Shadows Over My Shoulder

These words were written in longhand, with pencil, by my father....during the days after his 80th year. He gave them to me in a small black memo book and ask me to type them for him. I am sorry I did not get them finished before he went to see, "The Old Man with the Long White Whiskers" during his 84th year.....God Bless Him!

Lloyd M. Rice Jr.

July of 1979

"SHADOWS OVER MY SHOULDER"

by

Lloyd McMehen Rice Sr.

June 1, 1886 - July 3, 1970

The West was won by a Man on a horse. Here he is. I hope you like him. He is on a horse, a big black horse. A horse named Tom. Tom is tall, leggy and the kind of black that doesn't fade with the seasons.

The Man is also tall. More than six feet, He wears "Duckins" and a faded shirt covered by a black vest. He wears a slouchy white hat. Booted feet are in stirrups. Under that slouchy, dirty hat is a bearded face and VERY blue eyes.

As he rides Tom across a green valley, he stops at the top of a red hill. He can see for miles down the valley and stands in the stirrups and looks in all directions. He must have liked what he saw, as he said to himself. "Yes, this will do. I will go for my family and my cows."

He often talked to himself. He looked back over his shoulder and promised these red hills that he would be back.

This is the way it was. I was there. The Man was my father.

Somewhere among these scribblings you will learn how we stopped and stayed among those red hills. Here I spent my boyhood, my youth and my young manhood.

It was a raw and untamed country in those days, but to me and mine it was and still is the most wonderful country in the whole wide world!

Yes, the West was won by a Man on a horse .... followed by a Man

with a plow, a team of mules and a roll of barbed wire…..and that
ended the cattle range.

In spite of what you may be thinking, the Man we saw on the big black horse did not wear a "six-gun" on his hip. He rode with a 44 carbine Winchester in a gun boot on the side of his saddle.

"What did Delilah do with her shears after she gave Samson his haircut?"

The house on the Old Homestead sat a short distance off the old "Cheyenne Trail" over which all the freight for all the country North and West of there was "freighted". There were no fences, no bridges

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and the trail followed the "divides" between the creeks, canyons and rivers. It started always at the end of the railroad and went North and West….. right by our Homestead.

Father had a windmill on the place which furnished an everlasting stream of pure, cold water. So, all the freighters, all the hunters of homes, all the outlaws, all the people who were running from "you guess what" came by our Homestead…...at different times we met Frank and Jesse James, Temple Houston and others who were nameless. They stopped, drank

our water, watered their horses and slept in my fathers house..ate
his bread and went on their way.

Let me sit on the banks of a lake with a fishing rod in my hand. Let the wind blow around me and let the sun shine in my face.

Have you ever watched a gull or a tern fall straight down out of the sky like a rock falling and come up from the water with a fish in his claw?

Genesis: ll.1 ...... " ...And the whole earth was of one language
and of one speech."

While you are running this mad rat-race that we call life, you had better slow down once in a while and look behind. The Old Man with the Long White Whiskers and the Scythe may be gaining on you!

May the Good Lord hold you in the hollow of his hand, make your trail

all down hill ...... may the sun shine in your face and the wind stay at your
back.

Our Lord rode into Jerusalem on the back of a borrowed Burro...was crucified, died and was buried in a borrowed grave.

FOURSCORE YEARS

Someone has said that Man's life span is "three score years and ten". Today I reached four score. During these four score years I have done and

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FOUR SCORE YEARS, continued ......

seen many different things. I have lived in a dugout with dirt floors, walls and roof. I have lived in a tent. I have lived out-of-doors with only the ground at my back and the sky for a roof. I have lived in rat-holes .... sometimes called "apartments". .... So what, "Four score years"!!!???

I have fed cattle in blinding snow and sleet storms! Walked a hundred

miles, leading a saddled horse to keep from freezing to death ...... So what,
"Four score years"!!!???

I have ridden many miles through dust storms, looking for a recognizable landmarking; many miles along drift fences looking for shelter, and finally found it...So what, "Four score years"!!!???

I have ridden all day looking for water for me and my horse ....

finally finding a spring...poisoned. So what "Four score years”!!!???

I have been thrown off a freight train in the dead of night and walked till daylight and then asked for breakfast at a back door...So what, "Four score years"!!!???

I have attempted to ride broncos that no one else would try...and landed on my face in the dirt. I have fished and hunted through all these years and have loved every day of it. I have worked for others, and have owned and operated my own business. I have worked for my government. I have proudly worn the uniform of my country, together with my three grown sons and the husbands of my two daughters,and we all made it back home again. Some were a little the worse for wear, but we all made it…..' So what, "Four Score years”!!!???

