by Baxter Black
If they treated her like baggage, she would protectively conclude that they didn’t appreciate her husband, either.
How important do you think her opinion is? Do you think it is in her power to make her husband go to work a happy man? Or, on the other hand, to make his life miserable?
I was jogged from my reverie by the manager’s wife’s voice: “I know you’re tired from travelin’ all day, but I imagine you’d like to take a look at the house we’ve got for you. We’ve just redone the bathroom. . . . Oh, and bring the dog.”
You could see the change in her eyes.
COWBOY CURSES
→ May you be trapped in an elevator for twelve hours with a family of eight who just finished a big meal of fried cabbage.
→ May you get bucked off ten miles from camp on the only day you decide to ride barefoot.
→ May the BLM decide your hay meadow is good goose habitat.
→ May your son join a vegetarian commune.
→ May your sheep pay for your cattle operation.
→ May the Western Horseman magazine run the dude’s picture instead of yours ’cause he looks more like a cowboy.
→ May you discover one of the barn cats missing after you’ve butchered rabbits.
→ May it rain two inches the day after you sell your cows.
→ May your only TV appearance be on 60 Minutes.
→ May you jerk your slack just as the steer drops off a fifty-foot embankment.
→ May you sell your calves the day before they go up ten cents a pound.
→ May a Wyoming sheepherder offer to buy your best bull to feed his sheepdogs.
→ May you cough at the wrong time in the sale barn and buy twenty-six head of broken-mouthed Shetlands.
→ May the drought break the day you cut your hay.
→ May the chore boy use your good rope to stake the milk cow out in the bar ditch.
→ May your only good dog get caught in the neighbor’s hen house.
→ May your blue heeler bitch get settled by a Pekingese
→ May you notice your missing wedding ring as you put the last scoop of wheat in the elevator.
→ May your daughter get engaged to a fifty-six-year-old biker.
→ May the local gossip discover your Jane Fonda workout video.
FIFTY WAYS TO FOOL YER BANKER
There must be fifty ways to fool yer banker. I woulda made the loan payment but . . .
The cow I was countin’ on had a heifer calf.
The racehorse I bought missed the turn.
The price of hogs went up, so I bought more.
The price of hogs went down, so I bought more.
The Miracle Fence business tapered off.
I shot the wrong cow.
Amway wasn’t all they told me it was.
My gold mine petered out.
Ma bought a new pair of overshoes.
My modeling contract was canceled.
Somebody stole my calender.
The weather was too hot (13) cold (14) dry (15) wet.
My dog ran off to the neighbors.
I lost my calculator.
My daughter got married (19) pregnant.
It was you or my tire man (21) vet (22) bookie.
I overslept.
I had a vision that said, “Wait!”
You looked like you didn’t need it right away.
I paid up at the Elks Club instead.
I lost my wallet (28) your address (29) my mind.
Avon came calling.
I had a flat (32) mental block (33) baby.
The cat needed an operation.
I joined the marines (36) foreign legion (37) hippie commune (38) Baptist Church.
I spent it on sympathy cards to my other creditors.
I invested in racing greyhounds.
I gave at the office.
They only let me give blood once a week.
I renewed my subscription to Livestock Weekly.
I bought a lamb at the 4-H sale.
I repainted the FARM FOR SALE sign.
My horse went lame.
My pickup was repossessed.
My tractor caught on fire.
My topsoil blew away.
My dreams went up in smoke.
I admit I’m skeptical of economics being called a science. I’ve always sort of thought a Ph.D. in economics was the equivalent of an astrologer getting her name in the Yellow Pages. I have many friends engaged in the profession . . . but then I have friends in prison, too. All I can do is be there for them when they are paroled.
ECONOMIST NIGHTMARE
I have always been mystified by the study of economics. I have friends who in every other respect seem to be intelligent, practical, plainspoken, credible people, not prone to astrology, soothsaying, or betting the horses. Yet, they practice the art of economics, yes, even calling themselves economists.
