Thoughts of my Dad.  My Dad loved TV Westerns, and the theme song from Rawhide was running through my head this morning as I got ready for church.  "Rollin, rollin, rollin,  though the streams are swollen,
Keep them Doggies rollin' Rawhide. Through storm and wind and weather, ...... Wishin my gal was by my side...Good vittles love and kissin, are waiting at the end of my ride.  "

Dad loved the westerns, but it never occurred to me why.  He lived the westerns.  That is right.  My Dad spent his "batchin" years in the old west.  I don't know if he ever rode a horse or herded cattle, but he did tell of driving a wagon with twenty mules in front of it.  He told how they would have to go through an intersection then back into the cross road to make the turn.

I only knew the Dad who fathered me.  The one who knew a lot about farming with hand tools.  The one who worked for the Railroad, and ran our little general store.  But the one who actually lived the old west.... He was so lucky to be able to watch it portrayed in his favorite TV Westerns,  Rawhide,  Wagon Train, Bonanza, Gunsmoke and others.  I always think of him when I watch a western, but I never realized that he actually lived during the last part of that exciting part of our nation's history.   I had quite a Dad.  BTW  that is my Mom sitting beside him in the picture in the house I grew up in.  It was taken a short time before he passed away at 80 years of age.