Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch: Divide and Conquer…..Together

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https://purestpotential.com/5tkutqyjg It’s a Saturday.  The nine-to-fivers are reveling in the covers that hide the dawn’s glare this A.M.

Purple Martin house
Purple Martins found a home out here at the ranch just one week after it was built.

Cheapest Tramadol But not us.  My husband and I begin our weekdays before some people go to bed,  and the weekend is no different.   Like every household, we have things to do.  OUR problem is that usually we have each created our own lists (hidden in our own minds) and have divided the chores out between us without telling the other about the plans.  It could be a problem if we let it.  We don’t.

here I stopped picking the last of the tomatoes to watch Greg lower the Purple Martin house to get it ready for the winter and ultimately next spring.  He joined me in the melon patch to check on our first watermelons.  We are both amazed at how much fruit our only two melon plants have produced.  I made a mental note to put the tomato cages up for next season.  He set up the sprinklers to water the yard.  I fed the kittens.  He fed the cats.  I carried my coffee across the pasture to give the horses some carrots.  They knew it was not my usual time with them, and they seemed grateful.

Fence
Turning the corner on fence painting.

https://www.mbtn.net/?p=70mz3z1 There is always so much to do out here, but neither of us seem to mind.  We have stopped to sit on the backporch to have some coffee.  Greg remembered that the front gate doesn’t latch.  We have got to fix that.  It’s added to the list.  Before noon we will have added as many chores as we have completed this morning.  Maybe he’s right next to me; maybe he is across the pasture.  Either way, we are content to divide and conquer our chores for today, so we can spend the evening……together.

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From a White-Skinned Father to a Black-Skinned Son

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Josh and Silas, November 2009

https://onlineconferenceformusictherapy.com/2025/02/22/3cn9aphn8v I am a white-skinned father with a black-skinned son.

https://lpgventures.com/2biyxyvpi A little over a year ago, my wife, Amy, and I adopted our son, Silas, from Ethiopia.

enter site Silas turned two in December.

https://getdarker.com/editorial/articles/j38js7h9ey6 Today our conversations tend to revolve around our favorite snacks – yogurt and lemon pound cake at Starbucks – and favorite TV characters and movies – Elmo and Ratatouille. We also squabble very little these days. Sometimes Silas will take a swing at me when I take away the Wii joystick. And other times he’ll treat the cheese sandwich I made him for dinner like a Frisbee.

http://www.mscnantes.org/jvkoqrt6t92 One day, though, Silas will want to talk about other things.  Like the color of his skin. And my skin.   And his mother’s skin.   And pictures and events and people and dates he finds in his history textbook.

https://guelph-real-estate.ca/mp4u7oq There are some historical dates I don’t want to broach with Silas then. August 12th, 1955, for example.  That’s the day Emmett Till, a 14 year old boy, was brutally lynched in Mississippi by white, southern, “Christian” men.

source url Then there is September 15th, 1963. That’s the day when four little girls were killed by a white supremacist bomb at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

click Or April 4th, 1968. That’s the fateful day Dr. King had his hope-filled voice silenced by a sniper’s gun.

https://alldayelectrician.com/kxqnwpyt But then there are days in America’s history I can’t wait to explain to Silas.

Tramadol Cheap Overnight Days like December 1st, 1955, for example.  The day when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. That small, defiant “no” reverberated out into a large, defiant “no more.”

There are other days, too. Like August 28th, 1963. The day Dr. King delivered his famous message, “I Have a Dream.” It was a day unlike any other day. It was a day of dreaming of another kind of America.

And then there was November 4th, 2008.  Obama’s presidential victory.  And then there was January 20th, 2009.  Obama’s inauguration.

These are dates I look forward to telling Silas about – not as a student of history, but as a participator in making history.

Baby silas
Baby Silas

And I will tell Silas this: whether one voted for Obama or not, one could not argue that it was a significant symbolic moment.  And a storied moment with deep biblical resonances.  From hundreds of years wandering in the wilderness of prejudice and oppression.  To now the new days of exploring the “milk and honey” land of equality and opportunity.

Undoubtedly, MLK glimpsed the Promised Land from a distance.  Like Moses.  Like a dream just beyond his grasp.  But Silas, you, and others of your skin color will experience this land as a blessed reality.  Like Joshua.  And the nation of Israel.

