My Take
DiVoran Bowers Lites
Brownie look alike from Pixabay
Animals have been important to our family for as far back as I know. When we first moved to Westcliffe (the town’s spelling has an e on it, but the school’s does not.) Dad learned by the grapevine that one of the ranchers had some part Border collie pups. He may have offered one to Dad, I don’t know about that.
“Get your money and let’s go, Dad told us.” He believed in paying for what he got and he drove us out to the ranch to pick out a pup. In the barn,we held some soft, wiggly puppies trying to get closer to us. I don’t know how we decided which one to take, but whichever one it was, we ended up calling him Brownie. We’d brought all our earnings from working in the restaurant and around the house. We had killed flies with a swatter to keep the café clean, washed dishes, cleaned off tables, and taken out crates of empty pop bottles to send back to the bottling factory next time the delivery truck came up from Canon City. We had thirty-five cents. Dad was satisfied and so was the rancher.
Clover (Pixabay)
A few years later Dad bought each of us a calf so we could get started in the cattle business. My calf’s name was Clover and she was a sweet and pretty little thing. David named his calf, Red,because as a Hereford, that was his color. One morning when I went out to the shed to feed Clover, she was sprawled in the straw not moving or breathing. It was the saddest day of my young life so far. If I ever needed to call up tears for any reason, all I had to do was to remember Clover. Red, however, grew up thinking he was human.
Goose (Pixabay)
Another time Dad bought a white goose we knew was for Thanksgiving. I suppose Dad meant to take it, all nicely dressed, or undressed, so to speak, so Grandmother could cook it for us. The goose was majestic and tame. We loved her and decided we couldn’t let her become a cooked goose. We opened the shed door and let her out. When Dad noticed that she was gone, he made us go out to look for her. Thinking goose-swan what’s the difference, we ambled down to Grape Creek where the willow bushes grew. We ducked and pushed our way through them until we came to a small woven hut. Inside we saw a pallet, an empty whiskey bottle, and the picture of a lady from another time…but no goose. Dad was cross, but apparently,our misdeed didn’t warrant a spanking.
Trail Horses, Pixabay
Dad was a restaurateur, a builder, a flyer, and a budding cattleman. He also kept trail horses for the tourists he took up into the mountains to fish in the lakes. We kids also had a horse we kept in the feedlot. I think Dad got him cheap. His name was Yankee and Dad said judging by his teeth he was elderly. Part Shetland pony, he was also small, no match for the quarter horses most people kept. At first, Yankee and I had a hard time getting used to each other. I’d get on and he immediately trotted to the feedlot where he stopped on a dime and looked up to see me sail over his head. Dad only allowed that to happen a couple of times before he taught me to let Yankee know who was boss.
Tiger Kitty, Pixabay
Mouse (Pixabay)
We had a tiger kitty to keep the mice down, and he mostly lived outside because that was where the mice mostly stayed. Dad seemed like a tough guy, but he hated mice. In a small mining town in Nevada, he worked in Safeway as a meat cutter. For some reason,mice in the back room loved climbing up inside the worker’s pants. Dad shuddered even at the thought of mice. On the other hand, Mother thought they were adorable as long as they stayed out of the restaurant pantry. She told me that when I was a baby, we were delighted to sit and watch a nest full of baby mice romp and play with their mama invisible, but nearby. I like mice, too, but I’ve never been thoroughly tested by them.
Sometimes on the inside, I still feel like the little girl I was decades ago. My peers say they feel that way, too. For a lot of us, good memories like these are silver and gold and unfortunately for our poor families, we tell them a lot.
DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn. She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”
allowing his ancient dog to saunter and sniff all he wanted. We spoke as we passed. When I got to the curve in the trail where I leave it, I stopped to make a note of something. There I heard a forlorn meowing from the bushes. It had to be a lost domestic cat. It was. Chuck’s cat big male tiger kitty.
