From the ground up

Mom and Dad and Mick and I went to Ogallala, Nebraska, maybe every two to three weeks for groceries and shopping and maybe eat out. One place I almost insisted on going to was the Coast to Coast store to gawk at their guns. One time in particular, Dad went there for something and me: The guns! Come to find out they had a Remington 1903 in a 30-06. Man I had to have the gun. I was maybe in the seventh or eighth grade, so I think Dad had it put on layaway while I earned the money to buy it. So Dad bought some baby hogs and I fed and slopped them all summer. We sold some of them and I had the money for the 30-06. I was in heaven, so to speak. When we finally got the gun, one of the guys there talked Dad and me into buying a Lee hand loader and the supplies that I needed to load shells. Bought some shells but was going to rely on the shell loader for the next batch I shot. I literally started to learn from the ground up. I’d shot a BB gun and .22 and the like, but never a rifle. Did I make mistakes? Darn tooting I did! Lots of them. But at the same time, I learned a wealth of information when I was starting out from the ground up.

Marge and I bought a good-sized Jersey steer over in Illinois and he was nice. We check our steers a couple of times daily. We probably don’t need to, but we still do. One morning, we were in a hurry, and I saw most of them, so I figured they were OK. That evening we checked on them and one was missing, and it was the Illinois steer. We found him back of the house with his front leg stuck in a tree root and he’d fallen over on his side and couldn’t get up. He had fallen at a weird angle and it caused him to stop being able to breathe. He was dead. Silly mistake but also a learning experience.

One other time we bought some feed for our baby bottle calves and it had a different look but I assumed it was OK. It wasn’t. It killed one of our baby bottle calves and caused another to have seizures. Turns out it was moldy. The feed would have been safe for an older calf, which was chewing its cud, but not a baby calf. Gosh knows how many calves we raised on the bottle with each one being a learning experience. Another mistake, but an opportunity to learn.

But this is how we age and mature as human beings here on this Earth. You feed a baby till it has enough coordination and age to feed itself. But when you hand that little one a spoon, it’s going to have a deuce of a time negotiating the spoon full of whatever from the bowl to the mouth. But give that child a little bit of practice and they will have success. Building blocks from the ground up.

When we first started going to church, we didn’t know a lot about the Bible or praying or church music, so Marge and I learned. We started pretty close to the bottom and added knowledge as we went, kind of like building a foundation for a building. Our minister was a lady we called Grandma Brown. Every week she would type out the announcements and such and it was full of mistakes. Come to find out she was using a worn out manual typewriter. Marge and I decided to buy her a new typewriter by selling coyote hides. So I prayed that we’d get the hides to buy the typewriter. In a matter of weeks, we had the hides and Grandma Brown had her typewriter. Foundation stones for a prayer life.

Little first steps when added together just might be the way to a whole new life. You simply have to be willing to chance failing to succeed on down the road.

Just me,

Rennie

Phillips began life as a cowboy, then husband and father, carpenter, a minister, gardener and writer. He may be reached at phillipsrb@hotmail.com.