The Singing Cowboy

 

Loveland, Colorado

 

 

      Uncle Darius was an electrician and horseman who wore 36-inch inseams on his Levis.

He was married to my Mom’s little sister, a palm reader, Madame Pauline. 

      We were watching the Roy Rogers Show on television in my Grandma’s living room, Loveland, Colorado. The crooked banker lost the fistfight with Roy and was in the hoosgow. In the final act, Roy and Dale hooked their bootheels in the corral fence and were joined by several hired men in a rendition of  “Happy Trails to You.”

     Darius stood, ambled over to the television, turned it off.  “You know, J.D., I don’t know what I would do if someone came up to me and actually sang, right in my face.”

 

 

 

Spanish Fly

Payette Lake, Idaho

      I was working with a backhoe operator as the shovel person laying pipeline and it was lunchtime in the ditches. While we were gnawing on our lunchmeat, a deer ambled past. Bruce asked “Why are the Chinese buying all the horn sheds from this part of the world?”

     I said that I heard they powdered the antlers and used them in their medicine, mainly as aphrodisiacs.

    “Afro whats?”

    “Sex stimulants, like Spanish Fly.”

    “Well, by God, it must work. There are a hell of a lot of people in China.”

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