guilty pleasure and a good story, i promise.
confession: i'm addicted to the Texas Ranch House show on PBS. the premise is a cattle ranch in 1867. i come from a texan lineage of cattle ranchers, so maybe that helps my interest along. i've only caught the last couple night's episodes, but it's good, people, i assure you. stories have circulated my whole life about what my dad's childhood was like. he was born and raised out on a ranch in marfa. he's the oldest child of three and he has recounted stories of his duties out on the ranch as well as what his siblings duties were. cattle, horses, and sheep were involved. he learned to ride very young and was responsible for all sorts of chores along the way. at some point, the family took to ranching some family land near uvalde, right around when my dad was in 6th grade. fast forward to my life. i have been to this ranch in uvalde at least once or twice a year my whole life. my kids have been able to go. it's one of my favorite places on earth. being a preacher's daughter and moving every couple years growing up, it's the closest thing i have to 'home'.
ok, so backtrack to november 1952 (not quite 1867, but still a pretty far-out life). my dad was 2 years old. here's an article published in the marfa paper:
"LITTLE GEORGE MIMMS SUTTON NOT LOST, JUST OUT WALKING
george mimms sutton, who will be three years old next february wasn't lost on the sutton ranch last friday afternoon. at least he would be hard to convince of that. it wouldn't be so hard to convince his parents, mr. and mrs. mimms sutton.
young george came into lunch last friday noon and wandered out again with a sandwich.
little boys aren't expected to check in very regularly right after getting something to eat - and especially if it might come on to be nap time, so for a time his absence was unmarked.
but when nap time did come and no george mimms, mr sutton was called from his work after a quick search around the house and ground by mrs. sutton brought no reply. he made a wider search still without result. it was the the middle of the afternoon.
so he phoned to marfa for help from the bloodhounds kept at the county jail. neighbors and friends began to gather too. little later sheriff barnett was called a start was made to organize a larger searching party. hamilton white flew down to the sutton place south of town to make an air search.
but about 4:30, mack humphreys found the young wanderer, just about the same time mr white located him from the air and the marfa searching party was disbanded.
by that time, the lad was three miles from home and truding capably along, escorted still by three faithful dogs. he'd been a good boy, he'd eaten all his lunch, and he had laid down at one time and had his nap - guarded all the time by his dogs.
he had no idea that he had been 'lost' and he was in no panic. but there were tear traces on his cheeks. and it was pretty nice just running into mr humphreys that far away from the house."
i can't imagine. what a far cry from my children's life. could be why i like this show so much?!