If auctioneers go by the title Colonel, lawyers by Esquire, and bawdyhouse managers by Madam, what is the proper title for admitted economists? Oracles? Surmisers? Enigmatists? Fudgers? What do they call the economist who graduates last in his class? Wrong!
I’ve had a recurring nightmare wherein I graduated with a degree in ag economics. Norwest Bank and Wells Fargo had no vice presidential slots open and Farm Credit had filled all its loan officer spots with retired county agents. In my dream, I am forced to hang out my shingle and advertise my services:
BAXTER BLACK . . . ECONOMIST . . . ANALYSIS & CONJECTURES By the book, by the number, or by the hour
Each week in this dream, I write a column called Bluffing with Bax: Theoretical Vacillations on the Market. The following is a sample:
The sheep market is down again for the 357th consecutive week, due in part to the restrictions on imports of Colombian wool, which lacks the proper density to resist cigarette burns, and the dreaded Panamanian ked.
To maintain your position in this downward market, sheepmen are encouraged to look forward to better times, should they ever come, by making friends with the Peruvians who seem to have a ready supply of herders, yet no experienced ovine therapists. Which is in itself a contradiction.
The relationship between the falling price of corn, cattle, oil, timber, and copper and the rising price of cornflakes, steak, gasoline, houses, and police salaries continues to defy Newton’s Third Law of Economics, which says, “Gravity has no effect on consumer markets except when it does.” It is an immutable, indelible constant that I adhere to most of the time.
As for the future of the hog market, there is no doubt that it will remain in disequilibrium as long as consumer demand, import regulations, corporate lobbying, and producer sacrifice remain stable.
And so it goes in Bluffing with Bax. That’s it for this week, and you can take that to the bank!
I believe people have a right to make well-informed bad decisions. Subsequently they should have the character and self-respect to live or die by them. It is called taking responsibility. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the cowboy way.
TOBACCO SUITS
The Marlboro Man has his hands in the air. Several state governments are holding him at gunpoint demanding . . . what? Money, of course. What does government always want.
As this robbery is taking place, we seem to be watching a movie in which the audience knows where the microfilm is hidden but the actors have had their brains removed. Is tobacco addictive? Have smokers known this since Pocahontas lit up John Smith? Is this a secret?
We as a nation have taken care of our cancer-plagued, coronary-prone, emphysematous victims of this vice. Just as we take care of those who succumbed to the lure of other temptations and suffered their consequences—marijuana, heroin, AIDS, whiskey, greed, cocaine, and disingenuous gurus.
So why sue just the tobacco companies? We are not suing Ernest & Julio Gallo or the brokers who promote speculation on soybean contracts or the TV preachers who ask for your last farthing as a love offering. They damage at least as many lives. But the suit
is not about justice or retribution. It is about money. The root of all evil.
The plaintiffs doing the suing have managed to circumvent the tobacco company’s strongest defense strategy, i.e., the warning printed on the package right in front of their eyes that says, Don’t smoke, stupid. The victim’s justification is “I couldn’t help myself. The devil made me do it. It’s not my fault. Pay me.”
So they spar around until government and the lawyers all agree on their share of the loot. Then it will be settled.
But we can take comfort in knowing that as soon as the Marlboro Man has had his pockets picked, Joe Camel is mugged, and Virginia Slim is assaulted, the lawyers will be looking for other prey.
As a matter of fact, recently a suit was filed against the dairy industry by a lawyer for a client claiming he was addicted to ice cream. They were particularly adamant about demanding warning labels.
WARNING: Consumption of almond mocha fudge satin ripple ice cream by people who have the self-discipline of a pack of wild dogs can lead to premature love handles.
If he wins his suit and warning labels are put on ice cream, the dairy industry will have to beef up its promotion to overcome it. Course, their timing is good. I know at least three advertising symbols that may be available soon. The Marlboro Man might look good with a milk moustache.
