I’ve got an friend, ol’ Sol E. Mender, who fixes cowboy boots and makes fine cowboy-related leather goods. And, I’ll bet he can now identify with this saying I dreamed up: “Clumsy is as clumsy does.”
As I’m sure you’re suspecting by now, there’s a story behind that, and it’s only funny in retrospect. Sol has a buddy, ol’ Roper N. Mugger, and they’re such close friends that they’re almost attached at the hip. They’ll do anything for, or to, each other.
Well, Rope acquired a small trencher and he needed to practice using it before he started a major outdoor plumbing project at his ranch. So, naturally, he volunteered to dig up a leaky outdoors waterline that ran from the water meter to Sol’s home. They moved the trencher to Sol’s yard and started digging. And, surprisingly, all went well for two cowboys involved in a self-education in neophyte plumbing. They got the waterline uncovered without incident.
But, it wuz evening and they didn’t have time to complete the project and fix the water leak. So, nightfall came and sometime before Sol retired for the night he recalled with alarm that he’d hadn’t closed the door to the crawl space beneath his home. He has skunks around his home and Sol didn’t want the smell or inconvenience of the skunk family setting up permanent residence under his home.
So, without giving it a second thought, he hastened outdoors in the dark to shut the crawl space door. Turns out, he should have given it a second thought and even a third.
Because —- as he made his way blindly through his yard, Sol suddenly disappeared. Yep, you guessed it. Headfirst right into the newly opened ditch.
And, a sharp pain ran through his shoulder as he tumbled into the ditch. In pain and unable to see, Sol had a tough time extricating himself from the excavation. He never did get the crawl space door in place.
He finally flailed away and pulled himself out of his predicament and groped his way back into his home. From the pain, he knew his shoulder wuz messed up. So, for the next several days, he gimped around with a stiff neck and a sore shoulder until the shoulder finally “popped” and went back in place and Sol Mender began to mend.
He’s gonna be fine when he finally heals completely, but I’ll bet he doesn’t go outdoor in the dark again until his plumbing project is done. And, he’s lucky in one way. No skunks moved under his home.
***
The Chase County Fair is about to begin, but it didn’t get off to a great start for me. I usually take my utility vehicle and trailer to help with the work setting up the fair. Since it’s always in hot weather, the work crew always gets an early start at 6:30 a.m. And, for years, the work got done on the Friday morning before the fair starts on Monday.
So, this morning I got up at 5:30 a.m. Hooked up the trailer with the UTV to the pickup and arrived at the fairgrounds at 6:15. No one wuz around. Not a soul. So, I called ol’ Avery Ware, our county extension agent, and asked him where everyone was. He said, “Milo, it’s tomorrow morning.”
Dummy me, I didn’t look in the fair book to see when set-up day wuz. So, dummy me, I’ll need to get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to see if I can repeat my “practice trip” for the fair work day.
***
Speaking of our county fair, Avery told me a true funny story about something that happened at the fair quite a few years ago. Two young 4-H boys got permission from their parents to spend the night at the fair in the livestock barn with their livestock projects.
The weather for that fair wuz unusually cool and sometime during the night the 4-H boys got cold. One of them picked up his blankets and went to the exhibit building for the rest of the night. The other boy, unbeknownst to his friend, hoisted a wooden panel into the rafters of the livestock barn and made his uncomfortable pallet up out of the wind.
Well, just before dawn the boy in the exhibit barn awoke and made his way to the livestock barn. He didn’t notice his friend asleep in the rafters above his head. The kid wuz innocently rummaging through his livestock buckets and pans when suddenly his buddy’s hand fell through a crack in the wooden panel and plopped on the kid’s shoulder.
That’s all it took for the frightened youngster to yell and hightail it back to the exhibit barn. But, when dawn finally arrived, he began telling about the ghost that grabbed him down in the livestock barn. Eventually, the truth came out and everybody had a laugh at his expense.
***
I read recently about some new research concerning how our brains work. Scientists found a new way to discover a high number of distinct areas of the brain where certain mental activities take place. For example, an area that handles cognitive reasoning, an area that handles empathy, etc.
After watching the political conventions, I got to wondering what area of the brain is at work if you’re a conservative and which if you’re a liberal? They must be separate and distinct.
***
I’m gonna kill the pesky coyote that’s been stalking my chickens — and killed at least two. He’ll make a mistake some day. I’ll close with a few words of wisdom about coyotes. Doug Fine said: “As for the coyote, he was nothing like his cartoon icon. He was sleek, fast, healthy and apparently without an anvil or Acme product of any kind.” Perhaps my coyote will get a much smaller metal object than an anvil. Have a good ‘un.
