Almost never nice

I wish I could be fulfilled by writing inspiring and entertaining articles, like journalists Tumbleweed Smith, Don Newbury and Chet Garner. I enjoy their stories about human interests and humor, but my style tends toward looking for a fly in the ointment; the rule that is broken; the lie that is told.

I do have some funny family stories that have no foe in them. 

There's the year my mom and dad were stripping cotton by themselves. My mom's job was to stand in the trailer and distribute cotton while Dad drove the stripper. Well, they had a bumper crop that year, some unbelievable bales per acre. Dad said he was going along when he looked back to see Mom covered nearly to the top of her head in cotton. He said she was pretty mad about that.

Or the time my dad sent my son chasing an armadillo. Dad, my son and I were down in the pasture when we spooked an armadillo. My dad said "Get him!" and my son, being about 11 or 12, tore after it. It went down a hole and sonny boy had tight hold of that critter's tail. I was alarmed, but my dad was laughing himself silly. He said, "He'll never be able to pull that armadillo out of that hole!" He was right.

Then there's the one about when my grandpa decided he was going to be independent. He had been living with and working for his grandfather. My grandpa took a lease on a farm on the river, north of Rotan. "I'm going out on my own," he declared. But every Saturday he would be downtown asking his grandfather for some money to get him by.

There are so many stories: the time Grandpa decided to neuter all the cats; the tribulations of Oscar the cat; escapades about the dogs Spot and Lightning; coon hunting incidents; the day the goat disappeared, and on and on.

Hey, maybe I can write about something without a cynical view or skepticism. I've just written this, haven't I?