I pledge my Head to clearer thinking. Though at nine I mostly thought about how to keep from crying at the auction when they sold the sheep I'd raised and washed and loved. (I cried anyway. Every year. Till I was fifteen. The buyers learned to look away.) I pledge my Heart to greater loyalty, in a town of one hundred eighty-two, where there weren't enough boys for a basketball team and everybody knew exactly who had money and who got up before the sun to drive the twenty-three miles to the fair because a fair trailer was a thing for other families. I pledge my Hands to larger service. Hands that washed white wool that never shrank, that carded a sheep's coat puffy for the ring, that kept a rag in the back pocket in case she got snotty mid-show. Hands that learned what winter castration meant and never quite forgot it. I pledge my Health to better living, for my club, my community, my country, and my world. I was president the year Wyoming turned a hundred. I put something in the time capsule. I didn't know yet I was making myself a promise I'd still be keeping with my whole failing body all these decades down the road. Faith (named her that) was an Araucana, Father Jablonowski's chicken, a gift she laid eggs the color of Easter, pink and blue and green, like the world was handing me proof that ordinary things come out miraculous if you just keep showing up to feed them. They asked my dad at the turkey shoots, "Is Jeffrey coming?" because I'd kick their ass. Expert marksman, pee-wee showman, snicker doodle king, the kid in the photo with his cousin (Jerrene - Miss Platte County) grinning like he owned the whole county. Head. Heart. Hands. Health. I said it then without knowing what it meant. Chachi said it back to me this morning, and I realized I never stopped living it. I pledged all four to better things, and look how big I got. Still clearer thinking. Still greater loyalty. Still serving. Still living. Still here. Still snotty-nosed and stubborn, rag in my back pocket, refusing to leave the ring. Snark and love intact! (Special thanks to Ruth Vaughn for being our chapter leader, Cindy Schanaman for being the cooking instructor, dad for being the shot gun instructor, mom and dad for putting up with my tantrums when I didn't want to work with the sheep and Chachi for always reminding me)