Well, happy Monday to everyone! Hope your weekend was fab!
Mine was! We went to Canadian, TX to surprise my cousin Josh for his birthday. He and my sister Holly share a birthday and it's actually today so happy birthday to them both!!!
Canadian is a little gem of a town that sits on the Canadian River in the Texas panhandle. It's about 100 east of Amarillo. This is where I was born and mostly raised. My Mom and her sisters all grew up here. My Dad and his family grew up here. My family roots run deep in Canadian, TX. I will forever know Canadian as my hometown.
Aunt Carla is the only one of the four sisters who still reside in Canadian. She owns and operates the Canadian Restaurant so if you're ever in town you better stop in and have a bite! The food is great! You must try the salsa they make fresh everyday........wonderful!!!
Carla's son Josh also lives in Canadian. He is my next youngest cousin and we grew up very close to each other. He's had many ups and downs in his life but really seems to have turned a corner recently and is doing very well. In celebration of this, his sister Kelsey decided it would be cool to all converge on Canadian and surprise Josh for this birthday so that's just what we did! It was wonderful!
Anyway, the point of the above rambling is that while in Canadian this weekend I was thinking about where I come from and why I'm where I'm at today. When people hear that I'm from Texas but moved to Oklahoma from Colorado they're always curious to know how I ended up here.
In 1986, my Aunt Cathy, Uncle Fred and their two young daughters Felicia and Fallon, moved to central Oklahoma from the Texas panhandle. It was quite a shock when they did! We had all lived fairly close to each other at that point and to hear my favorite Aunt was moving to Oklahoma was almost too much to bear.
You see, my Aunt and Uncle lost a baby several years before I was born. When I came along I think I was almost as much my Aunt Cathy's baby as I was my Mom's! She and I spent a lot of time together when I was a kid. She was the first one to put me on a horse and thus, started a rodeo "career" that would dominate my youth. My own folks weren't too much into horses and such so I always went to my Aunt Cathy and Uncle Fred's for all things horses and rodeo.
When they left Wheeler, TX for Oklahoma I wasn't far behind! I would come to Oklahoma every summer and we'd hit the rodeo and barrel racing jackpot trail! From the first summer I came here I thought it was some of the most beautiful country I'd ever seen and vowed that as soon as I could I would be living here, too!
My family and I eventually left the Texas panhandle for southeastern Colorado. Even though I made many, many great friends during my years in Colorado it was never "home" for me. I told everyone as soon as I was through junior college I was off to live in Oklahoma. I graduated from Wiley High School in 1993 and attended Lamar Community for two years. One month after my last semester was over at LCC I had all my worldly possession packed into my Chevy pick-up and was Oklahoma bound!!!
Now, I will admit that leaving Wiley that day was one of the hardest days of my life.
My little sister Holly had gone on to school that day and it was a blessing because the good-bye would have been much too hard. Saying good-bye to my Mom was hard enough. The three of us had been through so much together at that point and she was always a constant in my life. Now I had to say good-bye. She never tried to keep me in Colorado. She knew my heart was already in Oklahoma. It probably didn't hurt that her older sister would be there to look after her "baby!"
And so here I am! I consider myself an Okie for sure but I've never forgotten my Texas roots. It's it nice to go back there sometimes, take a look around and remember where you came from!
Cheers!
Shayla
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