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Ya Gotta Wonder!

The Global Cowgirl Blog.

We live in a world that’s rolled off its nut. There’s a whole lot going on out there that makes me want to shout, “Ya gotta wonder!”

Being a ‘proof-is-in-the-pudding’ kinda gal, I think it’s time for all of us to look at the political puddings we’ve been serving up…and eating. If the state of the world is any indication, our Liberal and Conservative puddings are pretty rancid. Ya gotta wonder if these political puddings have reached their expiration date and need to be thrown out.

In the Global Cowgirl Blog, I’m sharing what makes me want to shout, “Ya gotta wonder!” The outrages and nonsense that get up my nose in today’s world. I’ll raise questions that leave me scratching my head. And I’ll have the occasional solution (sometimes wacky and comical) for the problems that have us putting up our dukes and swinging at each other.

I welcome your reactions, comments, and chidings. And sharing what makes you want to shout, “Ya gotta wonder!,” too.

Sunny McMurtrey – Global Cowgirl, Storyteller, Interviewer

Applaud Yourself

Posted on April 13, 2021

Feeling good. This is one of my favorite places to be.

Here’s a story that shows how you can take yourself to a Feel-Good Place every day.

Taking Yourself to a Feel-Good Place

Elevator door opens. The fellow inside looks me straight in the eye. I can’t break his stare. He is shamelessly flirting. The woman with him rolls her eyes and moans, “Harold, stop embarrassing yourself.”

Then she says to me, “Please forgive Harold. He’s such a ham. He’s working you like he used to work the crowds at his shows.”

Harold the Ham is a bull terrier, a retired champion show dog. He looks like the Target dog on steroids. After the elevator doors close and I’m Harold’s captive, he really gets down to

working his act. Harold turns to this side. Then that side. Then he does some attentive sitting. Every moment is focused on getting my approval. I swear Harold even gives me a few winks.

“He misses being the center of attention,” the woman with him says. “Hates retirement. There’s nothing Harold loves more than doing what he’s doing for you now. And the bigger the crowd the better.”

I can’t resist. I applaud Harold when he finishes his routine, and he laps it up. Shifting from paw to paw, Harold keeps glancing over at his owner as if to say, “See, I’ve still got it, sister!”

“Did Harold know when he won or lost a competition?” I ask.

“Don’t you know. Winning meant applause and that sent Harold dancing, prancing, and spinning in circles. It was his favorite “feel good” place. When Harold lost, he’d be sad, standing to the side watching another dog get all the applause. Losing was hard for Harold.”

I agree with Harold: Applause is a real pick-me-up. So now I give myself a special gift on days I feel low.

Every time I walk through a door into another room, I imagine a crowd giving me a standing ovation. Then something inside me begins dancing and prancing and feeling good…one of my favorite places to be.

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Feel free to comment below or leave a comment on the Global Cowgirl Facebook page. Also, check out my book Stories from a Global Cowgirl… “Don’t Put a Cat on Your Head!” Available on Amazon

Freedom from Bigotry Bought for a Penny

Posted on February 22, 2021

America has been brought low by its racism and bigotry against people of color. Since this is Black History Month, I want to share this story about our nation’s historical racism against Blacks.

Freedom from Bigotry Bought for a Penny

The lowly penny. What can this modest coin buy you? At three years old, it buys me my freedom from bigotry.

It’s in the South in the 1950s. One morning, while at the grocery store with my parents, I inch ahead to watch as customers in front of us pay for what they want to buy. I call where we are a “grocery store” because this is long before the days of giant supermarkets, where you place your items on a moving belt and see them whisked away to be scanned by a cashier. And there is certainly no such thing as self-service checkout. Grocery stores are intimate places. You know your cashier, and you chat with the folks standing around you, even if they’re total strangers. Anything anyone says is heard by one and all.

