by Jack Ballard
HEAD TRIP
Presents and Pronghorn Antelope, rifles and other gifts of the heart
G
rowing up as one of many siblings on a family ranch impacts one’s life in many ways. Beyond acquiring an overly compulsive work ethic, learning how to cram six children and two adults into a 1969 Dodge Polara, and developing a keen appreciation for fresh milk, eggs and meat, other, subtler factors influenced my being. Take birthdays for example. Entering the world less than a week before Christmas has its disadvantages, espe-
cially in a family where the mother toils 14 hours a day to manage her share of the ranch work, tailors shirts from scratch and feeds a clamoring horde of youngsters without the aid of Chef Boyardee or a microwave. My birthday, always combined with Christmas, was lost in the shuffle. The last memorable birthday present on the ranch west of Three Forks came around the ninth anniversary of my untimely arrival. It was an oil-fired lantern with a broad, woven
wick and shiny blue paint, an eminently practical present for a boy who did his after-school chores in the dark on the abbreviated days of winter. Sometimes there was a cake, sometimes not. A keen anticipation of Christmas more than compensated for the lack of celebratory zeal related to my birthday as a child, so I was mystified later in life when adult friends informed me that birthdays ought to spawn the most heartfelt festivities of the year. The
excitement continues to elude me. I have no day-to-day sense of my actual age. When asked, I usually stop to calculate the span on earth based upon my birth year. More problematic is my seemingly ceaseless inability to remember the requisite cards and presents expected to accompany the birthdays of others, a factor that has frequently sullied past romantic relationships. In the tradition of Freudian projection, laziness
Jack Ballard