Christmas break this year could mean only one thing for me: returning to the ranch and family farm to live the cowboy lifestyle I love.
Unfortunately the life of a rancher, farmer, and or cowboy in the winter time is far less glorious than that of a summer lifestyle. The thrilling hours of breaking colts, peaceful and reflective afternoons of riding pastures, and long nights spent pursuing the ever elusive pond sharks (aka monstrous catfish) are now replaced with multiple hours chopping ice to free waters, cruising around in an old beat up ford rolling out hay, and occasionally attempting to destroy your back by shoveling roughly thirty tons of snow out of feed bunks. Even though all the grandeur of going to evening rodeos, and “coaxing” the neighbors bull back to his pasture are long gone, the winter jobs still need done and I still love them.
You may call me crazy for enjoying these jobs, but when you look past the physical labor involved a life lesson may jump up and bite you. My lesson jumped straight out of the snow when I was rolling out hay to my girls, which are thirty head of the most spoiled cattle this side of the Saline River. As I finished off yet another cup of hot, jet-black coffee and prepared to cut the strings from a bale I looked over towards a dry creek bed and noticed a set of old and deep (I’m talking Marianas Trench deep!) truck ruts. These ruts were put there when a much younger, and believe it or not more foolish Cole Michael Smith, was cutting firewood one afternoon. It was the perfect setting; a blizzard was coming in and I was just finishing playing Paul Bunyan/Texas Chainsaw Massacre on a large set of dead fall trees. (I mean what 16 year old kid doesn’t love chopping stuff up with a saw?) After I had loaded all my logs on to the bed of my truck, keep in mind we are talking about enough wood to build a two story cabin, I got in my truck and prepared to leave. As I backed up I looked in my mirror at what I thought was a dry creek covered in snow, so naturally I kept backing: until my rear tires disappeared under some ice, snow, and a lot of water. Now I’ve never gotten the good old Ford beast stuck before, but I have also never backed over ice and broke through. With no cell service I hiked the three miles home in the snow, and got help and got my truck pulled out. It was after I saw those ruts the other day that I had a small epiphany and realized the less obvious lesson they held.
I backed over that icy crick because to me it looked like nothing but snow; the outside image overpowered my judgment. In everyday life people are always judging one another based on what they see on the outside. Whether it is the color of someone’s skin or the clothes they wear, most of us fail to take the time to see what is underneath. (Especially when what is hidden may be the most influential or most amazing person you meet and definitely not a concoction of mud, snow and ice that will swallow the rear end of your truck and get you a great look from your mother and father) That exterior can easily hide a truly wonderful individual, much like my snow hid a fairly deep and impassable crick. So the next time you begin to form an opinion based solely on what you see from the outside I encourage you to stop and think about what could easily be hidden underneath.
My other story stems from my visit to Plainville High School. I returned originally to see my advisor, and get a pair of jeans and boots which had been left in my welding locker since last spring. Now while I did happen to forget my jeans and boots again, I brought back a greater respect for a very special young man.
When I saw Trevor during my visit he grabbed me in a bear hug that I doubt even the Hulk could top, then hurried back off to class. As I laughed and wandered into my old English teacher’s room she informed me that Trevor had written an essay about the first time we met, a story that truly warmed my heart.
See I had forgotten about this day he wrote about, which in short amounted to Trevor being picked on by a group of boys near the bathroom and me stepping in to break it up and “rescue” him. I did this mainly because I remembered being a freshman, and getting picked o. Whether it was for my disproportionate facial features or the fact that I wore boots every day, I too had experienced what Trevor did, and I also found a friend in a senior who had my back and became a friend any friend would like to have. After that day Trevor and I became great friends; especially after he quoted Gabriel Iglesias and informed me that “if you live by the cake, you die by the cake”. This was obviously a sign that this kid and I would get along. It wasn’t until the other day though that I realized something I should have learned from Trevor long ago.
What is one of the best things about Trevor is the fact that he is very much his own person. He wears what he feels like wearing and does things that he enjoys. He even fully embraces his nickname of “pork” or “pork mcnug.” Even though he also beats back conformity by occasionally not turning in homework, he made me realize something I had failed to do. During my senior year I was an all-state football player and Pork was JV, I had a girlfriend and Pork was single, I was wrestling team captain and pork didn’t play a winter sport, I was part of a returning state qualifying golf team and Pork was in his first year of golf, and I was Plainville FFA's Chapter President/ District Officer and Pork was a Greenhand.
Now most people would automatically assume that I would also be a better happier person and this is where they were wrong. Trevor was able to do something that trumped any medal I won or office I held, for like a honey badger (yes I just went there) Trevor didn’t care what others thought. While I sported T-Shirts that people gave me and said were “in” or didn’t wear certain things because people hassled me for wearing them, Trevor wore what he thought was comfy and was his style. I can maybe count on one hand the amount of times Pork ever frowned in the morning or showed up to school in a bad mood, while I regularly showed up ranker than any colt I had ever ridden. At times I even snapped at my little protégé for no reason other than I was a grouch. Whether I was anxious and irritable waiting for all-state rankings, having relationship issues, cranky from cutting a lot of weight, or fretting over what people thought of me if I lost my wrestling match that night or didn’t golf my best, I was consistently less optimistic than Trevor. Even though i did care too much just exactly who I ran with, I still lacked the ability not to bow up when someone made a derogatory comment about me. It was easy to see that I had a much poorer disposition. Because I was too caught up in worrying about how I was perceived or whether or not certain people approved of how I looked and or acted.
Now I am not saying that we shouldn’t try to be our best or we shouldn't want to perform at our best level, because effort is key to being successful at any endeavor. I am merely saying that what we do should be done because it is who we are . In a day and age where individuals are constantly worrying about who fits in I believe we could all use a little more Pork in our attitudes and try harder to be true to ourselves, for if we do that than maybe, just maybe we too can be as optimistic and happy as Trevor.