No moving belt means people put what they want to buy on a ledge where the cashier can take each item and ring it up. After she finishes ringing up the man at the head of the line, I push forward to watch him reach into a pocket to get his money. As he pulls out his folded bills, a penny drops on the counter where his food had been. I want to help, so I stretch on my tiptoes to put my finger on the penny and push it closer for him to reach.

Suddenly, a big hand grabs mine, and from behind me I hear, “Don’t touch that! Don’t touch nothin’ a n***** has touched!”

I freeze. I don’t know what that word means, but I know the man attached to the hand that’s grabbed mine means business. As I look at what I’m told is an untouchable penny, the coin takes on a sparkling white glow. Then a thin shaft of golden Light shoots up from the coin. It happens so fast, and the Light is so bright, that my vision explodes and blurs. The Light seems to burn right through my eyes into my brain and down into my body.

For a few seconds I stand transfixed, my tiny finger refusing to retract from its position over the penny. Then I look up at the face of the man the penny belongs to. He looks down at me. Even a three-year-old knows what hurt looks like.

The man’s brown eyes have a deep, moist kindness in them, but there is an even deeper look of pain and humiliation. Whatever that word means, I know it really hurts his feelings. I keep looking straight into his eyes because I don’t want to look back at the man who’s grabbed my hand. I certainly know better than to talk back to the stranger, but I think, You’re not a very nice man. Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to call people names that hurt their feelings? Someone needs to wash your mouth out with soap!

I hope the man looking down at me can see how sorry I am that the other man has been so mean. When I get older, I come to understand what happened that day in the grocery line. I was introduced to bigotry and racism.

I say at the beginning of this story my freedom from bigotry was bought with a single penny that day, and it’s true. Throughout my childhood, every time I heard the “n-word” or witnessed any kind of discrimination, I remembered the Light shining up from that penny and the pain in the black man’s eyes. The Light from that modest coin gave me a priceless gift—being able to see the world differently from so many others around me. It relieved me of the burden of fearing and hating another person because we look or seem different from each other in any way.

Lesson: It’s a timeless lesson, but one that’s taken me a long to time to accept. Bigots of any stripe are frightened people who need our compassion. You can’t reason someone out of their fear and bigotry. Only a moment of divine intervention will let them see the world is a safe place. To understand that just because someone looks different or thinks differently from you, those differences don’t make them the enemy. That said, until such time as every bigot is bonked on the head by divine intervention, we need laws to protect us from the twisted ways bigots treat the people they’re afraid of. We must refuse to accept acts of bigotry as anything more than the pursuit of hatred.

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Successful Listeners

Posted on February 15, 2021

Being Interviewed by Barbara Walters

I was once interviewed by Barbara Walters. Not because I was famous. It was for a job as her off-air reporter and editorial producer. I’d be booking interviews, doing research, and helping write questions for Barbara’s news interviews. I confess, I wanted to work on her celebrity specials, but I had a knack for news, so I’d been typecast before we met.

The interview lasted half-an-hour. Barbara didn’t ask me one question during the interview. I’m not sure she even asked my name. She did the talking. I listened. At least that’s what I thought was happening. But something very different was going on.

Barbara was listening with her being, not her ears. It was as though she was shining a beam of energy at me that let her see things about me I didn’t even know about myself. The energy coming from her to me was non-judgmental. I felt safe. If she had asked me a question, there was no secret I wouldn’t have confessed.

As Barbara continued to talk, I felt like the most important person who had ever inhabited the universe. My self-esteem soared. She may have been the one making a million dollars a year, but I was the one feeling like a million dollars.

To this day, decades later, if I’m feeling low about myself, I think back to how Barbara made me feel that day without asking me a single question.

I guess Barbara liked what she “heard” during our interview because I did get the job.

Lesson: I learned from Barbara that Excellence in Listening is a full-body engagement that involves all your senses. Every cell in your body must turn its attention to the person you are speaking with. Your mind must commit to not judging another person, so they feel safe in your presence. Barbara was a natural genius at listening. It’s no surprise people just couldn’t say, “No,” when she asked them for an interview.

