I was born in Redfield, South Dakota, on October 3, 1963. But this was actually an unusual occurence, for all my siblings were born in Denver, Colorado. What's more, all of my relatives lived in Texas. So how is it that I was born in South Dakota?

Well, my father at that time was working as a farmer. He had been a farmer in Texas, but a few months before I was born he and my family, which at that time consisted of my mother, my sister and my older brother, moved there. Perhaps he thought South Dakota was the land of opportunity. But it didn't take long for him to decide otherwise, for shortly after my birth my family moved back to Texas--Jayton, Texas, to be specific--taking me along with them.

We lived on a farm outside of Jayton for the next three and a half years. Now Jayton is located in West Texas, about halfway between Lubbock and Abiline. It is a hot, dry place with mesquite trees, grass burrs (we called them "stickers"), and tumble weeds for vegetation. The dirt there is a red sand which stains everything red, especially white clothes. And the fauna include coyotes, horny toads, and rattlesnakes. I absolutely loved it!

Life on the farm was great. We had cows, and pigs, and ponies, a dog named King, and cats--over twenty, in fact. This came about in the following manner. When we first moved to the farm, someone gave us three cats--a black one (Big Black), a Siamese (Whitie), and a grey cat, which ran away soon after we got there. These three cats were brothers. Soon afterwards we acquire a young female cat. And not long after then we had our first batch of kittens. As soon as these matured, we had more kittens, and so on. The father (and grandfather, and great grandfather) of this brood was Big Black.

Now Big Black was one tough cat. He was bitten by rattlesnakes on three different occasions, and lived through each one. Indeed, I think he used to eat rattlesnakes. But of the cats, Whitie was my cat. And it was with the cats that I had the strangest experience of my life.

Now as I've already said, West Texas is crawling with rattlesnakes. Being bit by one is a common enough experience. As a boy hoeing in a field my Grandfather Lewis was bit on the toe by one. And I was bit by one as well, but this happened in a barn.

One day my older brother, Mark, and I were playing with several cats in the barn. I had three, and he had one. My mother called him into the house, and as he left he gave me his cat. So I was there with four handfulls of cats, and only two hands. So I got the bright idea--to solve my cat problem, I just had to get rid of one. So I took the cat Mark had given me and put it in a hole in the wall of the barn (these holes were wooden shafts that eventually opened on the ground). I sat back down, and began to pet the cats again. But then I started feeling guilty--it wasn't fair to any of the cats to be put away. So I went back to the hole, and reached down to get the cat. But the cat wasn't there--a snake was, and it bit me on the forearm.

At this point I will say that I remember these events vividly--but it is only to this point that I remember these events. This is what happened next, according to my parents and grandparents. I went to them, and they asked me what had happened. I told them that I had been bit by a snake. They examined my arm, and they saw the marks where the snake bit me. However, the wound was clean, and there was no swelling. Then I explained to them that a "little white lady" had doctored my arm. Because the wound was clean, they did not take me to the hospital, and I had no problems afterwards.

Whether the story about the little white lady is true, I have no answer. All I can say is that I have asked my parents and grandparents separately, and they relate the above story back to me. Was the little white lady a guardian angel, or maybe a space alien? I don't know. I possess a strong streak of skepticism, and don't really believe in such things. Still, the story as I related it is true. Interestingly, I later heard on a documentary that rattlesnakes only inject poison once out of every ten bites or so. Also interesting is that my younger brother, as a student at Texas Tech in Lubbock, heard a story on the local news about a regional folktale, the legend of a "blue lady" who helped people in need.