OPINION — The line stretched across the parking lot of the funeral home, despite the drizzling rain and forty-degree temperature. People in mildly uncomfortable clothes they didn’t wear often, because they rarely dressed up. Some knew each other well, some barely, some not at all. They shivered and visited cordially, quietly, waiting for the line to dwindle so they could escape the cold.
He’d passed on a few days before, in the process of pulling a calf reluctant to leave its mother’s warm body and enter an icy pasture. Heart attack, they said. He’d had some heart trouble, but then he was almost an octogenarian. A strong constitution and a healthy outdoor lifestyle rife with the exercise of honest labor had borne him along for seventy-nine years, but no one lives forever.
Kenny was a rancher, and one of the friendliest and kindest Christian men I’ve ever known. He left a wife of fifty-seven years, three grown daughters, and a slew of grand- and great grandkids. I met him a decade ago, but knew him immediately, because I grew up among such men. Salt of the earth stewards of the land, men who would give you their last dollar if you needed it, who never met a stranger, who accepted the bad with the good and never gave up. And now I had to eulogize this man, this friend, condense a life of hard work and sacrifice and faith and relationship into fifteen short minutes of inadequate blather that would be forgotten before sundown. A painful, humbling honor.
Kenny Sites was a rancher, and one of the friendliest and kindest Christian men I’ve ever known.
The night before, as I wondered what I could say that would pay the slightest tribute to a man who had been loved and admired by all who knew him, I thought of Paul Harvey’s speech at the 1978 Future Farmers of America convention, ‘So God made a farmer.’ I decided to borrow some of that speech in an attempt to do what paltry justice I could to the men and women who spend their lives raising crops and livestock to feed the rest of us.
And on the eighth day, God looked down on the world he had made, with its streams and valleys and cattle and horses and crops and said, ‘This place will fall apart without a caretaker.’ So God made a rancher.
God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, doctor sick calves, check cattle all day, eat supper, and then drive to town and stay past midnight at a school board meeting.’ So God made a rancher.
God said, ‘I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild, somebody who can dig ditches, climb windmills, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting church ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon, and mean it.’ So God made a rancher.
God said, ‘I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a new foal, and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, Maybe next year. I need somebody who can fit a persimmon axe handle with a piece of glass, shoe a horse with a roofing hatchet, make a harness out of baling wire, feed sacks, and old boot tops; who, during calving season, will put in a forty-hour week by Tuesday evening, have his wife rub Ben-gay on his back, and put in another seventy-two.’ So God made a rancher.
God said, ‘I need somebody who will plant hay grazer knowing there will be too little rain to make it grow and too much to get it cut, who can fix anything from a flat tire to a tractor axle, and then come to the house in the evening dead tired and still read a story book to his three-year-old. Somebody who can pull a calf and set a post and tie a ribbon in his daughter’s hair.’ So God made a rancher.
God said, ‘I need somebody with eyes sharp enough to notice a cow limping on the other side of the pasture, but dull enough to overlook the faults of his fellowman. Somebody with hands like leather, hands rough enough to chop ice from a water trough, and stretch bobwire without gloves, and dig postholes and pull weeds, but dexterous enough to tie his sons shoes, and brush his daughter’s hair. I need someone with a back stiff enough to stand up to hard winters, stingy bankers, and tightwad cattle buyers, but limber enough not to break against the lean years.’ So God made a rancher.
God said, ‘I need somebody who knows how to open a line of credit, shut a gate, wipe his feet before he comes in the house, admit when he’s wrong, and most of all, when to keep his mouth shut. Somebody who treats his children with love, his wife like a queen, and everyone else with respect. Somebody who will laugh at a friend’s joke that isn’t funny, cry over the death of a dog that chewed up his favorite boots, and keeps his word no matter what.’ So God made a rancher.
God said, ‘I need somebody who will care for the land and the creatures that live on it, not like they’re his own, but like they’re mine. Somebody who will cultivate and fertilize and improve the fields and pastures so they’re left in better shape when he’s gone, so the next generation will have something to be proud of. And above all, he needs to be willing to work for free, just hoping to break even in this life, knowing his reward is coming in the next.’ So God made a rancher.
Annette and Kenny Sites circa 1960s
Ronald Reagan once said that although a lot of people go through life wondering if they’ve made a difference, US Marines don’t have that problem, and I’m sure that’s true. But George Patton said an army travels on its stomach. So while we owe our military a debt we can never repay, they couldn’t do their job without the farmers and ranchers who feed all of us.
Ronald Reagan (above) once said that although a lot of people go through life wondering if they’ve made a difference, US Marines don’t have that problem, and I’m sure that’s true.
Kenny loved what he did, and died doing it. That’s probably more than most of us should expect . . .
Kendal Hemphill is an outdoor humor columnist and minister. Write to him at [email protected]
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