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I would love to hear about a Moment in Excellence you’ve experienced. Feel free to comment below or leave a comment on the Global Cowgirl Facebook page. You will find more stories just like this one in my book Stories from a Global Cowgirl… “Don’t Put a Cat on Your Head!” Available on Amazon

Whoopi Goldberg and Kindness

Posted on February 8, 2021

Whoopi’s Moment of Excellent Kindness

Whoopi Goldberg doesn’t know me, but I feel an unbreakable connection to her because she taught me the power of kindness.

Wanna big hug from rejection? Be a broadcast producer getting sound bites from famous folks at a glitzy do. Understandably, the relationship between the press and famous somebodies is dodgy. The media are often boundary-challenged when covering icons, heroes, and celebrity royalty. Put us at a shindig where famed invitees are expecting to have some unguarded fun, sans media party crashers, and we’re as welcome as salmonella in the hors d’oeuvres.

Tonight, I’m covering such a glitzy shindig. Everywhere I look there’s a megamillion-dollar Hollywood alchemist, whose face can turn thin air into box office gold. I feel like a rotten tomato splattering on each famous person I approach with the camera crew. Some show us their backs. Most know the drill and oblige with a few begrudging words

When I see Whoopi Goldberg, the crew and I charge in her direction. Whoopi sees us coming. I gird for a snub or eye roll.

What’s that? A smile? me dares to think.

“Hi there,” she says. “How are you guys doing tonight? What can I do for you?”

For five minutes we chat about the event. It’s not what Whoopi says that impresses me. It’s the kindness in her voice and an understanding in her eyes that says, “I know your job’s not easy. There’s no reason we can’t be friends for a few minutes and talk about this great evening.”

Whoopi blankets the crew and me in a glow of genuine kindness and warmth.

Not wanting to sully our moments with her, I call it a wrap for the evening. Neither the crew nor I want to taint the nice feeling she leaves us with.

A Postscript: Those few moments with Whoopi happened nearly thirty years ago. She doesn’t remember me, but I’ll never forget her.

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“I’m taking you to a place beyond your imagination.”

Posted on February 1, 2021

Music and the Heart

“Come with me, young lady. I’m taking you to a place beyond your imagination.”

There, in the middle of a dark room, is a cozy chair swaddled in a single beam of light. Back in the shadows is the fuzzy outline of something inanimate giving off the whiff of a faint glow.

“Please, take a seat.”

The seduction of the chair’s soft padding is heightened by the coarse texture of its upholstery against my palms. Not knowing what to expect, I draw in a breath. Suddenly, the overwhelming sound of music radiates from deep inside my heart, moving out to my ears.

I inhale what feels like the first breath I’ve ever taken.

For the next ten minutes I sit feeling the vibration of the music start in my heart, then make its way out to my ears, where the vibration is transformed into melody. The clarity of the sound lets each instrument in the orchestra expand to its full potential.

This magical room is outfitted with vintage McIntosh stereo equipment, including an amplifier whose tubes are giving off the glow behind the chair. The acoustic geniuses at McIntosh know how we should experience sound. I am hearing the music from the inside out, not the outside in.

The moments I spend in that chair forever transform my relationship to life. I now understand that a real connection with life never comes from anything outside me, no matter how comfy and consoling that fellowship might be. I know, instead, to listen to the promptings of my heart . . . the ones that become music to my ears. Sometimes the tempo and progression of the notes counter my earthbound expectations, but the beguiling sound always takes me to a place more beautiful than I can dream of on my own.

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Misplaced eyes. Craters for cheekbones. Twisted nose.

Posted on January 22, 2021

Cherish Your Imperfections

Olivia’s face is perfection. Flawless features and buttery skin. Quite a change from the face I’d seen months earlier. Back then, Olivia’s face looked like it had been put through a food processor. Misplaced eyes. Craters instead of cheekbones. Twisted nose. An out-of-kilter, lopsided mouth swollen around bunched, protruding teeth.

Neither machine nor man did this to Olivia.