I can only pray that this new land for you will shimmer with the topsoil of fresh possibility, and contain in its seedbed the promise of renewed dignity.  But, Silas, there are still weeds trying to choke out these verdant seeds.  For though the “color line” W.B. Dubois spoke of has been broken in America’s political establishment, it still exists in America’s religious establishment.  95% of the evangelical church, for example, still remains divided along the color line.  Unfortunately, Martin Luther King Jr.’s truism stills rings true today:  11 am on Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour in America.  Perhaps, though, Silas, by the time you come of age, that small, subversive 5% of the American church will have grown and spread through the body of Christ like a lush vine.

Voting though won’t bring this change.

Only Spirit-led repentance will.

I can only pray that you discover these seeds pods of repentance bursting within my heart.  And your mom’s heart.  And your grandparents’ hearts.  And in the hearts of all of those who you know that call themselves Christ followers.

I am reminded of observing MLK Day last year.  You, your mom, and I celebrated Dr. King’s legacy with our adoption community at the Queen of Sheba, a local Ethiopian restaurant.  On that special day, our dear friends, Eric and Tara, received their referral picture from Ethiopia of their soon-to-be-adopted baby boy, Malak. That night we laughed and cried over Malak’s picture, ooing and awing at his large black eyes and his luminous smile.

Later that night as I lay awake in bed and reflected on that festive evening, I couldn’t help but wonder if in fact Dr. King were alive today, would he approve of couples like us and the Silvestres adopting black children. I also thought about how far we have come, from an age of colonialism, where Africans were our slaves, to this new post colonial age, where Africans are now our sons. And I wondered if Dr. King could have even dreamed of such a day when such transformation was possible. Who knows really? But it makes me wonder if at the Queen of Sheba, if just for a fleeting moment, with our bellies full of freshly baked bread, and sweet Ethiopian wine on our tongues, and with you in our arms, and Malak’s picture in front of our faces, if we did not glimpse even if for a moment, the future community of God, the eschatological days when the old age of hatred and racial division will be truly over, and a new age of love and racial harmony will have begun.

As I closed my eyes to sleep, I suddenly recalled Dr. King’s words spoken days before he was assassinated.

“The end is reconciliation;

the end is redemption;

the end is the creation of the beloved community.”

And remembering these words, Silas, I thought to myself, Perhaps the end has already begun.

-Josh Bottomly

Tramadol Buy Usa Editor’s Note – this article is reprinted from Relevant, an online magazine. It was published as a Martin Luther King Day feature dated Monday, January 19, 2009.  Josh is the Director of College Counseling at Casady High School in Oklahoma City.  He coaches basketball, is a husband and now a father of TWO children from Ethiopia. Silas has a little sister.  She joined the family in June of this year.

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Meanwhile, Back on the Ranch: An Oklahoma Girl From Head to Toe

by Julie Allgyer

Tammy and Julie
Tammy stopped by to visit on her way to Oklahoma

There is something special about girls from Oklahoma.  We are…different.

I realized this after browsing through a real estate magazine at a local restaurant and noticing a photo of a girl who went to my high school back in the late 70’s.  She was currently a local real estate agent living about thirty miles from me.  If you’re looking for oceanfront condos for sale Myrtle Beach SC, hiring a real estate agent may help you find the best deals.

We had not been good friends in high school and didn’t have a junior high slumber party memory to share, but somehow I knew that when I called her, she would remember me.  She did.

Shortly after contacting her, my husband and I were invited to her home for a Sunday lunch.  We had a fabulous time and I have since seen her on several other occasions.  I even stayed overnight at her house (not exactly a slumber party, but it will do) when a two-day workshop took me to her city.  We had dinner and talked about growing up in Chickasha, Oklahoma.

There are many other Oklahoma women who continue to touch my world: an OSU sorority sister bumped into me in the middle of Reading Station in Philadelphia, a classmate stopped by to have a quick dinner while traveling I-40 to a new chapter in her life, a lady at the convenience store wearing an Eskimo Joe’s T-shirt held my place in line, and my former principal, who is hoping to find her way back to Oklahoma, molded me into the writing teacher I am today.  My former principal is also expecting her fifth grandchild, a girl named Preslee, who no doubt will reap the benefits of being raised as an “Okie.”

So here’s to Preslee, who has no idea how lucky she is about to get, and all the other women who qualify.  You know who you are.

Order Tramadol Overnight An Oklahoma Girl From Head to Toe

Sun-bleached or shiny black locks like a horse’s mane

Lake-blue eyes, or as dark as night on a rural road

When it comes to character, Oklahoma girls reign

With inner and outer strength, they will always carry their load

Lips that whisper a song just when you think you’ve forgotten the tune

Shoulders that can bear the weight of her worries and yours

Beads of sweat on her back from the Oklahoma heat in June

A loving heart beating strong and fast like an eagle soars

Legs that can carry her to her destiny, however long

Feet barefoot or not, walking toward a horizon of blue

Are you looking in the mirror? Do you see someone beautiful and strong?

