Deep Well, TX: A Place where Hope defeats Despair

Players rush the line with fearless grit. Cheerleaders sparkle and twirl. On a Friday night beneath the lights, it’s impossible not to catch the thrill of it all.

The soon-to-be husband leads me into the basement of the old house. He points to a boulder in the south wall. “Just look at the size of it!” He rubs his hand across the pocked surface. “It’d take four men to shove this in place.”

A boy with a deer-hunting uncle will occasionally hear that uncle mention “buck rubs," a term that refers to gouges left on tree trunks by bucks rubbing velvet off their antlers.

It is my first time attending a meeting of the local historical society. It is also the first time I’ve heard of Grey Mule, a former town not far from where I live.

Agriculture is one of the deadliest jobs in America: twice as deadly as law enforcement, five times deadlier than firefighting.

The prison guard weighed the small plastic bottle in the palm of her hand. “It’s not grape juice?” “No, ma’am.” She held the three ounces of rose-colored liquid up to the light. “Not permitted,” she said.

I grew up on a farm, and spent twenty-four years of my adult life farming. I still can’t help but do a little “windshield farming” as I drive along.

Sometimes God pays me back for smart-aleck remarks.

My cup runneth over.

Children occasionally wander off, casting parents into a state of anxiety and panic. As a celibate, I can only imagine how that experience must feel.

When it comes to long-distance travel, most people book airline flights or drive Interstates. Personally, I prefer blue highways, those two-lane roads printed in blue, squiggly lines on foldout maps.

Invocations from the Litany of Loreto play in my mind as I drive through Indiana and across Illinois: Morning Star, Ark of the Covenant, Gate of Heaven.

Monks are uniquely connected to the place where they live. What happens to our place happens to us all.

When I was a boy, I’d walk into the house with pockets bulging with stones and pebbles, precious gems to a boy growing up on a Midwest farm with dirt lanes, creek banks and a gravel barnyard. My mother would make me empty my pockets outside the kitchen door. When she wasn’t looking, I’d go back and choose one or two of the stones and add them to the collection accumulating atop my bedroom dresser. Eventually, I started collecting baseball cards.

The shower swept through around 2 AM. I woke and listened to the sound of wind and water buffeting my house. If it were daylight, I would imagine a gleeful child aiming a garden hose at the windows and siding.

“Been cowboyin’ lately?” The question came from a young farmer named Josh. He and an older man were checking out a 1949 Ford pickup for sale across the street from the local farm store...

My dad used to say, “Never trust a man who drives a clean truck.” He was referring to pickups that hauled bales of hay as opposed to bags of groceries. He was never impressed by jacked-up rigs with chrome bumpers. This son of his followed his lead...

Someone once said, “Fishing requires patience. Fishing with children requires a saint.” I witnessed the truth of this saying when my youngest nephew brought his two oldest children, ages 7 and 5, to fish at my pond...

My dentist retired a couple of months ago. His replacement is a young man with dark skin, long hair and a red bandanna tied at the nape of his neck...