The Promise of Minnie Jewel

How many people do you know who are living the life they truly want to live, the one that would most bring them fulfillment as well as peace?  Personally, I know very few, maybe even none.

When I was a kid, my mom told me that if she had been a man she would have learned to fly airplanes.  Now, you have to understand that as a nine-year-old who'd seen her mother constantly set aside her own needs to cater to her family, this was a revelation so stunning as to be practically unbelievable.  My mother, flying an airplane?  She didn't even get her driver's license until she was in her 30s.  Even so, I could see by the way she said it that she meant it, and I never forgot it.

My mom grew up in a time (the 30s) and a place (rural Arkansas) where becoming a pilot was a huge dream for anyone, much less a girl who was one of twelve kids and a farmer's daughter.  But, I know that had she seen it as a real possibility instead of an unattainable fantasy, she could have easily done it because my mom is that smart.

Our moms influence our lives in so many ways, so when Page and I were thinking about a name for our new venture, it was natural that we thought of our moms.  Page's mother was in many ways the polar opposite of mine -- fiery, gregarious, hot-tempered -- a temperament one might expect from a direct descendant of the McCoy side of the famous feuding Hatfields and McCoys.  But, in the same way that my mom's quiet, nurturing nature shaped me, his mom's more demanding love made him strong and resilient.

So, with all that in mind, we chose a name for our new undertaking to honor them and to bless our new venture with their different, but equally influential, spirits.  To our moms, Minnie Henrietta Eudora McCoy and Lola Jewel Cassady, we give you our love and our future:  the Minnie Jewel Buffalo Ranch.

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