I Think I Need a Hobby

Throughout my life, I have had to overcome my lack of intelligence with work ethic. One of my standard responses when someone asks how I am has always been “pretty good for an old guy”. When the person says “you’re not old” I have always responded “no, but I am high mileage”. I really cannot remember a period of time in my life when I did not work at more than one thing at the same time. An old friend of mine used to say about me “he knows a thousand ways to make a hundred dollars”. Dede and I married in 1984 and I took my first ag teaching job and I knew that I needed to make extra money. So, with our very first tax return of our married life, I invested in auction school. In addition, I helped people around where we lived by plowing, working cattle, work at night at the co-op, clipped club calves and anything I could do to make a few extra bucks to stretch what was a meager beginning teacher salary in those days. One of the things that I did for over ten years was every Monday night I worked at Southwest Auto Auction and made a hundred bucks a week breathing car exhaust, opening hoods and auctioneering. I learned early in my life that there are lots of ways to earn a little extra walkin’ around money. I have never rested on my laurels and have always been willing to do extra duties to supplement my income. Most recently, those skills that I have learned over the years have come in pretty handy and have become increasingly important as I became a legislator. Even though people think we are overpaid, it has become quite a struggle since my income went down in order to become a public servant.

My most recent endeavor has been a little enterprise that we call Snake Creek Cattle Company that my partner Clyde Hill and I have had going for a little over a year. We purchased and rebuilt an old chuck wagon and have been hiring out to do events and providing a little cowboy flavor that people really seem to enjoy. One of my oldest friends Terry Davis, who has been a Lawton fire fighter for over 20 years has been an integral part of that little side business. Several times over the last little while, the three of us have loaded our little dog and pony show and headed out to cook for groups who have come to visit and have introduced them to beef, beans, homemade biscuits and Dutch oven cobbler. It has been lots of fun but we are also learning that it is a ton of work. Usually by the time we get loaded and head home, we feel like the wagon itself has run over us. We have had some fun groups. Our first official cooking job was last year when the Lawton Chamber of Commerce hosted weapons experts from all of the NATO countries around the world. It is fun to watch people stare in amazement as you create a meal with no electricity with firewood and cast iron Dutch ovens. It is almost as though we are doing magic tricks when really, it is nothing more than an old cooking style developed in the Old West out of necessity to keep cowboys fed as they moved cattle in the days before trucks and trains. This last week has been extremely busy as we cooked brisket and trimmings for over 60 people from this year’s Leadership Oklahoma class that made their annual stop at Ft. Sill to learn about the military presence in Oklahoma. It was really kind of cool to cook right in the historic Ft. Sill quadrangle among the officer’s quarters and prepare a meal using historic cooking methods in a setting so rich in military history. By the time you read this we will have set our wagon and pitched our fly at the Museum of the Great Plains and cooked ribeye steak and fixins’ for The Society of Military Widows who have made their trek back to Lawton-Ft.Sill hosted by the Lawton Chamber of Commerce. They wanted something a little different and the Chamber folks thought that the chuck wagon would be a nice touch. We hope to dazzle them with a little bit of cowboy cookery and hopefully make their stay in Lawton memorable.

And by the way, I did manage to do a little auctioneering over the weekend at the Tulsa State Fair. I served as auctioneer for the short horn and Simmental futurity sales at Tulsa. I guess I better put off the search for a hobby because I think I have got a pretty full plate. I have friends who work normal jobs and have weekends off, but I don’t know what normal is. I know that all the little things that I do will make a few extra dollars. I have a daughter that hopefully will graduate from OSU in December and maybe will give us a little financial breathing room because right now it seems that anytime I make a check of any size, it goes straight to Stillwater. But, our youngest daughter is not too far behind so I guess in the meantime, I will live by the old adage “nobody ever drowned in their own sweat”. I am lucky to enjoy good health and the ability to work, so while I have that blessing, I guess we will just enjoy it because there are lots of folks out there who can’t.

“The daily grind of hard work gets a person polished.” -Unknown