A Porch of My Own

A Porch of My Own

Saturday, September 9, 2017

In the Land of the Stranger, I Rise or I Fall





"The home I redeem from the savage and wild
The home I have loved as a father, his child
The wife of my bosom, farewell to ye all
In the land of the stranger, I rise or I fall"

I heard Fess Parker sing this on the old Davy Crockett at the Alamo movie a couple of weeks ago. The real Davy Crockett wrote this part of the song, called Farewell, as a poem. It touched me, both the leaving a place you created from nothing and loved part, and the last line. Davy and I are kindred spirits in this, as I'm sure we are in other things.

I found an extended version of Riders in the Sky singing the song and downloaded it. There's a video clip of Fess Parker singing the abbreviated version with the real Davy's words from the movie. Naturally, it will break your heart because not only did Davy die but we know the adorable Fess Parker as Davy is going to die before the movie is over.



I drove back from Denver today where I spent the week with the kids, enjoying their company, learning about Bixby's school days, and doing some shopping. There's a bit of Fall in the air, especially in the mornings, and the aspens in the high places are just beginning to turn. Farmers on the plains of Colorado have bales of hay piled high and irrigation going on a few fields to cut again later. Gus and Woodrow wouldn't believe all the alfalfa in that part of the state! I feel like Fall will be here and gone before I know it and I want to savor every bit of it.



I've come a year's full circle from the beginning of my journey to leave the ranch and move to Colorado. It was the first of October last year when Sarah and I came to Durango to meet with a realtor, a decision that was made in September. The year has gone by quickly. From those first very hard weeks to now, it's been a journey of discovering whether I will rise or fall.

My adopted state has been good to me, both in the people I've met and the land I've found. I feel my roots sinking like those of the trees I've planted this year. I didn't create this home from the ground up like we did the ranch but I'm putting my mark on it and the family is too. To the framed photos that Rickie took of the ranch I've added ones of the family and me and the adventures we've had here. Our story is expanding and our circle of experiences grows.

Sometimes we just have to trust that the decisions we make will lead us to a better place. Not necessarily a better physical place but a better place in our mind. Life is a journey and we're not meant to be stranded in the past, adrift without a sail. That's my belief anyway. We're meant to rise up from whatever befalls us, or to try to anyway.

Davy did, and that's why we're still singing his song almost 200 years later.

Fess Parker Farewell









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