Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Life is a country song

by Julie Carter

I wasn’t born a coal miner’s daughter, but similarly I was a Colorado hillbilly. I ran barefoot all summer through the hay meadows, hillsides and creek beds of a high mountain ranch, fished with a willow pole, and talked about life to my best pal Sally --our cow dog.

I daydreamed about Hollywood coming to call and needing a freckle-faced urchin girl who could ride like the wind and outrun whatever followed. Annie Oakley was my hero and I waited and waited some more. They apparently never got the memo.

I trundled off to college in a city where a steel mill belched black smoke, the asphalt kept the heat of day present long into the night, and the sounds of traffic never silenced. I was smothering in civilization.

I muddled through classes on two campuses and stayed lost both literally and figuratively. My parents had to move a couple thousand miles away for work so I couldn’t go home to the home of my childhood. “If you are going through hell, keep on going” the song says, and I did, as soon as they’d let me out of there.

I had a lot of fun, made a lot of miles. Honky Tonk Angels and Rodeo Romeos –stuff cowgirl memories are made of. Two-stepping across Texas and the Whiskey River where there were Swingin’ Doors and Heartaches by the Number.

And then came the years of “Elusive Dreams.”

“You followed me to Texas, you followed me to Utah.
We didn't find it there so we moved on. Then you went with me to Alabam,
Things look good in Birmingham. We didn't find it there so we moved on.
I know you're tired of following my elusive dreams and schemes
For they're only fleeting things -- my elusive dreams.”

I quit counting the moves I made after 25. It was the stops that mattered. In each place I found a little more of myself and who I was becoming, like the building blocks of a structure that goes on and on. I even survived the crazies of Southern California a couple times and am thankful for memories of moonlit beaches, orange blossoms and fresh seafood.

I’ve lived in condos and cow camps, cooked on open fires on the mesa top where the wind whistled through the cedars, as well as on the beach where the sound of ocean waves kept rhythm. I can still find my way around a high-rise downtown in any city or down a dirt road that is marked only with “no trespassing.”

“Put another log on the fire. Cook me up some bacon and some beans.

And go out to the car and change the tire. Wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans.’’

It’s all good. I have no airs about who I am today and no pretense about where I have come from because it all mattered. And the best part is, I don’t yet know where I am going, but history says I’ve not yet reached the end of the road.

“Storms never last do they, baby? Bad times all pass with the wind.”

It’s so true. And I know down deep inside that the wind will change and a call will come.

“On the road again. Just can't wait to get on the road again. The life I love is making music with my friends.”

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com where life “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.”