I was born on January 30, 1946, in Brady, Texas. My earliest years unfolded seventeen miles outside of Brady, on a farm in Lohn, Texas — a place where the land was as unforgiving as it was familiar. The farmhouse was cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and the rhythm of life was set by work, weather, and whatever the land would give back.
Those years fell in the middle of a seven‑year drought that pressed down on everything — crops, tempers, and marriages. My father, Hardy, worked the land with the kind of determination that comes from not having any other choice. Day after day, he fought against soil that refused to yield and skies that refused to open. As the drought dragged on, something in him began to fray. The fields weren’t the only things drying up; so was his hope.
He found escape in drinking, often with friends who were fighting their own losing battles with the land. Those nights rarely ended well. He would come home drunk, anger simmering just beneath the surface, and the tension in the house would thicken like the summer heat. My mother, Marie, bore the brunt of it. The children learned early to read the sound of footsteps on the porch, to measure danger by the way a door opened, and to stay quiet when the air felt charged.
The marriage strained under the weight of too many disappointments and too little relief. The drought didn’t just kill crops; it eroded the foundation of our family. Arguments grew sharper, silences grew longer, and the house that had once held the noise of six people began to feel like a place where everyone was holding their breath.
Eventually, the marriage collapsed. It didn’t happen all at once — it was more like watching a fence fall apart board by board. But when it finally gave way, it marked the end of one life and the beginning of another, though I didn’t understand that at the time. I only knew that the world I had been born into — the farm, the drought, the tension, the fragile hope — was changing, and nothing would ever be quite the same again.