I Still Miss Someone

At my door the leaves are falling
A cold wild wind has come
Sweethearts walk by together
And I still miss someone. — Johnny Cash, "I Still Miss Someone"

Looking out the window from my vantage point in the office, the bright, cloudless, sunny morning belied the below average temperature the wind was forcing. It was a typical Saturday, jam packed with things to do, work to be done, several hundred miles of pavement to tick off on the way to each event.

None of this mattered to me. One of my favorite events, cattle-branding, was on my list of things to do today and I was anxious, excited, and wishing I had more time, always wishing I had more time.

I stepped outside, and the wind and chill cut through the light shirt I’d decided upon. I ran back into the house grabbed a jacket, advised my son to do the same, and off we went.

Everywhere I’ve lived, everywhere I’ve gone, one thing has always stuck with me at each place I’ve called home for a spell, and as I left the barbed-wire corrals of the Gross-Wilkinson Ranch heading a hundred miles up the road, I realized this too would someday be something I would miss and forever associate with my time in Wyoming.

I miss laying across my motorcycle, parked on the piers of San Francisco, the lazy stars almost obscured by the ever present fog but demanding to be seen by anyone who would take the time, pushing through the fog, announcing their presence.

The absolute insanity of Times Square on a weekend summer afternoon. Belligerent natives glaring at the obvious tourists snapping pictures of this and that, asking for directions to Broadway. “Down the street a couple blocks, you can’t miss it” was almost always the response in a near snarl.

The oppressive humidity of North Carolina deep in the dog days throes of a summer night. The humidity suffused nearly everything as it slowed all things down — your movements, your thought processes. I may be wrong, but I often think the southern drawl has its roots in the humidity. Both are a bit slow on the delivery, a bit deliberate and laced with a politeness that could shred you to pieces if you didn’t know which signs to look out for — isn’t that nice?

Article Author: Benjamin Cossel

A working journalist, Benjamin currently serves as a combat photojournalist and is the managing editor of a weekly newspaper in southeastern Wyoming. He’s worked as a reporter in Ohio, Arizona and done several deployments in the military crossing the globe. …

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