Today I live in a modern house with the same woman I started with more than sixty-two years ago, and I still have my three sons and two daughters, with fifteen grandchildren and one great grandson. Today I mow my own lawn, help care for the flowers, raise a small garden and go fishing every

day the sun shines ...... and there is beer in the ice-box!! So what,
"Four Score years”!!!???

I wonder what became of the little boy who gave our Savior the loaves and fishes which he Used to feed the MULTITUDE????

May the Lord bless you and everyone in your house.

Since three-fourths of the Earth's surface is water, and only one-fourth is land...it is clear to me that the Good Lord intended that man should spend three times as much time fishing as he does mowing the lawn.

THE END

More.. "SHADOWS OVER MY SHOULDERS"

by

Lloyd M. Rice Sr.

Our Arrival in a New World

The sun was still a couple of hours high on a warm winter day father, who was driving the lead covered wagon, stopped his team. He climbed down over the front wheels of the wagon, walked out a few yards onto a small hill and looked out over the rolling prairie. He pointed to a cottonwood tree about fifty yards away to the North. He came back to the wagon and helped my mother to the ground and walked her to the tree. In a few minutes he came back to the second wagon, pulled by four horses and driven by my twin brother. The wheel horse was saddled and one of us rode it while the other drove. Sometimes one rode a horse and herded the cattle following behind the wagons. He told us to follow him and we drove past the tree to a bit of higher ground and camped. There was a spring near the tree.

We unhitched the horses, hobbled them and other loose stock, and put

up the tent. My mother spread the benches in the tent and we soon had a good fire going, using wood brought from the previous night's camp. We checked the animals after a good supper, prepared over the campfire and then we all, my youngest brother inside the tent with Mother and Dad, the rest of us outside, went to sleep. Little did we know that we would spend the next year and a half in this camp in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma.

My father put one-by-twelve boards around the tent on the ground and piled dirt against them to keep the wind and water outside. He also put a 'brush arbor' over the front entrance for some shade. We placed a small enclosure inside a single barbed-wire fence to hold the animals. Our father rented forty acres from a homesteader who lived a bit East of us and planted it in feed for the horses and cattle.

And so, with a few improvements, such as cleaning out the spring under the cottonwood tree and making an enclosure to keep some chickens (which my Mother got from a settler), we "settled in" our new home.

Thus, our tall, blue-eyed father and our short, black-eyed mother established a home. .as many other settlers were doing in that year of 1892. It was a long way from Missouri''

THE HOMESTEAD

We children did not know, nor did we care, that our father would go a few miles West of the 'tree camp' and homestead one hundred and sixty acres...and that we would build a real home (after a year and a half in the camp) in the edge of the "Red Hill" country of Roger Mills. On this

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THE HOMESTEAD, continued .....

claim, we three boys spent the remainder of our boyhood and most of our youth.

After this claim was completed and we were grown (almost), I met a neighbor girl, married her and, after three children born on this original homestead, we left...but that is another story.

More, SHADOWS O~R MY SHOULDER, continued .....

We three boys, my twin brother and myself and the 'little one', grew to manhood on the old homestead. Then they drifted away. .oh, they returned for visits often, but they never lived there again.

It seems like we lived on the old ranch for a lot of years (we still own it) and I try and go back at least once each year and look around. It seems that the red hills get higher and the canyons get deeper every time

I see it. But, I have never seen a more beautiful country than this in the spring, with the hills covered with prairie flowers, the hills always seem to me to be looking for someone...could it be three small boys chasing coyotes on painted ponies? Between the hills are the green valleys where the best grass in the world grows. I remember when it grew as high as the shoulder of a boy on a pony..As I stop my car on a hill overlooking the site of the old ranch house, the hills and the valleys resemble a varicolored saddle-blanket spread out over the world. As I sit in this modern machine that covers more ground in a day than the old wagons did in months, I get a wave of homesickness. I look, but I cannot see, three small boys who lived, worked, rode and played among these same age-old hills so long ago. Here they grew to manhood: the freckled twin and the youngest went out into the world from here. They lived their lives and are both buried far from the red hills they both loved so much. My tall, blue-eyed father and my short black-eyed mother are buried in the old country grave-yard just a few miles from the old ranch...I stop and say hello to them each time I go back. Most of the old neighbors (pioneers), who made the land what it has become, are buried with them. The land is again a cattle ranch. However, there are no small boys chasing coyotes to their dens in this modern age .....

