It was hot.
I fanned myself as I looked around at the line of other families that had gathered, all of us hoping to find the best piece of land as soon as the Oklahoma territory opened up. The wind was blowing across the flat prairie, and even though there was no eagle screeching dramatically above us, there easily could have been. My husband leaned over and whispered to me, "I'll run ahead to get some good land. You can follow with the kids."
Before I knew it, 12:00 came, and someone fired a gun to signal that the territory was open. There was pushing and fighting, and I was halfway glad that my husband had run ahead so that we didn't have to deal with all of the fighting, but I also knew that I could probably have run faster than he did. I was in a hurry to see our property, but with my four kids it was hard to rush.
"Keep running!", I encouraged my oldest daughter, who was very slow. Very slow. Finally, I found the marker that my husband had put in the ground to declare our ownership. He came jogging out of the woods with an old log.
"We can use this for a seat", he said.
"Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad!"
My son liked to annoy his dad.
"Ugh! I can't stand these kids! I'm going into the woods to hunt. You can stay here and watch the kids and cook, or something", said my husband.
"I'm going with him! I don't want to stay home with a bunch of girls!", said my son, as he ran after my husband.
I was frustrated that I had been delegated to just stay at home all day and miss all the action, but I got to work, and soon my daughters and I had cleaned up our home and made it a bit more comfortable. "Comfortable" is really a relative term - for example, in this situation it meant that we had two logs, which was more than most of the other families.
As we were working, I got sick with cholera. Just my luck. Someone ran into the woods to find my husband and brought him back just in time to take me to the doctor. I really hoped that I would get well soon, but the doctor had other news.
"I'm afraid there's nothing I can do, sir", he said to my husband. "Your wife is going to die."
And I did. Right there in the doctor's room.
The doctor pronounced me dead, and my body was taken to the undertaker's. (The undertaker really did not take the whole situation of my death very seriously and kept laughing at my funeral.) My husband and kids stood over my body quietly for a moment, and then the my husband kicked some dirt into my grave.
"Great. Now I have to watch all the kids by myself."
He turned around and my family left me there, lying on the ground with dirt on my clothes.
The year was 2013, and I had just struggled through the last day of the craziest (and possibly only) Oklahoma-Land-Run-themed outdoor school I'm sure has ever existed.