High Above Texas' photostream  

None of my images are available for license or purchase and I am not available for hire. These days, I'm just an old-codger on a farm messin' with chickens and goats, an adopted burro named Pablo and 8 formerly homeless dogs that needed a place to stay.

(Why I enjoy capturing images "High Above Texas..." the long version)

I got the whoopin' of my life when I was 8 years old! I climbed to the top of the windmill (about 3 stories up) on my grandparent's ranch near Fort Stockton late in the day and I marveled at the spectacular view of a sunset "High Above Texas." Shortly after climbing back down in the darkness of night, I got a well-deserved spanking for the adventure. Early the next morning, I climbed up the windmill again and enjoyed the view on the opposite side, just as the sun was coming up over the horizon. That very morning my folks must have determined I had a "learning disorder" and they gave up on my risk taking after my subsequent trips up the windmill and in trees, airplanes, gliders and hot air balloons, most often with a camera in hand. I started making home movies when I was 4 and eventually this became one of my numerous professions taking me around the globe on many adventures.

Had Saint Peter taken a day off off from guarding the Pearly Gates and came down to earth when I was a boy in high school long ago, and said to me, "Sterling, I have some good news and I have some bad news.... First the Good News... in 40 years, you'll be living on a farm with goats and chickens and ducks... a wild burro you adopted from Uncle Sam and named Pablo, a mess of formerly abandoned dogs you rescued... and you'll have been blissfully married to a very attractive, and incredibly smart gal who will be your one and only wife of nearly 30 of those 40 years and you'll be passionately in love all that time." I would have said, " REALLY? ! :) get out of here!" Then Saint Peter frowned at me and said... "God will have to give several extra doses of 'tolerance' to the woman who will become your wife so she can put up with your odd and very eccentric nature... and we are going to assign you a very powerful guardian angel... you'll need one who can work lot's of overtime, especially on weekends and holidays.

And next Saint Peter would have said, "And now the BAD NEWS.... in 40 years, you'll be an old cuss with forgetfulness, allergies, arthritis, bursitis, cancer, tendonitis, tinnitus, diverticulitis and festusitis. You'll also no longer be able to climb up rickety - old windmils or motivated to bend down to to pick up a dollar bill if you see one on laying the ground...." I asked Saint Peter, "What in the world is "festusititis?!" And Saint Peter said "Festus Hagan, the old deputy on Gun Smoke, you'll hobble around and walk like Festus did... But, you got these ailments because you'll have an active and adventurous life. You'll have fallen off of horses a few times, kicked by your pet burro on several occasions, been sent to the hospital from motorcycle accidents, hooked in the rib-cage by a rather large Texas Longhorn steer, and been chased at close range by several buffalo at Yellowstone National Park. You'll have worked in Africa, the Soviet Union, The White House, The Pentagon, US State Department and crossed Loch Ness, Scotland on a small boat in the middle of winter. You'll have been abandoned in Mogadishu, Somalia and be the only "white-guy" for miles around, when it wasn't a good time to be in Mogadishu... And the exciting part is, people will have shot guns at you in a place called Vietnam." And then I would have said, " SAY WHAT? O: "

And this very morning I woke up... pinched myself, and boy-howdy, it's all true.

I'm also fortunate to have had a father that I spent a great deal of time with... as seen here when I was 13,


And here, a dozen years later with my dad on Father's Day 1978 as seen in the rear-view mirror of my motorcycle when I was a "man" not too long after I came back from that unpopular war in Vietnam I volunteered for. My dad built my first three motorcycles. I've had 36, the last one being a Harley.


visited 49 states (98%)Create your own visited map of The United States

visited 15 states (6.66%)Create your own visited map of The World

visited 2 states (15.3%)Create your own visited map of Canada