Eyes are the Mirrors of the Soul

Today I'll talk about two people you might or might not know. The one in the first photo is me. I was 46 and I was auditioning for some plays and commercials that year. It's a head shot from my contact sheet. When we got married, Tom kept it on his night table so I was the first thing he saw in the morning, whether I was there or not.  The poem below he wrote about my eyes the year before he died.

ICICLE

Icicle, Icicle, burning bright,

light of mystery, light of delight.

What is the fire I see,

burning bright, burning true?

Do you love me, as I love you?

Can there be true fire in eyes so blue?

Hush, sweet crystal eyes.

I hold you now, sleep through the night.

Icicle, icicle – eyes that delight,

first green, then violet, then blue.

Will love that burns with such

sweet passion, stay forever true?

First you see me, then I see you.

I stroke your heart, and the fires flame.

Then they flicker violet, or is it blue?

If I should fall in love this night, I blame you.

Thomas Carmack Rice

This is Tom when he got his BA in playwriting and directing. You can't see those amazing, sapphire blue eyes, but you can see that wild, red hair! Below the picture is the poem I wrote about his eyes the same year he wrote the one about mine.

THOSE EYES

Those eyes have seen a lifetime of pain and hurt,

yet returned only kindness and understanding.

Those eyes have seen a world that looked so bad,

and still managed to pick out the hidden good.

Those eyes have seen the hopelessness in humans,

but found a way to give them a glimpse of hope.

Those eyes have seen my mind, my heart, my soul,

and joined lockstep in the eternal dance of love.

Karen Mabry Rice

George and Sophia

                                       Grandmother and Grandaddy Smith

                                                Two Sweethearts on a Rock

As I recently said, I’ve blogged about everything under the sun, and now I’m starting with my family. This is my grandfather, George Sidney Smith, and my grandmother, Sophia Kathleen Chastain Smith, sitting on a giant granite boulder at the Wichita Wildlife Refuge north of Lawton, Oklahoma. This picture was taken in the spring of 1916 when my mother graduated from Porter High School, just north of the Smith farm, and just south of Altus, Oklahoma. They loaded up the senior class (all 6 of them!) in the buckboard and drove the team to the Wichitas for a picnic. Grandmother fried the chicken and made the potato salad the night before. I’m sure Grandaddy took along a dutch oven and baked some sourdough biscuits. He was the master of sourdough biscuits, having begun his cowboy career as “Little Mary,” the cook’s helper. You can see they took their shoes off for the climb. Grandmother grew up wearing high button shoes and always had to have something with a bit of a heel. Grandaddy grew up wearing cowboy boots and had the same problem.

They met at the annual May picnic at the Doans Store, pictured above. The Doans crossing is where the cowboys forded the Red River to take their herds up to Dodge City, Kansas, to sell. Grandaddy had many stories to tell of the wild and wooly days of Dodge City. He didn’t like Wyatt Earp, having watched him pistol whip a cowboy nearly to death on Front Street. He didn’t like Bat Masterson either. The kindest thing he had to say about Masterson was that he was a whoremaster. He did have a great deal of respect for Marshal Bill Tilghman of the Oklahoma Territory.

The picture above was taken on the Smith farm, probably by my mother with the red Brownie box camera Grandaddy gave her for graduation. You can see Grandaddy was happy holding his fat grandbabies in his lap in his old wooden rocker. That solemn critter on the left is me. The happy lad on the right is my cousin Billy (William Charles Smith, Jr., named after his father, third of the Smith children. My mother was the second, and Aunt Opal the first.) Opal was the only one born in Texas, at the home of Grandmother’s parents, William Edgar Chastain and his second wife, Rosa. At the time, Grandaddy was the foreman of J. R. Sumner’s Rocking Chair ranch.

That’s all for now. I won’t bore you with more, because I’m writing their life story, and I’d like you to buy the book.

Karen Mabry Rice
Author of Ghost Walk
Soon to be published by
4rv Publishing, LLC
Of Edmond, Oklahoma

Yipppee-ayo-kai-yeah!!!

I've blogged about my pets, my family, just about everything in the world but the horses I've known and loved. The first photo is of me (age 2 1/2), my great uncle Charley Smith, and my grandaddy, George Sidney Smith. Uncle Charley was born in Saxony, Germany. His real name was Karl Wilhelm Schmidt. So was their sister, Katerina Schmidt. Grandaddy was the first person in his family born in America. Both of them were real, honest-to-God, working cowboys.  I'm sitting on Choklit, the brown and white pinto pony they bought for all the Smith grandkids to ride. Mamma wasn't happy. (she took the picture) Grandmother was happy. She loved to ride horses (side saddle!). Grandaddy, Uncle Charley, and I were as happy as three ducks in a room full of June bugs. I was just impatient and ready to ride with the wind blowing through my hair. The picture was taken in Uncle Charley's front yard in Wilbarger County, Texas. He was a widower who had married his boss's daughter, inherited the ranch, and struck oil before the war, so he could pretty much do what he darn well pleased. By the way, the photo was taken in 1945 when the war was almost over.

The next photo is well after the war. It was taken in 1949 when I was seven years old, and we are at the Altus, Oklahoma train yard getting ready to ride in the Fouth of July rodeo parade. Uncle Charley was always asked to carry the American flag in all the rodeo parades around. He was very proud of his American citizenship. He was naturalized during WWI, when they were killing so many Germans. Grandaddy bought a gun during that war for the same reason. A six-shooter, it was the first gun he ever owned. My cousin Monty owns it now. He inherited it from my youngest uncle, Carl, (named after Uncle Charley) who was too young to be in WWII. 

I was proud to ride in the parade with my Uncle Charley. I was born in Altus, Oklahoma, July 30, 1942. The horse we're on is named Silver. He lived to be 21 years old, and starved himself to death, grieving when Uncle Charley died in 1952. Horses are amazing people.
By the way, those hats we're all wearing are genuine Stetsons, and the boots custom made in Nocona, Texas.
Signing off for now,
Karen Mabry Rice, aka Min Cotton (the protagonist in my mystery novel Ghost Walk)
Soon to be published by 4rvPublishing, LLC, of Edmond, Oklahoma.

Canine Utopia

I'd like you to meet the newest member of our pack. Though lowest in the pecking order, Shepherd is a real top dog, and he knows it. He's a three year old purebred short haired Chihuahua.  A nice couple who live not too far away rescued him from an abusive home a few years ago. They are getting out of the Chihuahua breeding business, so Shepherd got to come live with us.  The shots below are of Shepherd and his buddy Freckles, whom you've met before. As you can't plainly see, they are both dressed to the nines. In the first pic they are napping on my sweater. In the second, the scarf is a hand-me-down from Freckles. I haven't had time to make Shep any of his own.

Freckles & Shep

Shepherd, the Manly Man



Those giant hands holding little Sheppie belong to my grandson, Ethan. Since he came to live with us we adopted Shep for him.  It wasn't the yellow Lab he wanted, but the dog food bill is a lot lower! LOL. Welcome to the pack, Shep.