Ah, good morning! Good morning, and welcome once again to Sunday Griot! I’m glad to see you all here again on such a blustery morning.

You know, the wind reminds me of a story. But that should hardly surprise anyone by now! After the last story that took three weeks to tell, today’s is a little more modest. It’s about a man with an unusual job qualification . . . but maybe when you think about it, it isn’t that unusual after all.

It was a typical West Texas summer. That is to say, relentlessly hot. The rancher had been looking for a new ranch hand for months, but there were no takers. I’m getting too old for this, he thought to himself as he went about the day-to-day chores of running a cattle ranch.

Then, one day he saw a dust cloud on the horizon. In between his duties, he watched as the cloud grew nearer. It was being kicked up by a cowboy riding toward him. Finally he stopped and watched as the cowboy approached.

“I hear you’re looking for help,” the cowboy said by way of introduction.

“Maybe,” the rancher replied in typical West Texas fashion. “What’s your qualifications?”

The stranger looked him in the eye. “I can sleep when the wind blows,” he said.

The rancher waited a moment. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Just what I said,” the stranger replied. “I can sleep when the wind blows. Now are you looking for help or am I wasting my time here?” The stranger took a pull from a canteen at his side.

There was something about the cowboy that impressed the rancher. Maybe it was how he looked on a horse. Maybe it was an air of honesty about him, or his odd answer to the question. Whatever it was, it was enough to make him say, “Okay, you’re on. Let’s get to work.”

The rancher showed his new hand around the place, and after a few days the rancher felt comfortable enough to leave the ranch in the cowboy’s hands while he took off to what passed for the big city to do some errands that he’d been putting off because he hadn’t been able to leave the ranch.

The rancher stayed in town overnight, and was planning to stay a second night when, late in the afternoon, he saw clouds on the horizon. They weren’t just any clouds, either. They were tall, and they were black, and they were ugly. They spelled trouble to anyone who had ever seen them before.

The rancher hopped into his pickup, hit the gas and high-tailed it back to the ranch. He arrived at about the same time the winds did. It wasn’t a tornado, but it was close. The wind howled around him as he struggled to reach the ranch house.

He rushed into the ranch house and found his hand sound asleep. The rancher kicked at the soles of the cowboy’s boots. “Get up!” he yelled. “There’s a storm out there!”

The cowboy turned over and opened a bleary eye. “I know,” he said. “I told you, I can sleep when the wind blows.” And he rolled over and went back to sleep.

The rancher was furious. He determined to fire the cowboy, but first there was plenty to do. He grabbed a hammer and some nails to put up the storm windows, but then realized that they’d already gone up.

He rushed out toward the barn. The animals were all nervous because of the noise, but secure.

The hay had been covered by a tarp and staked down so it wouldn’t blow away.

The machinery was even stowed in the shed.

Everywhere the rancher looked, his hand had already prepared for the storm. It was then he realized that the only job qualification he’d given was, in fact, the only one he’d needed. He was prepared, so he could sleep when the wind blew.