THE DREADED BLUE BOX
I had just finished loading 184 seven-foot steel T-posts, old ones, by the way, in my pickup and was unloading a mere twenty-four bales of hay from the front section of my gooseneck stock trailer. It was a hot, humid afternoon in early fall when the dead branches begin to stick out of the cottonwood greenery, and the garden starts goin’ to hell and no one cares. I could almost smell the cumin from Ramon’s #6 Combination Plate being distilled in my sweat from lunch earlier. Then I saw the blue box.
The dreaded blue box. It was still in the stock trailer. It needed to be moved.
The blue box is a metal toolbox I have had since I bought my first set of “made in America” wire cutters, thinking they would last longer. I have now realized that all wire cutters have the sharpness longevity of fresh fruit. They should be thrown out about as often as you empty the trash barrel in the shop.
Anyway, over the years, the blue box has become my chain holder. It will hold four or five good log chains. I have always said that a hundred pounds of salt weighs more than a hundred pounds of anything else. But a ten-by-ten-by-eighteen-inch metal toolbox full of log chains is harder to carry than a sheet of plywood in a hurricane.
There are other things that can stimulate a similar sinking feeling, e.g., the same cow prolapsing for the third time, somebody commenting that my horse seems to be favoring his left front, or the bedside phone ringing in the deep of night.
I don’t know exactly what it is about the old blue toolbox that I dread. I’ve heaved it, moved it, loaded it, dropped it, pushed it, and cussed it through a lifetime succession of jobs and homes, horses and kids, and ups and downs.
Maybe it’s not because it’s heavier than God’s own anvil, clumsier than an ostrich in a Porta Potti, or uglier than a ’58 Buick. No, maybe it’s because I realize it’s gonna outlive me by a long time.
By its earthly clock, I’m just a temporary passerby, while it will still be here when men are walking on Pluto.
I have thoughts of storing my chains in a gunnysack, takin’ the ol’ toolbox to the dump, and reestablishing the peckin’ order in my life. But every time I get as far as step one, I see it lyin’ there like a concrete loaf of bread, like a two-hundred-pound rattlesnake, and the dread sweeps over me in a wave.
So, I let it lie or move it if I have to. I’ve come to realize there are some things you just can’t do anything about.
Sometimes I feel a little twinge when I tell a story on a friend. Will he be embarrassed? Will he hate me? I justify it by giving him a complimentary copy of this book. Egotistical, I know, but if he doesn’t like it, he can always take it to the flea market and sell it for a couple bucks.
PETE AT THE ALTAR CALL
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Pete is one of the pillars of any community. He works hard at a hard job, then volunteers his time for civic and church projects. He and his family are musical as well, and share their talent generously. Pete is also devout and regularly attends the Baptist Church.
The spearhead, bomb site, bull’s-eye, yea, even the purpose of a Baptist church service is the altar call. The chance to accept Christ and be saved. It is also a time for those already in the fold to come forward and renew their vows or pray.
Pete had been working the late shift and pouring concrete on the side. He was doin’ his best, but it was wearin’ him out. During the altar call, he felt the need to seek guidance.
He stepped out into the aisle and came forward. After acknowledging the preacher, Pete knelt beside the podium and began silently praying. He prayed through the first verse. Then the second. The third, and finally the fourth stanza of “Softly and Tenderly.” The preacher glanced discreetly to his side to see Pete kneeling—more accurately, slumping, in prayer.
The reverend indicated for the song leader to continue singing, so great was his respect for this righteous brother. The congregation changed to “Jesus I Come” and began again. Granted, some in the crowd were fidgeting.
Somewhere during the course of verse four, one of Pete’s kids slipped to the front and shook her dad’s shoulder. So deep was his peace, he had fallen sound asleep shortly after kneeling and melted into an unapproved cross-legged lotus position. Pete stirred, looked up like a deer in the headlights, and attempted to stand. With a self-conscious nod to the preacher, he stumbled back down the aisle, lurching from side to side, grasping, then shoving off from pew to pew. He fell into the seat beside his wife as the organ hummed its last note.
