Hero Interview from her Small Town Hero

Hero Interview from Small Town Hero by Arlene James:

1. Holt, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

Goodness, ma’am, I don’t suppose there’s anything interesting about me. I’m a wildcatter and driller, like my daddy before me. It’s a dangerous job. He was killed doing it, but I don’t lay hands on the rig much anymore.

2. What do you do for fun?

I mostly spend time with my family. Like my grandpa Hap, I do love a good game of forty-two. More than anything, though, I guess I enjoy a good meal. Folks say I have two hollow legs, and I guess it’s a good thing I’m built lean.

3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?

Goodbyes. You never know when you say goodbye to someone if you’re ever really going to see them again. I like to keep my loved ones close. That probably comes from the way my folks died. Dad was killed on the job, and Mom couldn’t face a future without him, so she swallowed some pills. I was off in the City at the time, just out of college, and I can’t help thinking that if I’d been around Mom wouldn’t have done what she did. I’ll always remember my last goodbye with my folks. But sometimes you just have to let go and trust.

4. What are you afraid of most in life?

Hurting those I love and those that love me. I never want to disappoint them or see them unhappy.

5. What do you want out of life?

I’ve got most of what I want, my ranch and my house, my business and my family, friends who respect me. Of course, I don’t guess you ever have enough friends or family.

6. What is the most important thing to you?

It’s not a thing. It’s an idea, I guess. Living so that my life pleases God and harms no one else is more important to me than having things.

7. Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite type of book?

I read when time permits. I especially like history and most especially a good western.

8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Well, it’s a sad fact that I worry more than a Christian man ought to. My baby sister Charlotte says it’s because I’m overprotective, but I don’t know about that. A man takes care of his own or he isn’t much of a man, if you ask me.

9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

I’ve got an old dog, a black-and-white border collie named Skunker. He’s half-wild, never spends more than a minute or two indoors and is fool enough to love harassing every skunk he can find on the property. Good cow dog, though.

10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?

Oh, I’d put my boots down in the Old West. Hard to separate fact from fiction about those days, you know, and I wouldn’t mind a front row seat on that period of history, just to see it all firsthand and really know what it was like. My own past, now that’s God’s business. My future, too. My business is today, right now. It would be fun, though, to take a peek at how it was done back in the 1800s.