Beside That Windmill

What does a boy do when he has to spend his summers on a dry, windy farm, living in a house with no water or electricity? No TV, no radio, no telephone, no bathroom, no refrigerator. This was ranch life long ago.

Don Parks grew up on a family ranch in the rural Great Plains. The sky was big and blue. Cattle roamed the fields. Cowboys came and went. Most important of all, the ranch’s water was supplied by a faithful windmill. Every night it lulled the boy to sleep, and every day it worked alongside the family in the sun.

Windmills still dot the landscape of the wide spaces of America’s Great Plains. They serve as reminders of what it took homesteaders to settle this hardscrabble region and how they coaxed enough water from the earth to live by.

When Don Parks grew up, he began painting the childhood he remembered. His paintings are set alongside a story by his wife, longtime educator Minda Parks. Together, the narrative and the paintings tell the history of windmills on the Great Plains.

Don L. Parks is a professional artist and a veteran who has also had careers as an agricultural economist and a trust banker. Parks, largely self-taught, studied art and painted in the evenings after work. His subject matter portrays his time spent outdoors as a boy growing up on a ranch and reflects his love of nature. Parks has degrees from Texas Tech University. He lives with his wife, Minda, in Midland, Texas.

Minda Parks, an enthusiastic reader of adult and children’s books, encourages others to read. Now retired, she taught in Texas public schools in Wichita Falls and Midland. Her teaching career was spent in the classroom and as a reading specialist. She has degrees from Texas Tech University and the University of Texas–Permian Basin.