Jeff Gore on Werdsmith

A Passion

To everyone it is something. That one thing that brings you passion. That thing you can never escape no matter how you try. For some it is their job or career. For others it is an activity like hun...

The Piano

The piano sits in a vast wilderness that, though hundreds if not thousands have passed through, has remained unsettled, uninhabited, and leaves little to be desired. It's dry, arid, and lacks any a...

Tortured Souls

They are tortured souls, most all of them. They stand in a round corral and through patience and understanding, yes even love and compassion, they bring out the best in the beast of burden runnin...

Brave

He had always been around cowboys. His father had been a cowboy as had his father before him. He had spent hours and hours in the saddle beside his dad on hot days, cold days, wet days, and dry ...

Riding For The Brand

Just shy of pure darkness, when one relies more on sound and a sense of touch than on sight, the jingle of spur, the smell of dew in the air, and the thundering of hooves means the day has begun. E...

What We Leave Behind

I can still remember it like it was yesterday. It had recently rained, the air was humid on the hot summer morning. I was very young, four years old or so but I know it was summer because the older...

Retirement

Retirement. It seems to be what so many people are working for, striving for..., saving for. Every day on the news they are talking about retirement funds, IRA's, social security, and all the other...

The Unforgotten

The traffic is congested and the exhaust fumes are as stifling as the loud honking of their horns as they beat on their steering wheels to get unknown commuters in front of them to get out of their...

The Chase

There were only five of them that day A horseback on the crew. A puncher and two young ropers, The rancher and a buckaroo.

Free Indeed

They knew he wouldn't be easy from the start. His mom was up nights from the time she took him home from the hospital. He didn't eat well, he didn't sleep well. He didn't gain much weight his first...

Rite of Spring

Under the dark sky of an early spring night. Lying in a bedroll inside a teepee miles from any semblance of modern civilization, the sounds around camp begin to get softer, quieter, fewer, until ev...

Outside The Lines

Coloring outside the lines is forbidden on that first time the new box of crayons is opened and the coloring pages are handed out in school. The picture is of a duck wearing a raincoat and carrying...

Well Pleased

It was not unlike any other bright and sunny Spring morning when the light came in the pane glass window of his breakfast room. However, he had risen much earlier to prepare for the sermon he would...

It Really Is Wonderful

Well, you can always tell its Christmas at my house when we break out "It's A Wonderful Life". I can't help it. I will admit, it's my favorite movie ever. For me, that's saying a lot because I love...

A Joyful Noise

The whole place was beautifully decorated for Christmas. There was garland lining the room with white lights and red bows covering it and the huge tree on the podium. The tree was also decorated wi...

Ghosts From The Past

It has been called "The World Series of Rodeo", or "The Greatest Show On Dirt". To be aloud to get out of school was huge, but to be aloud to skip school to go to the National Finals Rodeo was simp...

Sowing and Reaping

"We all just go to the worms." He said, "Just like that old dead cow or a horse." And I think he really believed that. He had been born in an era where a man was judged by his toughness, and no one...

Miles and Miles of Roads

The hum of the tires on asphalt and the West Texas wind create a continual white noise that can only be drowned out by the air conditioner turned on high or the sound of my favorite music playing t...

Unsung Heroes

She watches as the boat pulls away from the docks. Pushed in by the crowd around her and obscured by them from her husband's view, she still waves and yells goodbye. He can just faintly make her im...

The "Wisdom" Of Man

It seems ever apparent to me that the wisdom of man is foolishness. It's not just foolishness to God, it's just foolishness plain and simple. We think we are so smart. We have these great ideas tha...

Split Seconds

It was windy, and cool. Even though they had finally gotten a little rain, the arena in the small panhandle town of Post, Texas was damp but dry enough not to dampen the spirits of the spectators o...

Letting Go

He was so nervous. His father could just feel it. He had begun with the little red tricycle his father had as a child and ridden it miles and miles up and down the sidewalk and driveways of the sma...