By birth or at heart, you may be an Oklahoma Girl too

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All That’s Missing is the Tub of Green Plastic Army Men

Sleeping bag, suitcase and overalls: my "treasures" to bring home from Tuttle, America.

This morning I drove to Tuttle, Oklahoma.  My agenda: visit with my parents, say hello to my aunt and uncle, give my grandmother a hug and drive back home.

There is an ongoing ritual between my parents and I.  Most every time I go home, I bring something back that technically belonged to me when I was a child, and is definitely something my parents don’t have the heart to throw away.  I’m 46 years old and the process continues to this day.  Bits and pieces, here and there, trip by trip.  Books, school uniforms, the box with my trophies and medals…get the picture?

Today my treasure pile for the return trip consisted of a circa mid-70s mod flower print sleeping bag, a pair of overalls my mother found at a garage sale (just for the heck of it, these were not from my childhood) and a red, white and blue print pressed cardboard suitcase.  I assumed it was empty.

On the top of the suitcase written in my best childhood cursive penmanship was a blue ink message:  “I like Jeff H. and Mark W.”  Evidently, at that point in my life (which I’m pegging around the sixth grade), I had a hard time deciding which boy to like best so I just “liked” them both.  Apology shout-outs to Jeff Holsey or Mark Whittington if they ever read this post.  Also included in this message was a colored-in arrow and a star beside their names.  I suppose that was my way of emphasizing that I definitely meant THEM and they needed to be punctuated with a star.  (In my mind right now I’m hearing Mary Catherine Gallagher say, “Soopa-staaaahhh!”)

Later today I called my parent’s home by accident.  I spoke with my mother for a few minutes and before I hung up she said, “Kelly – if you decide to throw away those Barbie dolls, I want the hand-knitted doll clothes back, okay?”

I’m sorry…what?  Did she say “BARBIES!?”  Suddenly the suitcase became important.  No longer was it a cute little reminder of my childhood.  It was holding my BARBIES!

We were already on our way out the door to run errands.  I conducted an interview, took a shower, watched a Roller Derby bout, ate dinner with my eldest and her boyfriend and came home.  I walked in the door and immediately opened the suitcase.

As I lifted the lid it was like one of those movies where you open the treasure chest only to find another treasure chest inside made of better materials…wood on the outside, gold inside, right?  INSIDE the suitcase was my plastic coated Barbie doll carrier.  And inside THAT was Ken, Barbie, Skipper, and some little doll I never named.  She was in far better shape than the other three.

Ken, Skipper, Barbie and some little doll who I didn't name. I think her given name was "Dawn."

Here’s my chain of memories as they came to me next:  I had a groovy Barbie van they rode around in.  I made them a campsite with pebbles and teeny bits of twigs.  I changed their clothes a hundred times.  I warded off boys in the 4th through 6th grade who tried to undress my Barbie’s clothes because that’s just what boys do at that age.  I cleaned the smudges off their faces.  I combed Barbie and Skipper’s hair into ponytails, pigtails, doggie-ears and up-dos.  But some of the most fun times I enjoyed playing with them was when my brother and I set up all his little plastic green army men to protect my Barbies from our collection of plastic jungle animal “enemies.”

In our living room we had green shag carpet and an antique green chaise lounge my parents had re-upholstered with green velveteen-type fabric.  That combination was our pretend grass and mountain landscape.  Perfect, right?  The army men who crawled on their belly would be balanced precariously on the rounded arms of the chairs so that they could jump down on top of a tiger if it threatened the Barbie camp too much.

I loved those army men.  My mother sucked one up just about every time she ran the vacuum cleaner.  They were pretty well hidden in the shag carpet “grass” after we played with them for a while.

Back to reality and fading away from my memories, I looked at my watch.  “Late,” I thought.  I yawned and sifted through the rest of the Barbie outfits, hung the pastel green purse on Barbie’s hand and turned out the light.

I need to call my brother.  It’s just not going to be the same playing with these Barbies if he doesn’t bring over his bucket of army men.  I wonder if the missile launcher is still chewed off?

If he DOES find the tub and we DO play again, I’m denying, denying, denying that I chewed off the missile launcher.  After all, they can’t make me talk in pretend army camp.  And if they try, I’ll just drive my Barbie van home!

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Showcasing Red Dirt culture ~ authored and managed by contributors with connections to the great state of Oklahoma.