Published: August 03, 2008 03:24 pm            

Rosston, where no one knew my name

Transition is hard.

People who have never moved or had huge tansitional change in their lives woulldn’t understand how it feels to be somewhere in life all alone.

Late in 2006, I was still in Qayarrah, Iraq and had been there two and a half years at the time. I knew that I wanted to begin to think about coming home to the U.S. but needed to buy a home.

While my friends were all settling in Houston or Oklahoma City in half million dollar homes, I longed to be back in rural America. So I began to search online for what homes and ranch property were available for sale.

Initially, I looked in Wyoming, since the region near Jackson Hole is so beautiful and I have long dreamed of having a small ranch there.

But as I looked, I noticed that a lot of the homes were sold with snow plowing contracts included and this set off some warning bells about how life might really be out there.

So I punched in a few more words and up popped this little cabin-like home in Rosston that was rebuilt and refurbished by Victor Erickson, a local artist who built log furniture among many other old world art items.

I was in love with the place and contacted a realtor here in Woodward to drive out there and have a look on my behalf since I was still 8,000 miles away.

Turns out, for a single woman moving in during the fall, the home would have presented with some needed repair and I was not in a position to achieve this. Utimately the place sold as a hunting lodge and I was pleased that someone got it. I still walk or run by it at times and wish I had been able to handle the place.

But in the same town that day, my agent found a home she thought I would like and got the listing agent to show her around the place.

She took about 30 photos and when she e-mailed me back, I decided I liked it.

People wondered why, when they saw photos of the landscape surrounding my new place in Rosston, Oklahoma, I was choosing to live so far away in such a wild area.

I wasn’t sure at the time, I only knew in that way that you do sometimes, that it was the right thing-that for some reason I was supposed to be out there. It was so strong a feeling that I never had one doubt about it, even though I signed contracts and basically purchased the place without ever seeing it.

People would wander into my office and look over my shoulder and ask me did I undersand what I was doing-did I really know how far it was out there and did I even know someone?

The answer is no, I did not know anyone. But I knew Oklahomans and especially important, I knew rural Oklahomans. When I chose to move to Rosston without knowing a soul, I knew that it would be all of a day or two before I had neighbors, the real kind who catch your cattle when they are out or lend you some sugar when you have run low.

And I was right.

After driving for about 10 hours in a U-Haul with my car hooked to the back and my dogs, one in the front seat of the truck with me and the other two riding in the car hooked to the back, I drove into the drive of my new home.

The very first thing I had to do was throw myself on the mercy of my neighbors because there were about 3 trillion wasps that had taken up a home on the porch, keeping me securly out of my house.

I wandered over to their barn where they were doing some welding and asked the son, if they had any wasp spray. He was sorry but they didn’t and so I went back and considered my problem.

It was getting late in the afternoon and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to even open the door without getting attacked when the neighbor showed up with a can of something and said, “This’ll work.” And then he disappeared.

I took the stuff, parts cleaner I think it was, and man did it kill them dead.

Boring stuff, I know...but it was the beginning of what has turned out to be the most lovely friendship with a neighbor I have ever had and still is.

Simply put, the Batmans, Eva Joe, Scotty, Ben, Brently and Lindsay asked no questions, told me no lies, put on no airs about who or what they were and accepted me right where I was. They took care of me when my water froze, when I lost my dog, when I lost my confidence, when I needed a place to have Thanksgiving. They took my moods, they took care of my animals when I ventured back to Iraq and they took care of my finances when I could not trust anyone else to do so.

Perhaps one of the best memories I have of Eva is a night , probably only three days after I got there, that my very old, blind AND deaf dog Sam had wandered off into the great prairie south of my place. I was terrified since I knew she was not accustomed to the new area and was so infirm. Eva came over, and I still have a vision of her peeking under vehicles, trees and bushes calling her by her name and it struck me at that moment what I had stumbled into here, in this little town in the Panhandle.

Rosston and Laverne now represent home to me in a way that no other place has before. But my experience in Woodward mirrors it, with bank emloyees here who call me if they see a signature on one of my checks that looks funny and a vehicle mechanic who does what he says he will and delivers on time.

I love how I can take a photo, where perhaps I have not had a chance to ask the name of the individual in it, but can take it somewhere in Woodward and someone can tell me who it is. I love that when I ran out of the house recently without my credit card and needed gas, that someone was willing to take my check.

So there it is. There is the answer to those friends who have $300,000 homes in Houston about why I came here where the wind is cruel but the people make it worth it.



Rachael Van Horn is the assistant editor of the Woodward News.

        

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