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Today would have been Lady Bird Johnson’s 100th birthday. In honor of her and the season, we wanted to share one of Lady Bird’s Christmas recollections, as told to Michael Gillette in Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History.

ENTERTAINING AT THE RANCH

As the first Christmas at the ranch approached, it was wonderful in a way, but we really hadn’t gotten the house fixed up very much. But we put a wreath on the front gate. We had all the family, and Lyndon assumed the role of paterfamilias. I guess it was just a few days before Christmas that we got everybody out there. Of course, the queen of the occasion—for Lyndon and for me, too—was his mama, but from the remaining children of Lyndon’s father’s siblings, all of those that were still living were there. There were at least three generations there. I think there were twenty-one of us in all. Lyndon sat at the big table that had arrived. All the leaves were put in. We had rolls of pictures made.

Did this family gathering reminded him of earlier ones when he was a youth growing up?

Oh, you know it had to be, and I’m sure that was exactly why he wanted to do it. He remembered all of those, and he wanted to assume the role and gather the clan. I just wish I had done better by it and had had the house all aglow with flowers and fat, comfortable furniture. There was our rather bedraggled-looking Christmas tree, which the children and I actually decorated together. It didn’t profit too much from our inexpert fingers. Then we took pictures by the front door, which had a wreath on it, too. It was a big picture-taking session, and I cherish every one.

My own family came to spend Thanksgiving with us at the ranch in 1953. Daddy and his wife, Ruth; my brother Tommy; and Sarah, his wife. Tony, the one with whom I felt the closet affinity of all, and Matiana. There were our children, sitting down crossed-legged, on the grounds in front of us, in the front yard of the ranch. I’m a little bit too plump, which doesn’t speak well for me. There’s a warmth in looking back and seeing Tommy’s and Tony’s faces, even if it is the occasion of a great big deer hunt and they have their kill propped up in front of them, and in seeing Daddy with his three children by the fi replace. I’m glad they shared this old house with us some.

Michael L. Gillette directed the LBJ Library’s Oral History Program from 1976 to 1991. He later served as director of the Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives and is currently the executive director of Humanities Texas in Austin. He is the author of Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History and Launching the War on Poverty: An Oral History.

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Image credit: From the Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History, Original in the LBJ Library. Public domain.

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May Contain Spoilers

From Amazon:

Review:

This was a fun read because of the role reversals.  Cole, a widower, has withdrawn from risk after his wife dies in a tragic accident.  He doesn’t condone dangerous behavior in any form, and he shelters his young daughter from all possible harm.  When he purchases Turner Grain Corporation, he is appalled to discover that he is now the unhappy sponsor of a bull rider.  A female bull rider at that!  Determined to buy out her contract, Cole and Florentine shoot sparks from their very first encounter.  He doesn’t want to send a message to Sarah, his daughter, that he supports stupid, dangerous behavior.  Little does he know that he’s met his match in Florentine.

Florentine is just as determined to make it in the male world of bull riding.  She wants to make it to the top, so she can mentor disadvantaged girls, proving to them that anything is possible with the right attitude.  When handsome Cole shows up demanding that she release him from her contract, she gets a major bug up her butt.   Cole grated on both my nerves and Florentine’s with his unwillingness to see her side of things.  While I don’t think that trying to ride a large, pissed off beast is very intelligent, I had to at least give her props for sticking to her guns and going after what she wanted.  I would have been more comfortable with her career choice had she donned proper safety gear, you know, a helmet  and a face mask, but then she probably wouldn’t have suffered from a concussion, which set up their courtship at Florentine’s family’s ranch.

While I would have liked more time on the rodeo circuit, I did enjoy meeting the McDougal clan.  Florentine comes from a large family, and they exert a great deal of influence over their small town.  Florentine developed her desire to help others while growing up on the large cattle ranch and watching her father give generously of his time and money.  I liked this.  Everyone was nice; there are no douchebags in Rodeo Rebel, no real bad guys to get ticked off at.  Instead, you have a family that cares for each other, and an emotionally remote, seriously uptight dude who doesn’t know what’s just hit him.  Cole is extremely slow on the uptake, and that frustrated me about him. 

Yaks! (Photo credit: bdearth)

Yes, we are having a heat wave here in NW Montana. It hit 87° F. here today while we were out on photo safari. That’s rare for mid-May up here.

Today’s safari took us to places we don’t frequent often, to see what was available for the lens and the Muse. We visited The Garden of the Thousand Buddha’s down in Arlee before moving west. It’s a Buddhist temple area sitting on the Flathead Indian Reservation. The Garden is coming along, though inclement weather isn’t doing it any favors in exposed areas around the central huge Buddha.

