{"id":76471,"date":"2018-03-05T18:00:22","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T01:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/james-when-luck-is-just-luck\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T17:58:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T17:58:28","slug":"james-when-luck-is-just-luck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/james-when-luck-is-just-luck\/","title":{"rendered":"James: When luck is just luck"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tom
Tom James<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Good luck, bad luck, lots of luck, no luck; it seems there is no end.<\/p>\n

After as careful a review of my life up to now as a brain-damaged, old cowboy can make, I\u2019ve come to terms with bein\u2019 damned lucky. I\u2019ve heard it said: \u201cYou make your own luck,\u201d and I won\u2019t argue that, but there are those times when luck is just luck.<\/p>\n

Like when the horse falls over on ya\u2019 and the saddle horn unbuttons your shirt instead of crushing your chest, or when the car in front of ya\u2019 loses it on the ice and spins around to face you, and at just the moment of impact, it slides out of the way. Luck!<\/p>\n

Many years ago, I did a pull in the \u201cNervous Hospital\u201d (I\u2019ve softened it up a little because a friend told me \u201cInsane Asylum\u201d made him uncomfortable), and while there, I met some folks who had not been quite as lucky as me.<\/p>\n

For whatever reason the universe sees fit, it had dealt these folks a mighty poor hand. Mental illness is a terrible thing. It robs those affected of life at its fullest. It robs the families of those affected many times of the love and companionship of a family member. The people affected don\u2019t choose it; it\u2019s just bad luck.<\/p>\n

My diagnosis was not mental illness but rampant stupidity. Treatable by a lifestyle change. That\u2019s pretty damned lucky.<\/p>\n

I try to keep my life as simple as I can, but life is still life, ups and downs. At those times when I\u2019m feelin\u2019 a little \u201cshort changed,\u201d I\u2019ve learned to look back at just how lucky I really am and be grateful for it.<\/p>\n

As David Gilmour sings, \u201cWe\u2019re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year, running over the same old ground, what have we found? The same old fears, wish you were here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom James was riding horses before he could walk. He currently hangs his hat in Ignacio. Reach him at outlivedthemallsofar@gmail.com<\/a>. The topknot, by the way, is the last knot tied on a pack saddle.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jamesdu1-i-syn Good luck, bad luck, lots of luck, no luck; it seems there is no end. After as careful a review of my life up to now as a brain-damaged, old cowboy can make, I\u2019ve come to terms with bein\u2019 damned lucky. I\u2019ve heard it said: \u201cYou make your own luck,\u201d and I won\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-76471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76493,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76471\/revisions\/76493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76471"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=76471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}