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Cricket’s Thoughts

Cricket's Thoughts

Young Love

Haley and JJ in the Park (full color)
Young love . . .
 
It’s so sweet and innocent. Just seeing them sneak peeks at each other brings back memories of Junior High School.

Do you remember your fist kiss?
 
The problem is, that as I am taking the pictures, my brain panics.

WAIT!

This is my little girl, my baby!

Haley and JJ (Black and White)
Then the scene in front of me changes to this.

Omggggg! Stop looking at my baby like that!

JJ in The Park
And, in my mind’s eye I stop seeing this sweet boy next door look.

JJ in Black and White
And instead, he takes on that bad boy look, as if he has put on a black leather jacket and just pulled up in the driveway on a Harley. 
 
 Lord, I really need to buy a shotgun. 🙂

Cricket Walker

Cricket's Thoughts

Find That Place . . .

Sun coming down over the field

C’mere . . .

Escape from the world with me for a little while

Just for the moment, shut everything out

Rest your weary eyes

Find that place in the very middle of the field

In your heart

That is where you will find me

I have been there all along, right beside you

Let me be your safe haven in the storm

C’mere. . .

Cricket Walker

Cricket's Thoughts

Daddy’s Little Princess

woman

When I was born, my father told his friends I was the ugliest baby he had ever seen, and that I sounded just like a cricket. I think that must have been the moment that I became my Daddy’s little princess.

As a little girl, I remember seeing my daddy sitting at the kitchen counter, drinking his first cup of coffee every morning. Because of a broken finger that never quite healed right, every time he took a drink, his pinky finger would stick up a little bit.

When I grew up, I wanted to be just like him.

By the time I was 10 years old, I was drinking coffee during the summers at my uncle Charley’s dairy farm. Back then I needed a ton of sugar and cream to drink the stuff. Nowadays I use just a little cream, and I sweeten it with the fake stuff, but to this very day, my pinky sticks up a little, every time I take a drink of my coffee.

We have always shared a love of various farm animals. Well, except for that mean old goose that used to chase me around the yard hissing at me, and nipping me in the butt when I tried to run away.

One day I saw the goose trying to do the same thing to my daddy. He turned around and stomped his foot. Then he got right in the goose’s face and said “git on out a here now”.

I thought he was teaching me how to stand up to an old goose, but what he taught me was not to run from things, to stand up and face my fears head on. It took me many years to finally learn that lesson.

I cannot begin to count how many runts I thought I could save over the years. I had a weakness for piglets that were too small to survive with the litter. He would help me sneak them past my mama, and into the house. I would set my alarm to feed them every couple of hours.

He did this, even knowing that I could not save them all, knowing that some would die, and he would have to pick up the pieces of my broken heart, but he was teaching me not to be afraid to take a risk, to have the courage to try even when all the odds were against me.

I started working at the restaurant with my daddy, in my early teens. There were times that I thought he was tougher on me than the employees. He was tough, and he expected nothing less than the best. It was many years before I realized he was teaching me good work ethics and that anything worth doing, was worth doing well.

Growing up, one of my biggest fears in life was disappointing my daddy because I could not bear to see that look in his eyes.

When I was a senior in high school some friends and I snuck out of the house to go to a party. Before that night, I had never drunk a single drop of alcohol but apparently I was making up for lost time because before I knew it, it was noon the next day.

It was time to face my daddy.

Seeing that look in his eyes was way worse than the butt whooping I got. To top it off, he still made me go to work, sicker than a dog, and praying to the porcelain god. That was one lesson in life that I learned very quickly, because I remembered it every single day of the 30 days I spent grounded afterwards.

During that same year, it was my daddy who took me for a long walk up the hill to quietly tell me that my very best friend, Ronnie Winston, had died at the age of 17. Looking up into my daddy’s eyes, I could see his heart breaking for me as he tried to explain that there are some things in life that not even daddy can fix.

It was then that I first began to truly understand the serenity prayer, to accept the things I cannot change, to have the courage to change the things I can, and above all, to have wisdom to know the difference.

