LIFE IS SIMPLE
We are pleased to offer Jerry Crownover’s
“Life is Simple” column. Jerry is a graduate
of the University of Missouri. He and his
wife, Judy, own and operate a ranch west of
Springfield and are FCS Financial members.
We hope you enjoy Jerry’s Ozark humor
and wisdom.
“Life is Simple” Copyright 2018, Jerry Crownover
cowboys that could ride any bronc still in the cattle business.
or bull, or rope anything within
reach of their lasso, I dreamed of on the local TV news a couple of
owning cows. While I admired weeks ago. The reporter sat beside
and respected the men who rode him on his UTV as they drove
and roped, my hero cowboys through the parched pastures
were the cattlemen who could and by ponds that were either
seemingly overcome any hardship completely dry or, maybe, had
that came their way. Individuals a few days of water left in them.
who would brave the bone-chilling “What are you going to do?” the
cold of a winter’s night to help an seemingly concerned newsperson
old cow give birth to her baby, asked.
or sweat gallons in a sweltering
summer sun to make sure that “We’ll haul water, purchase feed,
same cow would have an ample sell some cows, pray for rain, or
feed supply for the next winter. whatever else we have to do for us
They overcame droughts, floods, and our cattle to survive. It’s not
blizzards, market catastrophes, like we haven’t seen anything like
and bank failures to keep doing this before, and, if we live long
what they loved. enough, we’ll probably see it again.
Somehow, we’ll make it.”
I’m old, but I’m too young
I watched one of my heroes
Calmly, my friend answered,
to have lived through the dust
bowl days of the 1930’s that drove making sure the water supply is
I’m one of the lucky ones, I guess, tens of thousands of farmers and still sufficient and supplementing
because I found a few truckloads ranchers off their land because scorched pastures with a little
of hay to purchase at a price my their farms couldn’t produce extra feed, I’m reminded of what
banker said I could afford. It was anything during that time. another hero told me many years
a 35 mile round trip to get them According to my father, I was born ago, “Heck, son, if this was easy,
home, so I spent several days in the next big drought of the early everybody would be doing it.”
last week in the cab of my truck 1950’s when rain was scarce and transporting the large bales to my the temperatures reached 100 for farm, and listening to more radio weeks on end. He recalled having than I’m used to, when an old song to cut down a tree every day just played that I hadn’t heard in many so the cows could eat the leaves to years—“My Heroes Have Always have, at least, some nourishment. Been Cowboys.” In my lifetime, I’ve seen my heroes weather the drought of 1980, the
While most little boys of my
generation probably dreamed floods of 1993, the ice storm of
of being the men that Waylon 2007, and whatever it is that we
Jennings sang about…those rodeo have going on now, and they are
14 HEARTBEAT | FALL 2018
As I make my daily rounds