You Can't Fool Mother Nature,

I got pregnant in college, a junior with no direction in my life. Abortion was available but I never looked into it. I faced my 'dilemma' across the kitchen table with my mother. All life is beautiful, but you will have to surmount this hurdle. It was then that she told me that I needed to get this young man married to me.

I got a lot about the chickens in the barn yard, and how chickens need a rooster to maintain order. It's the nature of things. He was not interested, 'it's your problem'. But my father would have nothing of that, he cleaned his shotgun and went 'hunting'. He came to his senses and married me before I was showing.

I learned a lot that year, not the least of it was you can manage anything. My rooster was all over me, with only one chicken in his barnyard. A rooster with one chicken keeps her laying eggs for him and before we were old enough we had four children. Grown up before our time we managed. My rooster became a high school teacher and coach of the girl's tennis team. I was destined to be a third grade teacher.

In time the chicks became chickens and roosters and set about having their own barnyards and chickens laying eggs for them. It's nature of things. I spend more than a little time with young women questioning their value. It's nature I tell them, don't make more of it. The rooster maintains order and the chickens lay their eggs in his barnyard.