Oh, to be Young

Dakota here…

When you’re 19. You think you know everything, but what do you know?

At 19, I was working for Clair Weiss, a rancher in Northwest South Dakota. The year was 1991. I was young, and at that stage, well Clair had been around a few times. He had fought in World War II, he had punched more cattle then I had ever seen and lived more life then I could imagine. A quiet man, but when he talked, worth listening too.

As a ranch hand, you spend a lot of time with the boss on a small operation. The work is hard and the hours can be long. So you get to know each other well and conversations can go any where.

This day that I am thinking back of, Clair and I was working on a tractor that had blow a hydraulic hose. Turning wrenches, we were talking about life. Few days earlier we had attended the funeral of a neighbour from a few ranches over. Thinking back, I wonder how could I have been so brazen to ask, but I did. “Clair, at your age, how can you sleep knowing that you do not have that long left in this world?” Clair laughed then said to me “Son, You are young, so you won’t understand, but eventually life wears on you and death just isn’t that scary anymore.” I didn’t understand.

I remember spending a good part of that night thinking about that statement. All these years it has stuck with me.

Eventually I left that ranch to see the world. Clair passed on. The ranch was sold off and the world took me down roads I never imagined. But how often that thought comes to my head. I ask myself “Do I understand, yet?”