The Good Sheperd

Santiago is old. He is so old, in fact, that the people of the small village in this arid region of high desert and foothills of much larger mountains, cannot remember when he wasn't here. They kno...

School Days

How exciting! At least that's the way it seems. New clothes, new back pack, new pencils, pens, crayons, notebooks, folders, binders, rulers, and, at least for me in those days, lots and lots of tho...

The Hands Of Time

They are rough and wrinkled. They have seen years of hard but delicate work. The job they do is not learned overnight. It takes years of apprenticeship followed by a constant journey of learning an...

Ol' Mossy Horns

He was what most cowboys would call a bunch-quitter, a renegade, an outlaw, because he had eluded capture for years. No one was sure how old he was. He had been affectionately named "Ol' Mossy Horn...

Favorites

There it stands. Leaning up on the front of the couch. An old guitar. It's plain looking at first glance but though it looks simple and dull of finish, when you pick it up and begin to strum your f...

A Change Of Seasons

Something just seems different. Without warning, just all of a sudden it's different. One day its hot and dry and then, literally overnight, it happens. Unlike the July and August days that are ho...

The Journey Home

It is the same old highway he's driven thousands of times. His journey today is different than the many times before. Over the years he has traveled this road taking cattle to the sale, horses to t...

Where Have All The Soldiers Gone

He sat all alone in the corner of a small greasy spoon cafe in a tiny town in the panhandle of Texas. I have always been drawn to old men as characters, as well as for the vast experiences they hav...

Trust

As the gate opens it creaks on its hinges like fingernails on a blackboard. A little oil or grease would fix the problem but that's just another thing on the "to do" list that will go undone. There...

Fearfully And Wonderfully Made

It was fairly early in the morning and we were sleeping in after getting in late from a road trip. We were really tired but its amazing how quickly you can be revitalized when your son-in-law calls...

Tradition

They came from as far as central Texas to the east and western New Mexico near the Arizona border to the west. They had all gathered, along with a couple of thousand spectators, to compete in or wa...

How Easily We Forget

It was October of 1969. I was only a small boy but I remember the day as windy but unseasonably warm and sunny for an autumn day in central Texas. We had gathered, my parents, my brother, and our l...

The Stories Of Old

He told great stories. They sat on his knee and listened intently as if his wonderful words were magic. They were young. The youngest was almost three. The oldest was nearly ten. When they were all...

They Must've Been Dreaming

There it sits. Off the road a few hundred yards. It's down in the valley below the sage and aspen covered hills but just barely. Just as the slope of the hill guarding its east side from the mornin...

Chipping Away

He looked and studied. He went from piece to piece. He was sure of what he was looking for but was having trouble finding just exactly the right one. Some were very large, some small. Some were lon...

Rain

It had been expected, needed, predicted, and prayed for over and over again. The last several years had been almost devoid of any of the beautiful, nurturing substance that falls from the sky in wh...

Thankful

Thanks. We say it as much out of habit as we do out of real sincerity most of the time. We tell a waitress thanks for a refill of hot, black coffee, or for someone holding the door for us, but how ...

A Job To Do

The day had warmed considerably since the early morning temperature in the upper fifties. The sorting of cattle had almost been completed. The five of us had spent the last four and a half hours sc...

Simple

"Water, water everywhere oh, how the boards did shrink. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink." This is a line from the Simon Taylor Coleridge poem, The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner. It is...

Redeemed

Man, was he fast. That's all you could say if you saw him run. The first time the new buyer saw him he just said, "Wow! I'll take him." His trainer was hired and an exercise rider as well. They beg...

The Young Man And The Sage

Long ago in a land of the ancients there was a young man walking. Walking through a place dark with poverty, famine, disease, and evil. The young man was poor and destitute. He was gaunt and frail ...

Home Is Where The Heart Is

It's always strange when you are in a place that's not your home. Home can mean a lot of things to a lot of people but home has always been, for us anyway,(my wife and I), where we and our kids are...