Just when I think maybe… the pain in my head comes back with a vengeance. Sigh… So, it’s a good think I have material from Slim Randles to share, and it’s a perfect day to read some nonsense from good ol’ Windy, the man who mangles the English language like no other. But first this reminder about why writers write and why we all read.
We sipped and saw. Yep. Windy Wilson, cowboy camp cook, approaching the philosophy and coffee counter at the Mule Barn. But what are you gonna do?
“Ya know, fellas,” he said, taking a seat. “I believe in them childhood dreams and all. With me, my kid dream was to travel to the darkest corner of Equilateral Africa and look at the varmints. They got a bunch of ‘em down there. Some are kinda pretty and others can stomp you into furry pink Jell-O. “Wellsir, I got to figgerin’ just how I could swing a trip over there to them Serum-getty Plains and all, and listen to monkeys jabber while they was watching those cheaters chase down them grazelles.
So, I thought I kinda should practice up a bit in case I got the chance, so I sprung it on my fellow students in the second grade. You know, with that show and tell thingie. Most folks don’t get to do that ‘til they’re already in Congress, but I stood up and tol’ them ‘bout my pet hipplo-potamus in the backyard. Called him Fluffy.
I told ‘em story after story ‘bout ol’ Fluff. You know the stuff … how ol’ Fluffy bit me one morning when I was a-saddlin’ him up. Stuff like that there.
“Now truth was, I didn’t happen to have ol’ Fluffy in the backyard, but I sure as sugar wished I had, and I guess that transmaterialated itself to the audience. Teacher called my mom just to check about Fluffy, though, so I musta told a good one. Yessir!
“Never did get to darkest Africa and stuff, but I studied on it. Seems the onliest folks in them days who got over there was missionarities. Them missionarity types, turns out, was s’posed to gather folks together and tell ‘em their ‘speriences and ‘splain how to live more gooder lives and that. And I jest couldn’t see my ownself doin’ that. Nossir!”
We just nodded. It’s quicker that way.
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Brought to you by Windy’s Words of Wisdom, a vital part of Home Country with Slim Randles, on a classic country music radio station near you.
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Check out all of Slim’s award-winning books at his Goodreads Page and in better bookstores and bunkhouses throughout the free world. All of the posts here are from his syndicated column, Home Country that is read in hundreds of newspapers across the country. I am always happy to have him share his wit and wisdom here.
Slim is a veteran newspaperman, hunting guide, cowboy, and dog musher. He was a feature writer and columnist for The Anchorage Daily News for 10 years and guided hunters in the Alaska Range and the Talkeetna Mountains. A resident of New Mexico now for more than 30 years, Randles is the prize-winning author of a dozen books, and is host of two podcasts and a television program.