One Hell of a Ride

February 16, 2012 at 5:16 pm · Filed under Family, Good stuff, Mostly true, Poems, the good old days ·Tagged Bunk Stringer, Charles L. Mashburn, family, hero, http://dversepoets.com/, Jewel stringer, luther benjamin stringer, one hell of a ride, poetry, writer

Victoria Slotto is hosting a feature for dVerse Poets tonight entitled Meeting the Bar: Heroes and Heroines, and asks us to consider writing a poem in praise of a present-day hero, someone who has made a difference in our own life, or in our own times. I cannot pass up the chance to submit one of my all time favorite poems about my grandpa, Luther “Bunk” Stringer, whose life, in my opinion, was one of historic note, and whose story deserves to be told and remembered. He was the best man I ever knew–by far–and he was my hero. If I am one day considered to be even half the man Bunk Stringer was, I, too, will have had one hell of a ride.

I wrote the following poem shortly after my grandpa’s passing, and it is to his memory I post it once more:

One Hell of a Ride

 

Come over here and sit for a spell

Lend an ear, I’ll give it a bend

I’ve been known to tell a tale or two

Of things that were, or might have been

 

With words I’ll paint a picture of days

When I was young and I was lean

Of days I sat tall in the saddle

Long ago when just a teen

 

I’ll tell of the time I met a girl

Who made me blush and act the fool

The most beautiful girl in Texas

Was no mistake they called her Jewel

 

I’ll tell you about the sunlit days

                              Out on the north Texas plains

Where I chased the steers that wandered

                                 ‘cross the hot mesquite filled range

 

I’ll tell of how I sat atop my mount

         On a hill as I pondered and dreamed

             Dreams of what lay beyond the hills

                   Far places I’d never been

 

I’ll tell you ‘bout some of those places

For a bit of traveling I have done

                                Oh, I wandered from ocean to ocean

                              In pursuit of that brighter sun

 

     But all roads lead me back here

                         Now I’ve lost the lust to roam

And so you find me here on this porch

       In Texas, my home sweet home

 

No, I don’t have much to show

                               For the eighty some years I’ve lived

For I lived hard and I loved hard

                            I gave this world all I had to give

 

But cry not when you look upon

             The few things I leave behind

My life was full of love and laughter

            And I had one hell of a ride

 

Copyright © 1996 C. Mashburn

 

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