YEAH !!!!

News reports say Dallas "resents" Ruby. Resenting seems to be the biggest thing Dallas does. First, it was Vice President Lyndon Johnson and his wife. THEY were "resented" so much that the people pushed and shoved them, knocked their hats off and trampled on them. They "resented" Adlai Stevenson, one of the greatest workers for world peace we ever had, Dallas "resented" him so much that they manhandled him, slapped his face and spat in his face. Then one of the Dallas "resenters" bought a rifle.

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YEAH!!!! continued.

some ammo and a sandwich, sat down in an easy chair and, as the President of the United States drove by, he shot him dead. Now they "resent" Ruby, one of the head "resenters".' Resenting is the biggest thing Dallas does...Big D...Big R!

A SMALL SHADOW

Here is what I saw six small bottles of catsup do:

On the first trip we made to the new country, my twin brother and I drove four horses hitched to a covered wagon. One of us rode the 'left wheel horse' and drove the team of lead horses. Our father drove a two-team hitch pulling a covered wagon ahead of us. On this day, Father became uncertain of the trail, (as it could not be called a road). We finally met a tribe of Indians, Cheyennes, moving everything they owned on "wicki-wakis" behind their ponies. Father attempted to talk with them about the "road". They refused to talk. We finally came to where the trail divided, one going Northwest and the other due West. We finally came to a Indian Trading Post. .our fellow travelers still not talking. At that time it was known as "Seger's Post". today it is the site of the town of Colony, Oklahoma. We stopped at the store and my father bought six bottles of catsup. Stepping to the side of the trail, he held out a bottle of bright red mixture. The first Indian to pass attempted to grab the bottle. My father finally gave it to him. .and, after the brave had drunk the catsup, held up a second bottle. .and gave catsup only after talking for awhile. After the sixth bottle had been disposed of, my father had talked to a number of Indians and decided he had learned the correct trail to where we were going Afterwards, he remembered he might have purchased the entire reservation for one more bottle of catsup!!!

We lived for several years near the reservation and they called my father "Man with Whiskers Good Brother".. We three boys rode with the young Indians all ever the countryside.

Do you believe in dreams? During World War I, when my twin brother was in France and stationed at a base hospital near Verdun, site of one of the longest and bitterest campaigns of that terrible war, where "They did not pass". While he was there (I did not know where he was) I had the same dream night after night. I could see my brother walking along a bluff above a stream of deep, black water, The trail was slippery and the side of the bluff was covered with large stones and strung with barbed wire. At the crest of this bluff, fighting for his footing, I seemed to see my brother (I was in a tree). As I reached for him I never reached him...he never fell, but a hundred times I thought he would...this was a recurring dream,

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every night for months. Finally, I received a long delayed letter from my brother. He had moved on. After returning home in the Fall of 1918, he spent some time with me. I described my dream. He said that he knew exactly where it was (the bluff), just below the base hospital...hospital personnel were forbidden to go there, but he and some others went, to get away from the war for a time. They slipped down and looked around. He was told that 1,000 men had died attempting to climb that bluff!! After the first visit, he said they never went back again.

Do you believe in dreams? Neither do I!!!

When my work is ended and I am called by the Lord...Grand Architect of the Universe (Masonic), to cross that river to "that home of many mansions not made by human hands.."HE will find me sitting in peace, "under my own vine and fig tree"

HERE WAS A HOME

Last week I stood on the site of the old ranch house where I grew up and spent the last part of my boyhood, my young manhood, married and started my own family.

There is nothing there now..just some large stones are all that is left of the foundation of the original "shack"; the lumber of which it was built was hauled one hundred and fifty miles from the end of the railroad. As I sat there, on one of the stones, my thoughts went back a lot of years. Where I sat people had been born and had died...long gone, they had laughed, talked and suffered. Here, "once upon a time", my father, mother and three half-grown boys had stopped for a place to call "Home".

Here we had "pitched camp" and my father and mother lived out their lives. Two of those half-grown boys are now gone. I, alone, am left to sit on a stone and "remember". As often as I can, I visit this "site of what was once a home". On my way out, I stop at the "grass-grown" and wind swept hill where, with many other pioneers, my father and my mother are buried. You would, perhaps, say it was a wild and lonely place, but to me, it is BEAUTIFUL. It is covered with the original stone and grass...green in summer, brown in winter..wild it is...like it was in the beginning. My people and all those other pioneers would have it no other way.