Top Shelf Ink

Some things just run in the family. Like freckles, for instance. Personality traits, too. And horsemanship. Or, in the case of Lynn Saunders’ family, horsewomanship.

Saunders, her daughter, Denny Ralls, and 14-year-old granddaughter, Deven Riggins, share something many families share, a love of horses. But it’s what this three generation team does with horses that makes their story unique. All three women barrel race — against each other.

The story begins with Saunders, who by her early childhood was telling anyone who cared to ask she was going to be a jockey. (More….)

Enriching Your Prayer Life through Contemplative Prayer

“Be still and know that I am God,” the Lord tells us. Oh, how I long to follow that directive, but how? Ironically, at a time when we have more conveniences and technological advances than ever, we also have more demands on our time than ever. Do I even know how to be still? Does anyone? Growing up an evangelical protestant, I had a full understanding of  prayer, and I have always gained much peace from my prayer life. But it’s always been  me, talking to God conversationally, as I would to a friend. Is that kind of prayer, called discursive, really being still? God tells us to meditate on his goodness and the psalmist writes, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing unto you, O God.” (more…)

With gas prices topping more than four dollars a gallon and predicted to hit five bucks before summer’s end, people are looking for ways to alleviate the pump pain. Sure, you could get on the six-month waiting list for a Prius or Civic Hybrid and drop 25,000 dollars to get 50 miles to the gallon, but if you think about it, that 25,000 dollars could buy a lot of gas. On Monday, both the Today Show and Good Morning America had spots about the real cost of hybrids with the general consensus being that it would take about two-to-five years or more (depending on whether you’re buying a small hybrid or the SUV variety) to break even. In the meantime, hopefully, gas prices will settle down.

So, what if you don’t have a cool 25-grand to drop on a new, eco-friendly ride? Don’t despair; saving money on gas isn’t a science, it’s a discipline. If you’re willing to exercise a little self-discipline and make a few sacrifices, these five simple tips will beef up your bottom line and take some of the sting out of the summer price hike.

• Carpool  In 2005, the US Census Bureau found that 9 out of 10 workers drove cars to work and 77-percent of those drove alone. A little basic math will tell you that if you drive 10 miles to work and 10 miles back, and your car gets 20 miles to the gallon, at 4.00 per gallon, you’re spending 20.00 a week in gas alone. That’s 1,040 dollars per year, not including the extra costs involved in maintaining your car, like oil changes, tire maintenance, fuel filters, etc. Websites like rideshare.com and erideshare.com can help you find people to carpool with, or check the bulletin board in the breakroom at work. The more people you carpool with, the more you save. As a bonus, carpooling reduces carbon gas emissions, reducing the amount of greenhouse gas in the air. Besides, those 30-minute traffic jams don’t seem so long when you have people to talk to!

• Streamline Your Errand Days  Look for ways to organize your trips so that you aren’t running out to the store several times a day, or even several times a week. Plan a week’s menu, make a shopping list, and get all your groceries in one place. I knew a woman who went to three or four different grocery stores on her shopping day to get the best buys. In today’s economy, you’ll spend your grocery savings on the gas it takes to go to three different stores. Plan your errands and shopping trips so that you take a logical route that doesn’t have you backtracking across town, and try to take care of everything you need to do that week all on the same day.

• Smooth and Steady  Sudden starts and stops waste fuel and cause your engine to work harder than necessary. Discipline yourself to accelerate smoothly and come to a coasting stop when you see a stoplight or stop sign ahead. Also, some drivers have a tendency to constantly change their foot pressure on the gas pedal. Not only are you likely to make your passengers car sick, you’ll burn extra fuel. Keep a steady pressure on the accelerator and don’t rest your left foot on the brake pedal. This causes drag that makes your engine use extra gas to compensate.

• Check Your Air Pressure  Under-inflating your tires may provide a smoother ride, but it actually wears out your tread faster and causes your car to burn more gasoline. Inflate your tires by about 10 pounds over what your owner’s manual prescribes to save on gas and give your tires a longer lifespan.

• Use Your Cruise Control Driving 65 miles per hour, instead of 70, will save about 10-percent on fuel usage. Set your cruise control and avoid getting behind slow moving cars, so you aren’t speeding up and slowing down continually. Keep a steady pace with your windows rolled up and air conditioner on. Having your windows down on the highway causes a strong wind drag that demands more fuel.

If you turn south at Caddo, Texas, onto the dirt road there and follow that road as far as it goes, you will come to The Homeplace. At least that’s what my father has always called it. He grew up there, and his father did, too. To go there is to journey into my family’s past. It’s taking a break from the hyper-cyber world and stepping into a sepia-toned movie vignette. The props are all there, but the actors live only in our memories.