Pete doesn’t remember the singing much, but he has a distinct memory of being alarmed that he must have been struck by some mysterious crippling illness for his irreverence. Of having no sensation below the knees.
It was only when he glanced at his feet, as he pinballed down the aisle, that he noticed he was walking on the sides of his shoes, leaving tracks like a seasick roller-blading orangutan.
However, he was pleased with himself in retrospect that he had remembered to wipe the drool off the altar step below his chin before rising.
I’m always a little suspicious of the folks involved with fanatical organized do-goodism; they seem to have no sense of proportion.
WHALE DILEMMA
Oh, what a Solomon’s dilemma. Oh, what a two-edged sword. Oh, what a politically correct Pandora’s paradox.
The confrontation included no easy villain. The cast featured animal rights activists, self-proclaimed environmentalists, Native Americans, and whales. All representing themselves to be spokesmen for Mother Earth’s best interest. Except the whale, of course, which was the baby presented to Solomon.
The Makah Indians of Washington State claimed a treaty right that had been granted them by the U.S. government in exchange for their land. We gave them a small reservation, some beads and blankets, and the right to hunt and fish without having to buy a whale stamp from the Fish and Game.
The tribe was forced to quit hunting whales with a canoe and harpoon after the United States, Russia, and Japan decimated the whale population to the point of extinction with nuclear warheads and dynamite (small exaggeration, but you get the point).
The whales rebounded and were removed from the Endangered Species list in 1995. The Makah nation planned a hunt.
The professional activists organized and hounded the Indians. But strangely enough, they were unable to muster sufficient outrage from the whale-loving public. Which is most of us, I guess.
Ultimately, it appears our feelings of guilt for the Native American’s plight was greater than our guilt for the whale, so we stood by and let the tribe harpoon one.
Those defending the whale raised an appropriate hue and cry: “. . . A horrific traged
y. It’s just the beginning. Anybody who thinks it stops here is dead wrong. It is really the shot heard round the world!”
“. . . One hundred and fifty years ago, it was for food,” said one activist about the tribal hunt. “Now it’s for fun.”
To the tribe’s credit, they did it the hard way. Literally with harpoons and canoes. But I suspect there won’t be a flotilla of tribal harpooners taking to the water. After all, what are you gonna do with it after you drag it to shore? How much work would it be to butcher a carcass that weighs as much as a loaded Kenworth? And who can you give twenty or thirty tons of blubber to? I’ll bet it’s harder to give away than zucchini.
I expect that in the end, the Makah folks will not make much of a dent in the whale population. After all, how many head mounts can you hang above the mantel.
I’ve got a lot of admiration for outfitters and hunting guides. They remind me that we have contemporaries living amongst us who know what pre-Columbus Indians knew. Tuned into nature in a way most don’t even have a glimpse of. My hats off to them, and Big Eddie, too.
HUNTING CAMP COOK
Fall is hunting season. Airports from Bozeman to San Antonio are filled with men in camouflage suits carrying gun cases out of Baggage Claim. They are here to stalk the fleeting deer and the wily elk. And, they bring with them millions in revenue, part of which winds up in the pockets of outfitters and guides.
Good hunting camps do much to attract hunters, often year after year. Some camps are elaborate, others Spartan, but all boast a good cook.
Hank’s brother Dan ran a guide service in the Big Hole. He enjoyed much repeat business due, according to other outfitters, to his reputation of having the most entertaining camp in western Montana.
The star of the Big Hole Wilderness Experience and Wildlife Procurement Extravaganza was Big Eddie, a puppy-hearted pit bull/Power Wagon cross. At six foot six, 280 with a full beard, he took up a lot of room in a two-man tent. He was officially the camp cook.