At one point, I thought Fifty Shades of Grey was a book about the complete line of neckties at Brooks Brothers. Boy! Was I wrong on that one. As it was, the book mainstreamed porn for the unwashed masses. You can imagine the number of husbands that had to feign surprise. ....I imagined the number of wives. Exactly how kinky do you have to get to not be bored with sex? ....What is number 51? There seems to be a lot of questions in this area.
Don't take it the wrong way, this post is not about S-E-X. You can read on with comfort. ...Or maybe disappointment. If so, I understand.
This is about the title for a collection of thoughts and antidotes from my life on the Colorado prairie. After some struggle, I knew I had to steal the title, as titles can't be copyrighted. Fifty Shades of Brown fit better than The Prairie Woman that I first thought to go with. Gone with the Wind would have been good if I was just telling about my quonset hut. Les Miserables, if it was about my marriage. Other considerations were, Chuck of Brown Gables, A Tale of Two Houses, A Tree Doesn't Grow Just Anywhere, The Hitchhiker's Guide to Keep Going to Denver, A Portrait of the Artist as a Old Man, and of course, Far from the Madding Crowd.
So, Fifty Shades of Brown it is.
I used to say we had only two seasons, brown and browner. But with all the climate change, it looks like I might be adding brownest. We had to get a new garage door. I thought for sure that I would go with a green color. Red was considered, but I knew that it be bit much by the community standard. You should only stand out in discreet ways. (farm equipment is exempted) However, not all follow that and thankfully so. My neighbor up by the highway has a red shed that tells me where I need to turn. Not sure what I'd do without it.
But since we'd have to wait and pay extra the color we wanted, we chose from a select few colors, all shades of brown!! ...Of course. ....Why not? I was pretty sure that it would blend in. I guess that's why tractors come in green, red, yellow and blue. You'd hate to lose one just because you couldn't see it. For the same reason, most everyone has black cattle. BTW, the calves are coming right on schedule even if spring isn't. So far, we're not experiencing any climatic changes in reproduction. I guess that actually was a sex reference. Sorry!
Here is an excellent photo essay of the prairie along the 100th meridian. It's not Colorado, but the look is similar. I recommend viewing it in full screen. From The New York Times, Life along the 100th Meridian. http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/12/08/magazine/08greatplains_ss.html#
The corn turns to brown. The wheat turns to brown, perhaps a golden brown but still brown. Pinto beans are white before they turn brown. Even the green hay eventually turns brown. That seems to be the cycle of life out here. The remains of lives past are brown. Perhaps more attention should be paid to these warning signs.
For me, and perhaps for them, brown is the color of freedom. All the various shades, of which there's at least fifty, form a vast space and opportunity that says not a lot of people want to live here. But you have a chance you may otherwise not have. That doesn't mean everything will work out or it will last. It just means a way of life that is consistent with the Republican Platform. They might want to rethink being red. I hear that brown ties are making a coming back.
Regardless of the undue amount of dust, wind, flies, dryness, pesticide, heat, weeds, herbicide, snakes, storms, skunks, mice, cold, mud, hornets and countless bugs that can't be identified, I'm pretty content. .....But if the sky ever turns to brown, I'm out of here!
