When I took this teaching gig that was supposed to last one year and now I am going on year 5, I bought an office chair for the ag building. \u00a0A few fat ass seniors broke the back of that comfy chair two years ago. \u00a0A senior last year patched it together. \u00a0But this once comfortable chair is now toast.<\/p>\n
So, my teaching partner, the Dragon Lady and myself traveled to Enid today to find Mrs. Abbey an office chair and myself a chair. \u00a0We ended up at Staples. \u00a0They had a wide selection, in all price ranges and colors. \u00a0I sat in every single chair. \u00a0Test drive, if you will. \u00a0(I got thrown out of a awl mart years ago for test driving bicycles. \u00a0I could try on underwear, but test drive a bicycle\u2026no, no)<\/p>\n
While I was sitting in the chair that I ended up buying, an older gentleman was strolling through the store and was also looking at office chairs. \u00a0He wore a cowboy hat, boots, buckle and was chewing on a cigar. \u00a0We talked briefly about office chairs. \u00a0He had one at the ranch that the upholstery was wore out and it was cheaper to buy a new one than get it fixed.<\/p>\n
This man sat down in a chair that I highly recommended and we began to talk. \u00a0He asked where I was from. \u00a0I told him Shattuck. \u00a0He said that he had a friend that used to live south of Shattuck and now lives in Arnett. \u00a0I know her. \u00a0I told him that I grew up showing calves with her kids and actually had her granddaughter in class.<\/p>\n
He asked what I taught. \u00a0Told him Ag-Ed. \u00a0He then told me that his best memories were growing up in the 4H club. \u00a0He was even getting ready to donate land to the local 4H club. \u00a0The doctor that is his fence neighbor wants to buy the land, but no, he is just going to donate it. \u00a0“He has enough land and I want to give it to somebody because I can.”<\/p>\n
We then began a conversation about judging livestock. \u00a0He told stories about winning some little contest in Chicago back in the late 50s. \u00a0He even won a pen\/pencil set for being high individual. \u00a0He then went to the great cow college in Stillwater, OK and majored in Animal Husbandry. \u00a0He was on the livestock judging team there but he got in a little bit of trouble and they had to remove him from the team. \u00a0He said that it worked out because it let a kid from Leedey, OK move on to the traveling team. \u00a0He said, “That kid went on to operate a heckuva bank out in western Oklahoma.” \u00a0I said that I know that man.<\/p>\n
The women walked off and left the two of us sitting in office chairs in Staples. \u00a0We then talked about feedlots, Boone Pickens, horses, government trade wars, goats, grain prices, the ag collapse of the 80s and the importance of 4H and FFA. \u00a0He had a couple of brood mares that he didn’t have the registration papers on, so he was buying a notebook so that he could write down the pedigrees so that he didn’t forget them. \u00a0Not one time did I get a sense that this guy was full of crap. \u00a0Just a guy looking at an office chair that found somebody willing to talk and listen. \u00a0I hope that he felt the same way when he left.<\/p>\n
We exchanged pleasantries, shook hands and he headed to the checkout. \u00a0I then bought two office chairs for our classroom.<\/p>\n
Without a doubt, this was the best 30 plus minutes that I have ever spent in an office chair in Staples in Enid, OK. \u00a0As I drove westward towards home, I spent a lot of time thinking about that conversation. \u00a0Nothing more, just thinking. \u00a0All in all, I think that I will call this a good day. \u00a0Actually, a damn good day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I took this teaching gig that was supposed to last one year and now I am going on year 5, I bought an office chair for the ag building. \u00a0A few fat ass seniors broke the back of that comfy chair two years ago. \u00a0A senior last year patched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2379,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378\/revisions\/2379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}