The big reach outward

Did we just have two summers this year? First we had Tucson. Baking hot, desert dry, few bugs, many lizards. Then, briefly, wehadaGeorgetownsummer with a touch of rain, hot, humid and mosquitoes galore. New, many- legged bugs showed up and wandered around the place like out-of-towners off a tour bus. Crickets sang under the deck. Suddenly, the plants perked up and took off in every direction.

Back in 2021, a young tree on the south side of the house froze badly. There was nothing to do but top it and hope. It looked like a six-foot fence post, not a twig anywhere. It started coming back slowly, putting out a few branches in all directions. It looked like a big, green dandelion. But this summer, especially during the last few weeks, it swelled bigger than ever, and on breezy nights we hear it out there, in the dark, nibbling on the roof. So we’ll have to do something about that, something we never imagined after the freeze when it looked so gone. Nature is persistent.

n

Last week, after press time, we got another Life Hack, this from George Brightwell. George sends us an eight-word hack that is the smallest of all with the biggest return: Please. Thank you. You’re welcome. I love you.

George’s hack is different — it looks out rather than in. It is so ordinary that you wonder why we are not bored to be reminded of it. Perhaps it is because we know how easy it is to forget these things and know how quickly our natural, inward-facing thoughts can make us smaller, less a part of the life around us. This hack brings to mind a story about George and Barbara Brightwell. On Friday, at a Southwestern gathering, I visited for a few minutes with Nancy Krenek about Ride On Center for Kids, which she founded in 1998. Over the years ROCK has grown, not just in size, but also into a stirring example of love and care, especially for children. Nancy reminded me of how it all started.

Back in the middle 1990s, Nancy had an inspiration that combined her profession as a physical therapist and her love of horses. At that time, hippotherapy — horseback riding to improve coordination, balance and strength — had come to be recognized as an effective therapy, and she had some experience with it at Kelly’s Kids. She reminded me that about that time, the Sun did a large feature article on her work and on her dream to create a hippotherapy center.

Not long after the article came out, the Brightwells called. She said she didn’t know them, and didn’t really have a way to know them. But the Brightwells saw the feature and made the first call, and they asked her to come and visit, which she did. They told her they had 20 acres on the old Hutto Road just south of town. Nancy said the land was worth about $165,000 at the time and that she had no way to come up with that much money.

So George and Barbara donated the land and that 20 acres became the core property for ROCK and the launch pad for all that has come since.