Been drivin now for near bouts 20 years. Been haulin cattle around most of the southern US now for nigh on 15 of them years. Somewhere there is an old song, think it were sung by that there Johnny Cash that purty much describes it all. “I’ve travelled every road in this here land. I’ve been everywhere man, I’ve been everywhere man, crossed the deserts bare man. I’ve breathed the mountain air man. Travel I’ve had my share man.” Then the song goes on to talk about everywhere he has been, and there ain’t many places he talks about that I ain’t been. Started drivin when I was 18. Wern’t allowed to drive across state lines til I turned 21 so if’n you do the math you can figure out that I am hittin on 38. Yep, I am single, or was until I delivered my last load of cows to what I suppose was what them there hippies in San Francisco would call a commune. Not sure if’n them people were some religious group, like maybe Mennonites or maybe even a spinoff of one of them Mormon fundamentalist groups. Anyways I found the turnoff from the main highway and headed into the back country down a real dusty gravel road that hadn’t seen no gravel or road grader for a long damn time. Had to keep my speed down round bout 20 mph or this darned road would have shook my old Pete to kingdom come, and since this old girl is my only home, and my only way of makin a living I had to baby my girl. Since I been on the road so much I ain’t got no home. Sometimes when I get near Witchita I park my rig for a couple of days and go see my mom, but I can only take so much of her tellin me to find a woman and settle down so as soon as I can round up another load of steaks on the hoof I get my wheels a rollin again. Don’t know why mom is so hot to trot for me to find a woman cause my 2 sisters both got married and she has 5 or 6 of them grandbabies for keep’n her busy, but I guess it is just a mother’s nature to want to see her kids all settled down and happy. She don’t realize that I am purty happy though. I don’t want just any old woman. Maybe that special one is out there waitin for me, but I ain’t sure of that neither. And until I delivered this last load of go go dancers I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to find the lady I was looking for. Finally I could see a few buildings that were still a ways off. At 20 miles an hour it was going to likely take me another 20 minutes before I got there and as I drew closer I could see that these folks didn’t have no power lines. There were a couple of them wind generators and I seen a bunch of solar panels set up, so they did have some form of power, but it was very minimal. There was a bunch of folks standing there watching me as I drove up to the buildings. I could see about 5 menfolks and then there was a whole bunch of ladies with a slew of little kiddies. Dynamited the truck, and I jumped out to talk to the guy I figured was the head honcho. As I walked over to see where they wanted to unload my girls I looked over at the ladies and I was gob smacked when I looked at one who was standing way off by herself without any kids running around. She was wearing glasses, real thick ones. I ain’t seen too damn many ladies in my travels who wore glasses like this gal wore, and that is why I had not ever gotten married. I got this thing for gals who wear glasses. They gotta be real nearsighted and they need to wear thick glasses. This one looked just like I would have ordered out of the old Sears and Roebuck catalogue – ifn they was still in business. The leader directed me to where they had a chute set up, and I backed the trailer to the chute. It was a fairly simple task to unload the cattle and they came off into the pens all milling round and mooing like crazy. I asked if they could wash out my trailer, and they said that they was real short on water, but they would have one of the ladies help me shovel out the shit. He showed me where the shit pile was and I backed up to it. They only sent me one person, but I was happy about that. The lady that they sent to help me was the gal with the thick glasses and I was purdy happy to get me a chance to talk with her. I tried to make conversation but she was real shy. I finally got her to tell me that she weren’t married, and that because of her bad eyesight the menfolk shunned her. I asked her if she would like to leave the family and come to the outside world with me and she sort of smiled and said that she would like to do that, but the leader wouldn’t let her go unless I bought her from them. That set me a reelin. Buy a woman like I would buy and sell a cow? I ain’t never heard of nothin like that. But then and there I decided that I would buy her in a heartbeat. Even if’n we could not get anything romantic going I would take her into the outside world and I would set her free. Soon as we finished shovelin the shit I went to see the leader. I had to collect the cash for my load of cows, and as he counted out the bills I told him I was interested in the lady that had helped me shovel out the trailer. “How much you willin to pay for her?” he asked. I told him I would be willing to pay a grand for her and he told me it wasn’t enough. I turned as if to walk away with the money he had already given me, and he called me back to tell me the a grand was too cheap for a good worker, but he would consider another five hundred. I had made a good profit on this load, and I wanted that lady real bad, so I peeled off 15 hundred dollar bills and told him she was sold. I didn’t mind the long old ride back to that there highway near as much. I spent most of it looking over my new purchase as she sat in the jump seat not saying much. Achualy she din’t talk at all. Had to do me a lot of thinking though as once we hit the big road I needed to figure out if’n I should take this lady back to Witchita, or if I should figure on buying a place far enough from my family that there would be no interference. I liked Nebraska so I finally decided that the area around Lincoln would likely be real nice. I had saved a lot of money over the years. When we got to Lincoln I called a real estate agent, and told her what I was looking for. She came to the truckstop where I had parked my truck and picked me and Aimee up. She showed us 3 or 4 places that were within my budget and I put an offer in on one of them. It was a 5 acre parcel that had room for me to park my truck and Aimee, while she still wasn’t saying too much, had told me she liked the house. I bought Aimee some new clothing so she could get rid of the long, rather ugly dresses that had been all she brought with her. She wasn’t real comfortable wearing jeans and a blouse, but when she saw most of the other women were dressed like that she reluctantly accepted that way of dressing. And instead of trying her hair up in a bun, she let it hang long and free, tying it back in a ponytail every once in a while. Her eyesight was quite poor with the glasses she had on, so I managed to get her an appointment with an eye doctor. I knew this was priority, especially after Aimee told me that she had gotten these glasses when she was 15, and that they were the only pair she had ever had and had wore them for the past 10 years. Apparently the group had figured she was just stupid and half blind, but had done nothing about having her see a doctor until she was seen one time by a traveling nurse who had come by the settlement. After Aimee had gotten her thick glasses she was shunned by all the men, and she was forced to work like a dog. Once Aimee got her new glasses with their -25.00D prescription she could see a whole heck of a lot better. I had taken my time with her, and while we had slept together in the bunk of my truck, I did not force myself on her and I waited until after we had taken possession of our house and we had moved in with a proper bed and everything. Aimee was a little minx in bed. She could not get enough of it, and to tell you the truth neither could I. I loved watching her in the morning when she took her glasses from the side table and slid them onto her nose. She would blink a few times to bring the world into focus, and then she would turn to me and tell me that she loved me. This was the best cow I had ever bought, and I weren’t never ever gonna sell her. Specs4ever June 2016