{"id":99349,"date":"2018-06-07T18:03:23","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T00:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/james-self-raised-and-it-shows\/"},"modified":"2018-06-07T18:03:23","modified_gmt":"2018-06-08T00:03:23","slug":"james-self-raised-and-it-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/james-self-raised-and-it-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"James: Self-raised and it shows"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tom
Tom James<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My second wife \u2013 I\u2019ve been encouraged not to refer to them as ex-wife No. 1 or No. 2 \u2013 told me once that I\u2019d raised myself and done a really lousy job of it.<\/p>\n

Now, I didn\u2019t take offense at her remark because I figured that if I was still livin\u2019, I hadn\u2019t done that bad a job and she was certainly welcome to her own opinion.<\/p>\n

As time has passed and my hair has gone from brown to lots of white with a growing bald spot, I\u2019m beginning to see that she may well have been closer to the mark than I thought.<\/p>\n

I live with a 12-year-old blue heeler named Grace, and our relationship is as close to perfect as I can imagine one being. I love her and she loves me. Just like that.<\/p>\n

Now, I am responsible for providing for her, and we are both aware of that, on those occasions when I come up short, there are no arguments or passive aggressive days of \u201csilent treatment.\u201d She just informs me immediately about my error and I correct it.<\/p>\n

My housekeeping skills are few, and seein\u2019 as how I don\u2019t mind much, I don\u2019t mind much. Everything that I own is used hard and I\u2019m prone to wearing clothes way, way past their expiration date.<\/p>\n

Doin\u2019 laundry today I had to say goodbye to a shirt that I\u2019d been patching since last summer and it was a lot like having to put one of my horses down.<\/p>\n

I reckon I\u2019ll live and I don\u2019t think they\u2019ve stopped making denim Western shirts, so I can get another to wear way, way past its expiration date.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the livin\u2019 with a dog, not bein\u2019 a great housekeeper, wearing clothes that are worn out and a willingness to sleep on the couch in a sleepin\u2019 bag that make me think that Debby may have been right.<\/p>\n

But hell, other than that, I\u2019m a regular \u201cSpiritual Portal.\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 My second wife \u2013 I\u2019ve been encouraged not to refer to them as ex-wife No. 1 or No. 2 \u2013 told me once that I\u2019d raised myself and done a really lousy job of it. Now, I didn\u2019t take offense at her remark because I figured that if I was still livin\u2019, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5758,6334],"tags":[],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-99349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columnists","category-columnists-guest-columns"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99349","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=99349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99349"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=99349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}