Thanksgiving Poem by John Yaws

It is the time of year, I guess-
When folks start thinking back.
Evaluating lives they've lived,
A way of keeping track.

A time, they say, for giving thanks...
I have my share to give.
Not many people that I know,
Have lived the life I've lived.

I grew up in the sixties...
Free love, and hippy days.
A country boy, I never fit...
Those liberal, protest ways.

Vietnam was my war...
It's infamy still lives...
A lot of men whom I called friend,
Gave all a man could give.

The great Southwest...and bunkhouse days...
A drifting tumble weed.
A cowboy was the life I chose,
One of a dying breed.

Rodeo, and riding jobs-
Were how I spent my life.
Until the time I wooed and wed,
The girl I call my wife.

Thirty-two and counting pard...
Sometimes the roads been rough.
But neither of us ever quite...
Felt that we'd had enough.

We raised three kids, a site of hell...
Sometimes the rides were rank.
But we held on, and just for that-
I owe the good Lord, Thanks.