A bison roaming about at the National Bison Range in Montana (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most people suspect that we have bison ranches. In fact, we have the National Bison Range just southwest of the town of Charlo. Did you know that we have ranches running musk oxen and yak? Yep. We scouted out one such ranch down in the Camas Prairie area of Sanders County.

Along the way, we picnicked along the Flathead River and watched kayakers braving deep spring run-off waters. Osprey fished along those same turquoise waters, daring bald eagles to infringe on nesting territories.

Squirrels warned off those who came too close and pileated woodpeckers took their time with smaller trees a few yards from the car. Young quaking aspens waved at us, not having aged enough to rustle in the breeze. Smoke from a suspected new wild fire in the mountain range south of Highway 200 filled the valley with tension; not uncommon, merely early in the season.

Overall, it was a good day.

11 Comments on You’ve Got to be Kidding, last added: 5/17/2012

May Contain Spoilers

From Amazon:

Review:

I loved Kelly Hunter’s The Man She Loves to Hate, so I was exciting to learn that she self-published a novella.  I didn’t even sample it before I plunked down my hard earned $1.50, either, which I never do when I am buying books for my Kindle.  I love the ability to preview a story before I commit myself to buying it, but because I loved the author’s Harlequin so much, I skipped the exploratory stage.  I was going into this story with both guns locked and loaded!  I was happy with the results.

Billie Temple has tried to make a happy life for her son Cal, and when she is given the opportunity to move away from Sydney to the country, she jumps at the chance.  She doesn’t like having Cal live above the bar she manages in the city, so when she is offered a chance to manage a bar in safer surroundings, it’s like the answer to her prayers.  Until she meets Adam Kincaid, the gruff rancher who owns the small house she’s renting.  Adam thought that Billie was a man, and he’s not happy to learn that she’s a woman, and that she’s got a young boy in tow.  It’s not safe in country.  There are snakes, storms, and frequent power outages.  Too bad for Adam that Billie is every bit as stubborn as he is, and she refuses to be chased away from her new home.

I liked this short, compelling romance about two people finding a second chance at love.  Both Adam and Billie have had to deal with the death of their partners, and neither one of them is looking for another relationship.  Billie has Cal to deal with, and Adam is still fighting the ghosts of his late wife and child.  Second chances at finding happiness is one of my favorite romance tropes, and I thought this one was done well enough that my not so favorite romance trope – friends with benefits- didn’t bother me all that much.  I didn’t totally buy into Billie going along with that, either, because she has been so cautious with her child-rearing. She has done everything in her power to keep Cal shielded from the more unpleasant and more unsavory aspects of life, so it didn’t ring entirely true that she would risk so much by having no-strings attached sex with Adam.  Even if he is as sexy as sin.

One thing that I did find occasionally distracting was the use of Australian slang.  I mentioned on GoodReads that I had no idea what a chook was until I read Wish, and I don’t commonly hear trucks being referred to as utes.  There were several sentences that drew me up short, because the language sounded so strange to my American ears.  Since I don’t read many books that haven’t already had a once over by US editors, I found this interesting, though sometimes it slowed my reading because I had to re-read a passage here and there to understand the odd to my ears language.

Wish is a short, sexy read, and I’m looking forward to reading more of Kelly Hunter’s books.  She’s an auto-buy now, whether the book is self-pubbed or not.  This was a fun experim

Waiting in hole-in-the-wall taqueria’s…. …for food like this. That’s a sope. It’s a rare find, even in South Texas! Sunday drives in the country where you see the likes of this… And this: Whimsy on a fence post (No, I left him there)… Down town Corpus Christi at play: Pretty Sunsets:

Ever been adopted by an animal? I have, many times. Don't know why. Must be my peaceful nature -- if you know me, that's making you chuckle. In recent months, I've been claimed by a wild cat. He has lived on my ranch since he was a very small kitten. Someone saw a ranch and threw him out. It's a miracle he survived the coyotes, the birds of prey, the bobcats, and the assortment of dogs who roam. He's always been illusive. He'd play in the yard, and hightail it into the trees if I went outside. Or he'd nap beside the woodpile, and vanish when my work took me too near his safety zone. He's survived cold freezing snowy winters. He's beat starvation and dehydration in a land that can be unforgiving. And now he's decided I'm his person. One day he was sleeping on my tractor, which is his favorite sleeping location. While I swept the porch he woke up, ambled over, and began chatting. It was meow this, meow that, meow, meow, meow. He had years of stories, which he shared. I sat in a big rocking chair, and he jumped into my lap and continued his stories. I fetched him a bowl of milk and a can of tuna. He's made a home on the porch. Has his own bed now, his own bowls which are always full, and he seems quite happy to have found a person worth adopting. I am honored.