Black Heels And Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond

 

When Ree Drummond broke up with her college boyfriend after four years, she moved back to her childhood home in Oklahoma to figure out what she would do with the rest of her life.  She decided to relocate to Chicago where her brother lived, but before she could move, she met the man she called Marlboro Man, Ladd Drummond.

A more unlikely pair would be hard to imagine.  Ree was a country club girl, daughter of a doctor and a socialite mother.  She knew all about manners and clothes and living a wealthy lifestyle.  Ladd was a rancher.  His days started before dawn and he worked cattle and horses all day.  But the two sparked an immediate interest and several months later, started dating.

The connection was real and sustained, with the couple getting serious very fast, exchanging vows of love and getting married within a year.  Instead of clubbing all night, Ree was now watching old cowboy movies after dinner (usually steak for this former vegetarian) and sitting on the front porch listening to the night around her.  

Most readers know Ree Drummond as The Pioneer Woman.  She is known for her blog about life in rural Oklahoma and for her cooking, having a television show and numerous bestselling cookbooks.  But this is life before all that fame.  She tells the sad along with the happiness; her parents' marriage breaks up as she is starting hers, her grown brother on the spectrum, sadness as various elderly relatives pass away.  But mostly she talks about the love between Ladd and she.

I have a few quibbles with the book.  Ree is now in her fifties and while those of us similar in age know what she means when she calls Ladd her Marlboro Man, younger readers probably do not as we no longer idealize smoking.  The other is that she glosses over the fact that as rich as she has become with her writing and television show, Ladd is far richer with she.  He is one of the top one hundred landowners in the United States and owns land in association with his family as large as half of Rhode Island.  Of course, this book tells of their early years, but I think it gives a false impression to portray him as a rustic cowboy when he is now worth over two hundred million dollars.  Outside of that, this is a delightful book that will lighten the heart and is recommended for readers of momoirs.