Whoever coined the phrase 'a man's got to play the hand that was dealt him' was most certainly one piss-poor bluffer.

It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty.

As I sat down, though, I realized that you can get used to certain luxuries that you start to think they're necessities, but when you have to forgo them, you come to see that you don't need them after all. There was a big difference between needing things and wanting things--though a lot of people had trouble telling the two apart--and at the ranch, I could see, we have pretty much everything we'd need but precious little else.

Nobody's perfect. We're all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.

No one expected you to amount to much," she told me. "Lori was the smart one, Maureen the pretty one, and Brian the brave one. You never had much going for you except that you always worked hard.

Don't worry, God understands,' Mom said. 'He knows that your father is a cross we must bear.

Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten, you'll still have your stars.