I watched a movie Sunday afternoon--True Grit.  How I had missed seeing it in the past I don't know.  I love the old movies.  They are so politically incorrect that they are refreshing.  We have become so afraid of doing or saying something that will offend someone, that real life in the 1800's and early 1900's can't be portrayed realistically anymore.

My dad was born in 1910.  His dad ran cattle in Western Indian territory and the Texas panhandle and made a ton of money.  He and my grandmother had seven sons.  My dad was the baby of the family.  The three middle ones died young of measles, pneumonia and such. but the two oldest and two youngest lived.  My grandfather was murdered when my dad was seven.  He and Harvey (next to the youngest) worked from then on in the family restaurant.  They slaughtered hogs, dressed and cooked them and everything else required to feed the family--and the town.  Story goes that the two oldest boys rigged up the undercarriage in their dad's Studebaker and ran bootleg liquor out of Arkansas.

 Their mother ran their restaurant.  They had no money, because a charlatan passing through--after someone shot and killed their dad--wooed her, married her, and absconded with all their money.  She was a naive woman who trusted everyone.   I have a picture of the restaurant--my grandmother is standing out in front, holding my father who was a baby. They spent the rest of their lives very poor.

We are one generation removed from the wild west.  One of my dad's friends was shot down on main street (dirt of course) by someone who wanted to kill him.  Shot between the eyes and left for dead.  Dad crawled under a car to get away.  From beneath the car, dad saw his friend move.  The bullet had struck a grazing blow, run under the scalp and out the back of his head without piercing his skull.  He lived.   People got shot regularly back then.  Kinda like today.

When I was young, my dad would occasionally have me get the tweezers and pick tiny pieces of bone that were breaking through the top of his head.   Seems one of his friends accidentally hit him in the head with a pickax.  Who knows why it didn't kill him.  It just shattered the top of his scull.  "How did it happen," I asked him.  "Well, we were splitting logs, and I leaned over to steady the log at the wrong moment."  My dad was tough.  But he was a quiet, gentle man.  He just grew up in the middle of the wild west.  He was honest, trustworthy, and kind.  A Christian.  He took care of his mother for the rest of her life.  Everybody loved my dad.   I adored him.