Assisted Living

I'm getting,... ..no, I'm old. I'll never own an Ipod
or Iphone or Blackberry or other personal communaration
device, social networking adjuvant, text messaging madness,
dupont del'amour plastic son-of-a-bitch.

No, I leave the radio off in the "transportation" and do as
I did in the hills, alone, either listen to the insides of
my head or nature.

And as the door slowly closes on my round at living I prefer
to stay away from numerous facilities, rising up daily, aids
to old humans and two legged dinosaurs - "Assisted Living".

An old friend named Billy just died. He was a grand champion
rodeo star who evolved from bull riding to more mature roping
as the years passed. He worked for the school district full
time and when Friday afternoon rolled around he had the
horse trailer hooked up to the truck ready to load his horse
and off he'd go to various places in the west, for a rodeo
weekend. He said that he lived on Mountain Dew and Wheat Thins
for many years because he never had time to stop and eat.
He would go like sixty to make a rodeo 1200 miles away, maybe
another one or two and be back for work on Monday. His summers
were real busy.

He did that for many, many years and when he wasn't rodeoing and
somebody's hay needed cutting he'd be doing that too. His health
started failing in recent years and he faded to a long battle with
diabetes. About a week ago he didn't return to the house after
his morning chores feeding the livestock. His wife found him
face down in the pasture. Billy went quickly just as he had always
traveled on those crazy rodeo weekends. He was one of the most
interesting characters I have ever heard and unfortunately he
never got his stories down in writing.

This image has nothing to do with Billy but is just something that
I've dabbled with far too long. I'll put it to rest.