The road leading up to the rusty cattle guard winds through thick cedar trees intermixed here and there with scrub oak and mesquite. Limbs brush the sides of the pickup as you go. The log house you come to first fell down a few years ago. A colossal rock chimney stands over the collapsed structure, and even the chimney is ready to crumble into the past as it strains against the chain that holds it at a tilted angle. Behind the house sits a water well, covered and dry now, a derelict wagon and silent barns.

The scene was not always so devoid of life. My great-grandfather, Dave Mitchell, made boots and shoes in this two-story homestead at the turn of the century. I close my eyes and imagine how different it must have been in the late 1800s when the house bustled with activity…

In 1972, under the cover of darkness, Jose Antonio Dapelo V. and six other men crept along the Peruvian coastline to a neighboring ranch where, night after night, they stole a total sixty head of horses and a large number of dairy cattle and premier fighting bulls. Was this a cutthroat band of Peruvian rustlers? Hardly. Prior to 1968, Jose was heralded as one of the wealthiest, most powerful property barons in Peru, owning numerous brick factories, ranches and department stores. He raised the best fighting bulls, at times hosting competitions in his own arena. He owned over 200 head of the most beautiful Peruvian Horses and was a legend in the show arena, performing for dignitaries and heads of state. But in 1968, with the Agrarian Reform in full swing, the government began confiscating property from the wealthy, and in a socialistic attempt to spread the wealth, redistributed it to the poor. By 1972, Jose and his family were left with a mere 15 acres. His two sons, the family chauffeur, their two horse trainers and the ranch manager helped him steal their own herds back…

On Thursday, May 15th, the Texas senate passed Bill 1031, which may very well put an end to what has become an exercise in fear and stress for tens of thousands of students across the state — the TAKS test as we know it. While in theory, the TAKS, spawned by The No Child Left Behind Act, was a brilliant concept, in practice, well….let’s just say it didn’t quite meet benchmarks. (more…)

My father is dying. These words are the first thing in my head every morning when I wake up now. Six months ago, I awoke to “my mother is dying” rolling around in my head each morning. In a  short time, I’ll be parentless. I don’t want to say I’ll be an orphan because, really, I won’t be. I think of an orphan as a waif, a helpless child. No, I had 44 years with two amazing parents, and while so many of my friends have told me of sad, loveless, even horrific childhoods, I was so blessed. And even though I’m all grown up, I’m just not ready for that parental blessing in my life to stop.

Forty-four years isn’t enough. Most people my age have parents in their sixties. But mine were already approaching middle age when I was born. My sisters and brother got to have our parents longer — 55, 6o years. But I had them to myself. My siblings had quantity of time, but I had quality of time. By the time I was eight, the youngest of my older sisters had married, and I was suddenly an only child in a very large family. I had the best of both worlds. Unlimited personal time with my parents and center-stage attention from my adult sisters and brother. (more…)

Note taking is practically mandatory if you want to be successful in college and, unfortunately, most professors expect that students learned how to take notes in high school. However, in reality, very few freshman are effective note takers. The skill is simply not emphasized enough at the high school level. As a result, many college students use voice recorders to capture their instructor’s lectures, but depending on playback alone is a recipe for disaster. It’s too easy to let your mind wander when you listen to the playback, and one technological malfunction could erase the whole lecture. (more…)

“I don’t know what my purpose is now,” my 83-year-old father told me a few weeks after my mom passed away. Fighting cancer and taking chemo, already in the early stages of dementia, he had managed to hold it together to take care of her for as long as she needed him. And she had needed him for 64 years.

Now, he seems to have let go. The dementia has multiplied exponentially, and there are days we have to tell him Mamma’s gone. It’s like he’s finding out for the first time, and the pain is terrible.  I think alot about that day he sat on my deck and told me he didn’t have a purpose anymore. (more…)

Like the commercial says, “Life comes at you fast.” Take tonight for example. My seventeen-year-old daughter comes in my bedroom and very casually says, “Hey, did you see on the national news this week that a kid at my high school was arrested Tuesday for bringing a gun to school? No, actually, I hadn’t seen that. And why was I just now hearing it from her? Well, because she’s seventeen, and she tells me things when she thinks about them. They usually come in the order of importance to her:  Boyfriend News, Dance Team News, Shopping Adventure News, Grades and Teacher News and, oh yeah, The Kid that Sits Next To Me in Economics Was Arrested for Having a Gun Shoved in His Pants News. Literally. This boy sits beside her in their economics class and on the day he was arrested for having a 9mm shoved into his waistband, there he was, sitting beside my daughter.  Gossiping, flirting. Doing the things teenage boys do at school, all the while with the cold steel of a gun pressed against his belly.

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