Overall Wit & Wisdom

Bill Chitwood for Progressive Dairyman

Here it is almost March again, the windiest month of the year. Here in Oklahoma where I live we have lots of wind. All we do each day is just see which way it is coming from. Last March we had so much wind that we had to pull one calf twice. That is windy.

Another thing besides the wind that happens in March is St. Patrick’s Day. It is a wonderful occasion. It gives Irish men that same feeling of pride that Texans have all year round.

My grandmother on my mother’s side was named Daugherty. You don’t get much more Irish than that. She had a cousin named Timothy O’Leary. Timothy was a little different. All families have a few of those people. You know those people that are some of the last ones to file into the church at the end of the family. If you think of your family and you cannot think of any of those different people, you probably are one of them.

Timothy, my grandmother’s cousin, got mugged by these three guys one night in an alley. After a tough battle, they got him strapped down and took 20¢ from his pockets.

“Now what the devil was the idea of putting up such a battle for a lousy twenty cents?” one of them said. Timothy said, “I thought you were after that $20 bill I had in my shoe.”

We think welfare is something new, but people have been helping less fortunate people forever. My grandmother had another cousin named Bill O’Neil. He just lacked a few bricks getting to the top. Good old boy, but you know he just wasn’t quite all there.

The city fathers in this little town where he lived felt sorry for Bill and told him they would pay him to polish the cannon out in front of the courthouse. After about a year Bill came and told them he was going to quit. He said he was going in business for himself. He said he had been saving his money and had bought his own cannon. Talk about strange people.

My grandmother had a brother that loved to pull jokes on other people. His name was George, and he was a good sport. He enjoyed it when people played jokes on him. I think the reason he did not mind was because that gave him an idea he could use someday.

George was in the hospital one time, and he knew he was going to go home later that day. He was feeling pretty good. The nurse came in to get a urine sample and left this glass for him to fill.

He decided he would pull a joke on her so he poured some apple juice in the glass. When she came back for the specimen she looked at it and said, “George this does not look too good. It is a little cloudy. You may not get to go home after all.”

George said, “Well let me have that.” He drank it down and said, “I will run it through again, and it will be alright.” The nurse almost fainted.

Since I have been writing these articles this last four years once in a while people will ask me my philosophy on life. A lady wrote me the other day with that very same question. “Mam,” I told her, “It’s very simple, the first thing to remember about life is don’t worry about it.

“Really there are only two things to worry about, either you’re successful or you’re not successful. If you’re successful, you’ve got nothing to worry about.

“If you’re not successful, there’s only two things to worry about, either you’re healthy or you’re unhealthy. If your health is good, there’s nothing to worry about.

“If your health is bad, there’s only two things to worry about. Either you’re going to live or you’re not going to live.

“If you’re going to live then there is nothing to worry about. If you don’t live, then there are only two things to worry about. Either you’re going to heaven, or you’re not going to heaven.

“If you’re going to heaven, there is nothing to worry about, and if you’re going to the other place, you’ll be so busy shaking hands with old friends, you won’t have time to worry.”

As we all look back in our families and think about our ancestors, it is easy to see why we are like we are. I would not want to trade for anyone else’s family. I am sure you would not want to trade either, even if we could. I tell my kids you can pick your friends, but you’re stuck with your kinfolk for life.

The different places that all of our relations came from is what makes this country so great, and what makes it even greater is that most of us can get along. Think what all the different cultures brought to this country, and the Irish brought us their humor.

May the good Lord bless you and protect you on your way this month. Keep smiling. PD