“This face is God’s doing,” she says without bitterness. “And we’ve been through a lot together. It’s hard saying goodbye after 16 years.”

When I meet Olivia, she desperately needs surgery to repair her jaw that’s fractured from years of misalignment and is now causing her teeth to fall out. But Olivia’s family has no money or insurance to pay for it.

“An angel donor has offered to pay for a complete facial makeover. Not just my jaw.”

Olivia’s about to go from gargoyle to gorgeous, but she’s concerned.

“I don’t like the ridicule I take because of my deformed face, but when I look in the mirror,” Olivia says, “I like the person I see. My imperfections and struggles on the outside have made me who I am on the inside. Will I lose the best of me when they fix my face?”

Turns out Olivia was wise beyond her age. A year after her surgery Olivia confides, “If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t have the full makeover. I miss my old face because it made me into so much more than the pretty face staring back at me from the mirror now. My imperfections were the friends who helped create the best in me. I miss them when I look in the mirror. And, you know what, looking like everyone else isn’t all it’s all it’s cracked up to be. Kinda boring.”

My lesson from this story: Love what brings out the best in you as a person and forget the rest. Take a good look in the mirror of your soul and cherish and celebrate the best of yourself.

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Hank the Husky

Posted on January 15, 2021

Hank the Husky

If ever a creature in this life was wronged it was Hank. I don’t know how old he was, but he had moss growing on his bushy Husky fur from being left out in the rain and snow of brutal New York winters without shelter of any kind. He was fenced in behind a building in Harlem. Alone. Just the concrete yard for a bed and no regular supply of food or water. Then a band of intrepid rescuers changed Hank’s life. Meeting Hank inspired me to write this story…and to see the value of letting go of the bad and sad and grabbing hold with all the joy possible when the good times come.

I meet Hank when volunteering to feed dogs being starved by their owners in New York City. Hank is a Husky living behind a dilapidated building surrounded by a high fence, his fur caked with green mold, his ears eaten down by frostbite and maggots.

Most of the dogs we feed are cowed by life, either crawling on their bellies toward us or growling and pulling at their chains to bite off our hands. Not Hank. When we show up, Hank bounds over like a pup, greeting us with a joyful bark.

Feeding Hank means throwing his food over the high, walled-up fence. One morning, I throw over a really big portion of wet food and then peep through a small slit in the barricade to get a glimpse of Hank. Looking back at me are Hank’s piercing blue eyes. He lets out a happy bark despite the fact the wet food has landed smack in the middle of his head, with odd bits clinging to his chewed-down ears. Hank, ever the optimist, just shakes his head and laps up the food.

Then, Hank’s fortune changes. He gets rescued, and the next time I see Hank he’s got a new family, including a little girl who loves wrapping her arms around his bushy neck and kissing his mangled ears.

It’s easy, in the tough times, to get down and count yourself out, to turn into a nasty snapper or lifeless spirit killing time till time kills you. Hank isn’t having that. He’s got new digs and all the food, water, and love his unflagging optimism can bring. He spends no time letting his past darken his present. Hank just keeps letting out a joyful bark for his happy ending.

My Takeaway from the Story: When you feel like life’s hiking its leg on you, don’t cower or get snappy. Let Hank’s wisdom be your guide. Shake it off and know that good fortune is out there waiting for you. And when that good fortune does come, don’t wallow in your sad past. Let out a joyful bark for your happy ending.

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Surefire Way to Lift Your Spirits in Bad Times

Posted on January 11, 2021

Surefire Way to Lift Your Spirits

Ribs and ice cream. That’s what Jessie and her daughter were having for their evening meal…again. But no amount of “food therapy” was helping to get them off the gerbil wheel of hell they were on because of a family problem that seemed to have no end in sight.