It has been 46 years since I became my daddy’s little princess, and you know what? I grew up to be just like him.

I love you daddy.

Cricket Walker

Rest In Peace Daddy
1937-2018

Outbuilding
Cricket's Thoughts

Life Aint No Fairytale

Why are we so afraid to admit to our kids that life ain’t no fairytale? Yes, I know how to speak proper English, but ya know what?

I ain’t in a proper English kind of mood tonight, you know?

I am serious here though.

How many little girls still grow up thinking that their knight in shining armor is gonna show up on their doorstep one day, and they will live happily ever after?

Did we bother telling them that An Officer and a Gentleman was just a dang movie and that life just usually doesn’t go that way?

Do they know how to find happiness inside themselves with or without a man? Did we teach them that relationships aren’t sprinkled in fairy dust and that they have to work at a good marriage?

Do we tell our boys that they might not grow up to be NFL football stars and that just maybe they should have an alternative ready? Did we warn them that not all girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice?

Do they know that the star player of the basketball team doesn’t always make the basket at the critical moment? That sometimes they are gonna miss the shot? Do we remind them that the baseball player with the record for the most home runs is often the same player with the record for the most strikeouts?

Do they know that sometimes bad things happen to good people?

Even as we teach them about knights in shining armor, fairy dust, and happily ever after, we need to teach them about the bumpy road that gets there. Just about anything worth having will take hard work. And it takes knowing how to respond to disappointments.

As we prepare them for the joy of successes, we must teach them that failure is not only okay, it is to be expected and that a big part of success is learning how to respond when we fail.

I want to teach my daughter how to live the serenity prayer, to accept the things she cannot change, to have the courage to change the things she can, and to have the wisdom to know the difference.

I am not talking about keeping our kids from dreaming big dreams, and believing that they can do anything they really set their minds to. I am talking about teaching them the realities of achieving those dreams.

Cricket Walker

Cricket's Thoughts

A New Beginning

 I'm looking forward to a new year, to a new beginning.

It has been a year of extremes. Looking back never makes a lot of sense to me because there isn’t much we can do about the past beyond hopefully learning from our mistakes.

I’m looking forward to a new year, to a new beginning.

At some point before the new school year begins, after we have had some closure on some challenges in our life, I would like to move back home to Texas, back to where life made more sense to me.

I dream about having a small place in the country, nothing fancy, just a place where I can sit out on the porch and see Texas Bluebonnets across the field, a place where my daughter can laugh again, a place where we can truly enjoy the simple things in life.

A few months back, I started working out at the gym every day. This is something that I intend to continue throughout the new year. It isn’t that I have suddenly become a fitness nut. It is more that it just makes me feel good, you know?

During a workout, I get in this zone where I can shut everything else out. Nothing exists but the music in my ears, and taking the next step, or finishing the next set of reps. Unless of course I am working out on the thigh machine, in which case I spend a lot of time adding up how much money I am gonna have to put in the cuss jar when I get home.

The feeling that happens after a workout though is almost addictive. It is a feeling of believing that you can accomplish just about anything.

I am thinking that at 46 years old, it might be about time to figure out who I am too. I have spent so many years being someone that others thought I should be, that I never quite figured out who I am inside.

Well, that and I would like to be able to open a jar of Vlasic pickles when there isn’t a man around to do it for me. As long as I am at it, it would be nice to know how to drive a fence post in the ground without dislocating a shoulder in the process too.

Maybe I will spend the year being less afraid to try new things, like learning to play the guitar. Or, maybe I will just spend more time watching PRCA bull riding and drooling over the cowboys. 🙂

Did I mention PRCA bull riding is coming to Batesville in January?

Lord have mercy, I really think I should be there to photograph every single moment of the event, don’t you? Maybe do a few interviews?

I don’t know what this next year has in store. I only know that I am not going to spend it looking back. As I do with most things in life, I am just gonna take things one day at a time.

Thanks for being a part of my life!

Cricket Walker