It is in my genes...

Yesterday I did get my Christmas early. It is a new weapon. We went into the new Big R store in Conifer for the grand opening and I finally found the handgun that I really can get excited about, after years of pondering and looking. And I did punish the boys with it in our target practice. But that is not what this blog post is about, not really.

I mentioned the background check on my FB wall and got an interesting thread that included me and my cousin, Jennie, discussing our handgun choices and her husband's recommendations (he is in law enforcement). This led to the following post, from another cousin, David Price..."The conversation between Jennie and Cynthia reminds me of the advice given by Great Grandma Estella Harmon to her oldest son Jack when he left home to work on a ranch in Cokeville. "Watch out for those wild Cokeville girls". That blood runs true..."

David said the very thing that would mean most to me in the world. Nothing could be more wonderful to me than to be one of "those wild Cokeville girls". I would love to think that I could emulate my grandma, Lydia, who saved all of the other women at the hunting camp one year by disposing of a pesky porcupine! These are the stories I grew up with. These are the great women who raised me. A bunch of wild Cokeville girls. (And of course, the refined Afton gentlewoman who offered that warning, my Great Grandma Mary Estella Brown Harmon, my hero.) I want to be like these women, the women who carved out a life in what was essentially wilderness. I want to be able to take care of those around me with such fortitude and reflex as the women from whom I am descended. They seldom had the luxury of pondering and weighing and journaling a decision, they just had to act and they very rarely gave their choices a second thought. I need better reflexes.

However, I have pondered and studied this for many years. I have come to believe that these "reflexes" are in me. They are somewhat atrophied and rusty from lack of use. But I truly do think that we carry some or even much inherited memory that allows us to build and grow on previous generations. Yes, as my friend Helen and I frequently discuss, along with those positives, come the carried forward negatives as well and it is up to us to be a cleansing generation, as much as we are able, for the negatives. But we, or at least I, need to really consider the inherited memories or reflexes that are mine and utilize them more fully. In fact, I have even come to believe that as we work to eliminate the negatives from the past generations and utilize the positives that carry forth in each of us, that those who have passed on are engaged in the fight with us and will be there to carry us and help us along.

May we all strive to utilize fully all that we have been offered from those who went before is my prayer right now. Thanks for listening!

Signed, A Wild Cokeville Gal.