Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data.
The computer used to write this column sits on top of a desk gifted to my mother by a relative. Its drawers were once filled with the names and addresses of people who would receive Christmas cards, and other vital information.
By far the most important of its contents were letters received from a son stationed in the South Vietnam's Central Highlands. Rubber band-bound, the letters were not to be touched by careless hands.
The Battle of Dak To raged throughout November 1967, with hills being conquered, lost and taken back. The army suffered heavy casualties, which added to our worry.
CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite and his correspondents delivered reports from the battle along with a weekly list of soldiers killed and wounded. The mailbox and air-mail envelopes brought much-needed reassurance that he was OK, but we were constantly on edge.
The desk drawers now contain nothing of great importance in what is the modest office in a small room that was the previous owner's hairdressing shop. Her black wash basin and a large mirror remain as a quasi-monument to a woman who enjoyed life into her nineties.
Several caps hang from pegs next to the mirror, and overhead two toy John Deere and Ford tractors and a red-and-white pickup are parked on a knick-knack shelf. The collection will remain incomplete until an Allis-Chalmers tractor can be found and added.
Four large stuffed animals, a relic from the time the children were young and filled with both energy and dreams, rest above the wash basin.
A houseplant, which aggressively entangles itself in the curtain and reaches the ceiling, grows on the south-facing wall. It is informally called an Ant plant, which, on occasion, is both friend and foe when writing begins much too early in the morning.
A painting depicting seven Holstein cows and heiferettes grazing in front of two barns -- one of which is dilapidated and the other not -- is in the background.
The work, which may have been done as a high school art project, was rescued from a cardboard box containing free items set to be discarded by a neighbor who obviously thought it lacked any value.
The artwork, although not technically precise in proportions and otherwise imperfect, was important enough to be rescued. It is kept in the office as a reminder of a time when a boy found joy in watching cattle graze while relaxing beneath the shade of a huge Cottonwood.
It was a time when each animal, even the herd bull that I feared, was named and thus friends worthy of spending time with. They seemed to understand why it was important to watch a jet make tracks across the sky and consider where the passengers might be headed.
There is too little time for a farm boy to consider such things as he grows older with more responsibilities. When brothers were otherwise busy with field work and other commitments, Dad said he would help by feeding the cows and carrying milk to the bulk tank.
A responsibility done well yielded equal footing with the other farm boys who gathered at a school lunch table where topics of no small importance were discussed. We occasionally argued about the comparable worth of Holsteins, Jerseys, Brown Swiss, and Guernseys without reaching any agreement.
A girl, who had a crush on one boy, chimed in to say that her family's Herefords were the best milkers of all.
The cows, regardless of breed, are almost all gone, as are the hardware stores that sold inflations, strainers, buckets and filters. It was impossible back then to imagine that what was so important to us then would disappear so quickly.
Progress, if it can be considered that, comes quickly. The boys who gathered for school lunch have grown old. Solace can be found in the painting of grazing Holsteins, toy tractors collecting dust on a knick-knack shelf, and an old oak desk with mostly empty drawers.