, “When I left Oregon all those years ago, I told myself that I was going to take off and find a peaceful place. I wanted a place where I could watch the sun set every night and grow a garden. I wanted a place where I could grow old, have a dog and be happy. A place where…the people were kind and there were farms all around… and by golly! I found it!” He turned around and grinned. “And you know, it takes people like that to make me remember my perspective. Most people don’t realize how good they have it. Or how good they could have it if they just made the choice to be happy.” His blue eyes were shining as he shared his conviction.

               And then I realized that the Middle of Nowhere really was a matter of perspective and opinion. To the man that came in the store, it was a place where he never wanted to be, but for us, it was just the opposite. I don’t know where he had come from or what he knew, but I know that most people don’t like these small towns. Driving through a place where there is not so many amenities or luxuries can be daunting to those who are not used to it, but to those who are, it is liberating. Waking up each morning to the sun over the mountains and the hum of tractors in the fields and the smell of sage right after the rain- that’s what Steve and I like best. And we will tell you all about it on your next trip to the Sawtooth Station in Orovada, NV. Come for lunch, it’s delicious!

              

Song of spring

A song of spring
blossoms in the summer's green
and repeats upon a chorus of the birds.

_______________________________


Nothing persuades my heart to beat
like the thunder underneath a horse's feet.
the rhythm follows me wherever I go
whether it fast or whether it slow. 
All through the night I hear it
when I am trying to sleep
the agony of waiting 

March Community Living

March 2014

What is a claimstaker?

What is a claimstaker? Well, here’s the shortest description I can give. A claimstaker is what you call a person who gets hired by a mining company to go out to the middle of nowhere to put posts in the ground. As a rule, the job is almost never in a very nice place, and it’s almost never at a pleasurable time of year. It could be up a mountain on the top of a cliff or on the vastness of a dry playa bed. It could be in the heat of the middle of summer or the cold of the snowiest day you have ever seen. Generally, the job involves putting monuments in the ground to establish a physical boundary for mineral prospects and the recording of all of this with the appropriate government offices. There are many different laws and requirements depending on the size and general location of said group of claims. One I can think of is the requirement for a valid claim monument. In Arizona, a person has to have a five foot high 2X2 post sticking out of the ground in order to be valid. In other places, a three foot pile of rocks will suffice, and still in other places yet, one could scratch marks into a tree and that’s a good enough monument as any.

               Once, I can remember spending an entire afternoon looking on a hillside covered in pine trees and rocks. I was looking for a marker placed before the 1930’s which showed the corner of an important claim. Well, given the time difference between then and now and the overgrowth and subsequent variations from year to year, this made the task very daunting. The only thing I had with me was a copy of an old hand drawn map and a set of latitude longitude coordinates. I plugged the numbers into my fancy GPS machine and drove as far as I could up the hill on ATV to the general location I thought it would be. I had to hike another couple of hundred feet up the hill. After scrambling up and getting scratched from the thick growth of pines, I came to the exact location. My GPS showed that I was right on the spot that it was supposed to be, yet there were no significant markings or posts of any kind around. There was just a whole lot of scraggly pine trees, boulders and thick undergrowth. So I wandered around for a while; up and down the hillside. I can remember feeling frustrated because I knew it was something I had to find. After a while I wiped the sweat off my brow and I sat down to think for a moment. 

               It was a dry December day at a cold altitude, but I remember that the sky was clear. I knew I couldn’t leave the job until I found this monument. I had to have the coordinates so that I could draw a new more accurate map, I just couldn’t find it. And then, like a silent prayer, I looked up and thought I saw something on the tree. I moved closer and got my hand up on the tree to peel back the bark. Well, hallelujah, I thought to myself. I could see the markings that someone had etched in the tree. Though it was no longer legible, I could tell that someone had deliberately carved the name of the corner in the deepness of the bark. And on this day, almost 90 years after it was originally etched, I was finding it again.

               And you know, I think this is the best description of a claim staker that I can give. It’s a lot like life in a way, because I find myself lost a lot of the time, but after I sit down and really think about what it is I want to find, it’s usually right in front of my nose. Even if I can’t always understand why or how, usually the question has already been answered. All one has to do is find your marker and put it on your map.   

A Divine Map (finished)

Maps show so many things

Treasures and tales

Of lost golden rings.

Some maps are dirty

And yellowed with age

Some maps are crisp

Some printed on noble page.

Some are folded

Hidden in some corner

And some are rewarded

With county recorders.

Maps are like you-

Maps are like me

Born a blank page

Empty and free.

But as time rattles on

All of us draw our own maps

With pencils of experience

We plot our own path.

Who else but God

Could show you the way

When you have no idea where you are going

And no idea of what to say.

You are not born

With a draftsman’s keen eye

So, how can you tell

The mountains from the sky,

But if you look around on your map

There are a few hidden clues

To the state you were born

And the life you will choose.

One knows not

The roads you will take

Or the mountains you’ll climb

Or the fences of fate

Which cross the designated path

Often when least suspect

Covered in rusty nails and barbs

God draws you a fence.

The map you are drawing

Is unique and intense

And you must always remember

There’s a path around that nasty fence.

Look to the scale bar

To find out how long

An inch is a mile

But I might be wrong. 

But of the drawing of maps

The most important rule is such

That the North Arrow

Must always face up.

Like hands towards the sky

It acts as your guide

No matter the weather

Or if your map leads you awry.

So say a little prayer

And you’ll find your way.

Just look where you are going

And always have faith.