Who is this Kid?

Essay 2:
Who is This Kid?
By
Barney, the Barnyard Philosopher
Some old, Some new, Some borrowed, Some blue

Ozark Limousine

          I can’t introduce Cypress; he has too many personalities, so I’ll do the traditional thing and tell about his roots and early growth.

          Cypress was born in the Ozark hills of Missouri during the first year of the Great Depression. He was three years old when his family moved to a rocky sixty-acre farm, and a river ran through it, not really a river just a creek, Cypress Creek, so he became The Cypress Creek Kid
.
          I couldn’t find many folks in the hills who remembered Cypress. Some said he was small for his age, tough, and nobody ever took anything away from him.
Life for Cypress, and his three brothers and four sisters centered on the creek. They fished in it, swam in it, and bathed in it. No one told them they were poor so they enjoyed life, especially the creek.

          The soil was full of gravel and rocks so the crops turned brown by the end of July and food was not plentiful. Cypress joined the army at age seventeen because he was tired of eating turnips and rabbits and heard the army fed well.
He was almost excluded because the minimum weight for a naked five-foot seven-inch fighting machine was 120 pounds but Cypress ate a huge breakfast, drank a quart of water, and made the weight limit. I recently chided him about his weight which is now almost 150 pounds; there was no smile in his voice or on his face when he replied, “guts and tough don’t weigh much.”

          The Korean War was in full bloom when his three-year enlistment expired. His Commander in Chief, President Truman, who was also from Missouri, said, “Everyone has to stay in for a while longer,” so Cypress served as an enlisted man for twenty-one years.

          He served thirteen months in Korea, two tours of duty at the Pentagon, and served his twenty-first year in Vietnam where he received the Bronze Star for Valor.
After leaving the Army he sold real estate in Manassas, Virginia until the Lord called him to be a minister. Being a minister did not feed as well as the army but his new commander in chief kept him at it for over thirty years. He is now retired but still preaches far and wide.

          He and his wife Dorothy celebrated their fiftieth year of marriage by spending a week at Branson, Missouri which claims to be the country music capitol of the world – Nashville folks don’t agree. Cypress is contemplating relocating to Nashville or Branson but Nashville will probably win because Eddy Arnold lives there.

          I can’t tell you who he is because there are so many angles from which he views life. He is husband, father, grandfather, minister, counselor, the idle dreamer, escort angel, scratching post, crying towel, and occasionally the old sarge kicks the door open and comes storming out.

          First of all he is The Cypress Creek Kid and wants that on his headstone. I don’t expect that to be soon because he’s in excellent health and can do six miles in sixty minutes and still have enough breath to cuss my mule.

          Now he wants to be a writer. His primary language is Ozarkese but speaks little league baseball as a second language. He also speaks some English. He’s an awesome speaker but don’t expect too much from his writing because everything he has previously written was designed to be spoken.

          He just throws the words at the page but you will laugh, cry and have some fits over his worthwhile “stuff.”

          The army civilized him some and the ministry mellowed him some more, but he is still tough enough to take the high ground. An old Ozark hillbilly said it right, “Nobody, devil or man, will take anything away from Cypress because he's tough."

Barney