All I had to offer in my feable attempt to console my friend was sharing a conversation I had with a very wise cousin when he and his family were facing a bad time during a disastrous drought in Texas. Laverne said:

In Texas, it’s all about the weather. Tornadoes. Hail. Hurricanes. Blue Northers. And droughts. A few years ago, here in Texas we thought we were the Land God Forgot, because the drought had been going on for so long. Even the Texas Longhorns, known for scoffing at a drought, had drooping horns. When folks looked at the sky and merciless sun, their faces turned sour. But I decided to beam back at the cloudless sky and say, “This is a great day.”

“Why?!” choked back at him.

“Cuz, we’re one day closer to rain,” he said, then gave a big grin.

Lesson: Now, there’s a new way to keep our spirits up, while we’re waiting for the tough times, including the Time of Covid, to move on.

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Fountain of Youth

Posted on January 4, 2021

“Step right up. Take a dip in the Fountain of Youth. Lie about your age. Add five years!”

bbbbOnce you pass the halcyon age of thirty-five, that Golden Mean in time when we women are at our dewiest and sexiest, you start wishing clocks traveled backwards. You no longer yearn to reach a future time where you can drink, vote, smoke, drive a car, or have sex without someone waving a placard about your underage promiscuity.

bbbIt’s at that age I discover the Fountain of Youth. I’m standing at a cosmetic counter mulling over backward-running timepieces that will, hopefully, prevent the impending wrinkles and sags that are to be my future for the next sixty plus years. As my family’s expiration dates are usually at about one hundred years, I know my face and I are in for quite a slog in our quest to defy gravity.

bbbThe salesperson chirps,“What can I help you find?”
bbb“Something to stop the stride of time on my face.”
bbb“How old are you?”
bbbCounter-intuition jumps in. “Forty.”
bbb“Reeeaaally? You look fabulous!”
bbbSuddenly, whenever I can weave it into the conversation, I even tell strangers I’m forty years old. And every time, I hear some version of, “You look marvelous, darling. Keep up whatever you’re doing.”bbbSo, for forty years I’ve kept it up—adding five years to my age.
bbbHere’s what’s amazing: The longer I do this, the more the years keep ticking off my face. Now that I’m cuddling up to seventy-five, the more myopic folks, glancing down at my late-in-life stomach (should have exercised more between bouts of lying about my age) ask, “When’s your baby due?”
bbbNever offended, I say, “Thank you for thinking I’m young enough to get pregnant.” And then they ask the secret of my youth.

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I would love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to comment below or leave a comment on the Global Cowgirl Facebook page. Please email me what “you” do to keep your cowgirl spirit strong when things get rough at thecowgirl@global-cowgirl.com. Your story may be chosen to be featured on the “Global Cowgirl and Friends” blog.

You will find more stories just like this one in my new book Stories from a Global Cowgirl… “Don’t Put a Cat on Your Head!” Available on Amazon

Key to Knowing Yourself

Posted on December 28, 2020

I want to get to you and everyone in the Global Cowgirl community. So, from time to time, I’m going to ask you a question that will let me get to know you…and may let you get to know yourself a bit better.

As it’s New Year’s, a time when many of us take stock of ourselves and our lives, I’d want to ask you this question: “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?”

It’s a question that my old boss, Barbara Walters, was famous for asking Katharine Hepburn and made Barbara the butt of a lot of jokes that hurt her feelings. However, I love this question. When people really give the question some thought, it tells me a lot about them. Like the man who said, “I’d be a pecan tree, because it gives off a lot of shade. I want to be a shady place for people to come when life gets bit too hot for them.” (He worked for a non-profit charity. No shock there.)

So, please, email me your answer to this question at thecowgirl@global-cowgirl.com. I’ll be using some of your answers in this blog. And, or course, you can always post your thoughts in the Comments to this blog.

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Global Cowgirl and Friends

Applaud Yourself

Freedom from Bigotry Bought for a Penny

Successful Listeners

Whoopi Goldberg and Kindness

“I’m taking you to a place beyond your imagination.”

Misplaced eyes. Craters for cheekbones. Twisted nose.

Hank the Husky

Surefire Way to Lift Your Spirits in Bad Times

Fountain of Youth

Key to Knowing Yourself

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