Tumbleweed…Well, now, everybody in West Texas knows what one is, but I had to research more than one dictionary to find a definition. And then, to my surprise, I couldn’t find a description that gave justice to those round, prickly, dry weeds that are common to the western prairies. Nor did I find a mention of how large they could get, a point that is important to my story. 

However, Sunday, January 20^th, I was driving back to the ranch from Lubbock, and through the blowing dust, tumbleweeds were dancing along Highway 87. My granddaughter Hannah Kathryn’s Christening precipitated my trip and I got to wondering what she would think of tumbleweeds. 

All of a sudden I was back in the drouth of the ‘50s building a tumbleweed fort with my cousins Bill and Steve and my brother, Michael. We had a plethora of "Fort Tumbleweed" material stacked up against the fence in that dusty field and were having a grand time. We saw the prickly boulders as gifts, not curses associated with a rough, dry winter. I guess Baby Hannah’s Christening reminded me again about how kids and adults differ in their perspectives on life. On that fort building day in the ‘50s, the dust was blowing just a hard as it was three weeks ago, but we were not "bothered." We were having fun; no matter the dust, the wind, the cold ... it was a great day to build a fort and we had ample supplies and plenty of heart to do the job.

So, today, while we adults are striving to make our fortunes or to win the lottery, be a finalist on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" or the last one standing on "The Survivor," I would shun them all to have the soul of that 10 year-old girl who knelt in the dirt to build a fort out of tumbleweeds.