The first time

I am at an age that a elementary aged scholar knew was not attainable. Grandma wasn't even that old , though I am sure she was, 55 is OLD!! When a person turned 50 that was a half of a hundred years and to last 5 years beyond that . . . . .
The thought first occurred to me in elementary school when the teacher was encouraging forward thought. She had instructed my class to think what the world would be like in the year 2000, it was about 1960, too far off for my young mind to conceive. I then decided that I would never get that old, and here I am.
Life has sure been an adventure. I like to say that I have been in and lived in every state west of the Mississippi River, though not quite accurate I have lived a lot of places. I attended so many schools that I have very vague impressions of only a few. I remember going to first grade , I never did attend kindergarten, I was in Stockton, California. I then meandered over the southern part of the country for the next six years and ended up in Manila, Utah on the shores of the Green River, for a year, then back to California for the next four years. Then I turned 18 and left home for more acceptable conditions and graduated high school in Oregon.
Now thirty some odd years later, I am in Montana.
And I do live on the end of the road to now where. The closest milk is from the milk lady who milks her own cows and has chickens and sells eggs too. She grows orchids and bromiliads in a sunroom of her house perched on a barren bluff over looking the wind swept Missouri River basin. A trip to town is an all day affair and we do it all too often. I make bread and make do a lot. We do live in a small community of about 75 souls and don't have a bar, stop light, grocery store or rush hour. Our traffic jam is usually a octogenarian farmer talking to his ninety year old rancher neighbor over the white line in the road through rolled down equally as old pickup truck windows. I am a youngster here. Here where cattle outnumber people, 3 to 1, life is slower.