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Open Poetry #6
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John Yaws
Senior Member
since 1999-10-09
Posts 860
Texas

0 posted 2000-02-23 01:03 AM


What a wonderful gift from our Maker is the human mind-
I can recall as if it were yesterday, growing up in the
brush country of south Texas.
The two hour school bus rides, leaving home an hour before first light in the winter in order to catch the bus.
No computers, no video games, no playmates...it was just my younger brother and myself.
I was the reader of the two. My books opened whole new vistas for my mind to explore. Many nights I would set up late into the night reading aloud to my brother.
He caught the fever, also; and became an insatiable reader
which he remained for the rest of his life.

Home was a place to get away from, the drinking, arguing, hard work for no pay. I enlisted in the U. S. Army at the age of seventeen. By the time I was twenty I had been halfway around the globe, discovered the wonderful difference between boys and girls, and picked up about every vice common to man.

I can go back in an instant to the wild, beautiful Painted Desert, the Meteor Crater, living in a bunkhouse, going to
town once a month whether I needed to or not. Living from a suitcase, hitch-hiking the Southwest with a bedroll, suitcase, and a saddle. Sleeping under the stars, making coffee in a can. You know? I ate so many Pork and Beans
that I still don’t care for them. Of course there were the days
in the saddle in fourteen below weather, the driving rain and the slicker which always contrived to leak.

The fights. Those I won, and those I lost. and of course those I won, but still lost. Small town jails, small town bars,
small town cops.

But most of all...the freedom. No boss. No bills. No responsibility. Many times if I couldn’t get a ride in the direction I was going, I’d just cross the road and go the other direction. Never having any place that I HAD to be.
THAT WAS THE LIFE.


 Visit My Home Page
http://www.geocities.com/montcogunslinger/HomePage.html



© Copyright 2000 John R. Yaws - All Rights Reserved
Saxoness
Deputy Moderator 1 Tour
Senior Member
since 1999-07-18
Posts 1102
Texas
1 posted 2000-02-23 10:18 AM


Gunslinger, I can honestly say you amaze me with everything you write. Wow.

 "Glory remains unaware of my neglected dwelling where alone
I sing my tearful song which has charms only for me."

-Charles Brugnot


WhtDove
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-07-22
Posts 9245
Illinois
2 posted 2000-02-23 10:28 AM


You know, I think you just might be an exceptional prose writer. Have you ever checked out the prose forum?  What a story.

The days of carefree living. Can't say I ever experienced life quite like that!

 <*\\\><

There's only two ways you can go...
One way you can save your riches,
And the other will save your soul.
Rich Mullins

Danny Holloway
Member Elite
since 2000-01-15
Posts 2034
Tulsa, OK
3 posted 2000-02-23 02:46 PM


Who was it that said that nothing in life is simple or easy after 18?
Must be the age when the struggle begins for legal tender, youth to surrender, and that mad chase for whatever it is that we think will make us happy.
Freedom is lost from then on.
Enjoyed reading your free verse!
Danny

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