Hello to All:
It has been a quiet week out here. The winter storm made its presence well known. From Texas to Florida and up the coast to Virginia. I spoke to a relative in Florida and a friend in South Carolina. This was sort of hit and miss type of a storm. Some got hit hard and some got missed. We were blessed with the freezing rain that turned to snow and a low of 19° one morning.
Don’t know what the wind chill was but it had to be a minus number.
No need to complain, just remember this next July when the heat is about to melt you.
People were sending pictures from Lubbock and Amarillo. They got up to a foot of snow in places. The interstate was a skating rink and it looked like most of the drivers lost that race. There were parts of I 20 that were shut down. Some of the roads going North from San Angelo and Ballinger were reporting multiple wrecks.
Some were asking , “Did you enjoy playing in the snow when your were a kid”? Not really. Out in Reeves county it didn’t snow very often. You could scrape enough snow up out of 3 or 4 front yards to make a snowball. We had one fairly good snow one time and it was gone by noon the next day. We did receive some of the cold rain and windy days.
There came a time when I decided that I needed a break from college and to work a while to replenish my bank account. I got a job in the oil field working on a drilling rig. I was lucky enough to be on the morning tower working on the floor handling the backup tongs. That is like from 11:00 until 7:00 the next morning. It went okay for several months and then it turned into winter. It was one of those nights that the driller couldn’t get the pipe to shake the water down before we broke the connection. Water and mud would soak you from your shoulders to your boots. Then it would turn to ice. The wind cut through your jeans like a sword and the rain didn’t help. I said to myself,. “Self, if you live through this night and make it to town alive, you are gonna find some way to go back to school”. Well, I did live to make it to town. Then I sold my beautiful ’60 Pontiac convertible and hitch hiked to Alpine and Sul Ross State College. I begged them to please let me enroll. Talk about motivation. I made the best grades that semester than all the rest of my college career together. The other night as I looked out the back window and watched the rain turn to snow and the wind blowing 12 mph gusting to 25 mph, I remembered that night on that rig and was very thankful that I didn’t ever have to go back to that job. A desk job might be boring but it won’t try to freeze you to death.
So it goes in our quiet little corner of Coleman County
Talpa Bob
