What If?

What if …

A question has no answer?

A book has no ending?

A song has no melody?

It is another beautiful day in San Miguel de Allende, cool, warm and cool again. 

We had our first rain of the year late in the day, surprising but welcomed. The rainy season here in the high dessert of Mexico is summer, and we haven’t had an abundance of needed moisture in several years.

I don’t know if the Mexicans talk about the weather like we did when I was a kid. Growing up in the panhandle of west Texas, the weather was part of our every day lives, an important part. 

Weather determined when we planted, when we fertilized, when we harvested or if we harvested. Even though my parents weren’t farmers, our lives were impacted on what the weather dealt. 

The morning radio reports signaled what was ahead. We heard the price of corn, how much cattle were selling for, when the first bale of cotton came out of the gin, and if a sand storm would wreck the freshly plowed fields.

Admittedly, I didn’t understand most of those early morning reports, nor did I care, but I knew my parents listened, my neighbors heard, the men at the coffee shop cussed and discussed what to expect, what to long for, and what impact rain, wind, tornados, freezing temperatures, blistering heat would mean to the town’s livelihood.

All the chatter didn’t alter what Mother Nature would deliver, but under the talking lived a hope of a good day, a bountiful crop, a positive conversation with your banker. Always with the unanswered question: What if?

I look back on those dry hot summers, a swamp cooler blowing cool air and sometimes a fine mist of moisture into the room and I’m grateful I didn’t understand just how critical a bit of rain on the right day was to so many lives. The role of farmers in feeding the world is not talked about these days, nor appreciated.

Those dryland cotton farmers plowing parched fields, hauling irrigation pipes, sweating and shivering depending on the weather, helped me get an education, enabled my parents to make a living, and connected the people in our small town with a common language.

And it makes me ask

what if

The question has an answer?

The book is a best seller?

The music earns a Golden Record? 

And the weather is perfect for this year’s crop?

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