Everybody likes secrets, right? Especially other people's secrets. In this post I'm going to reveal one of mine. It's not some sordid characteristic that carries over into my stories and no, I don't have a concubine. I love my wife and I like to keep my life simple. This secret reveals a little about me as a writer. And for me personally, it's exciting. Every year for the past six to eight years (time flies and who's counting anyway...) I make my way up to our place in Oklahoma. We have a couple of hundred acres in southeast Oklahoma near the little town of Talihina. You've heard of the contemporary rock band called "Kings of Leon" for sure. Well, they're from Talihina. It's hard to imagine a rock band, especially a really good one being from Talihina.
Our place is about eight to ten miles from town and in the middle of it there's an old farmhouse. I stay in that farmhouse whenever I go there. My wife's grandfather built it back in the sixties just before he passed away. There's something very peaceful and relaxing about being in that farmhouse, I love it. Of course, it's old and old farmhouses have mice and spiders and even an occasional snake. Rat snakes, nothing to be afraid of. My wife refuses to stay in it, she says too many spiders and critters for her. I've never been bitten by a spider or a mouse or a snake and I've slept really close to all of them before. I did get bitten by a tick while I was there once and got Rocky Mountain Spotted fever. I think a snakebite may have been easier to deal with... This farmhouse is a respite, a temple of peacefulness. There's a few ponds on the place, I used to fish them before the drought a few years ago caused them to get really low and killed off all the fish. And the place is big. A couple of hundred acres. Lots of trees, open meadows, as you walk around you're sure to flush out a herd or two of deer and some turkeys. To the north towers the modestly high Buffalo Mountain. No majestic, craggy peaks like the Tetons, and certainly not high enough to have a timberline. Just a beautifully wooded, verdant mountain that was once roamed by Choctaws, Chickasaws and the James Gang. As in Jesse and Frank James. On the other side of Buffalo Mountain is Robber's Cave, the infamous hideout used by myriad marauders back in the 1800's.
This place is called "The Farm". Has been ever since I can remember. It was once a working farm and probably will be again someday. But for now it's just a quiet, peaceful and inspiring place. As a writer if you come here and aren't inspired you probably need to be embalmed pretty soon. It inspired me to write a book that I'm working on now and should be published sometime this year. I call it a 'historical thriller'. It's fiction of course, but based on a real place, real events and real people. Some of the characters were real, the main characters weren't. I got the idea for the book while I was there several years ago and have written much of the story sitting in the old farmhouse. I am, in fact headed up there this morning to spend Easter weekend there. Early spring is an absolutely wonderful time of the year to be there.
I suppose you could say The Farm is my Walden Pond. I choose to go there and live deliberately, as Thoreau would say, but I take plenty of food with me. And unlike Thoreau, I have to return to civilization pretty often. But while I'm there, sitting around the campfire listening to the coyotes and the occasional cougar (that's no joke, I've heard them), gets me as close to God and nature as I've ever been. God doesn't even mind the glass of whiskey as I sit around the fire. He told me so. Really.
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