The new San Angelo art museum, finished last year, made a great stride in elevating the city's culture level from the wool capital image to a metropolitan profile. The former museum in the old Fort Concho Quartermaster building suited my taste better, but a grander location became a necessity to expand the art collection and fulfill the ambitions of a growing city.

Art was further served by designing the huge building in the shape of a Conestoga wagon. The rooflines of the edifice rise and sway just like the canvas bow of a prairie schooner sagged with ridges in the pioneer days. Never mind that historians claim the Conestoga models never crossed our state; the roof design also can be said to memorialize ranch and cowboy carpentry as many of the old shortgrass ranch houses dipped in the middle and seemed to peak on each end.

For example, I heard of, but never saw, a bunkhouse built by cowboys out west of the ranch without using a square or a dangling a plumb bob. So the story goes, these amateur nail apron hands lined up the site like a chicken house they had built for the boss's wife. A puncher named "Rowdy" told the Big Boss enough pieces of miscut two-by-four's were left over to steady the foundation with plenty of blocks remaining to level their beds.

Reaching under a horse's belly to catch a girth ring to thread a cinch strap through is a far-fetched way to learn to aim a hammer at a nail, or saw out a black line on a pine board. I wish I could have seen the bunkhouse "Rowdy" and those guys built, but by the time I was by there, a fire had burned it to the ground.

Having such a handsome new museum has attracted more patrons and hefty donors. Before the drouth became so terrible, I donated to the building fund based on the price and weight of steer calves in the fall. As the program progressed and calf shipments decreased, fewer invitations to benefit parties came in the mail. One that did arrive last Christmas suggested in a deep, engraved scroll; "Instead of spending New Year's Eve in Atlanta, Times Square, or San Francisco with friends, why not spend the Millennium at the museum dancing to two bands, enjoying a 'sit down dinner' and free taxi service home. R.S.V.P: Tab $1000 a couple."

Sitting out in front of the Mertzon post office, I recalled my last new year's eve ball at a joint called the "Suez Canal" at 30 bucks a couple, including Tiger Red's Reprehensible's, a sausage and biscuit breakfast, free setups, and the price of four gallons of gasoline to return home. For only $970 more, the museum ball offered twice as many bands, a dinner, and a taxi ride back to the ranch. Also, the museum party provided a tax writeoff that could be split between the two tax years since the dance started in one year and ended in the next.

Under hard business terms, the museum party appeared to be the best buy. The "Suez" dance was non-deductible. Although it might slip by the IRS as a donation to "The Suez Lodge", calling it a dance was a misnomer, because "Red and his Reprehensibles" spent most of the gig tuning the sound system and rearranging Budweiser cans to balance under their music stands. But comparing the transportation options was the tedious part to decide. Supposing the museum provided valet parking, that'd make coming in a pickup embarrassing, yet if Red jumped his price, the Suez might drop the gasoline allowance.

The last factor was to face shipping three or four dry cows at the ranch to raise the cash for museum tickets. The pre-Christmas market sounded like four grown cows or three smooth-barreled heifers ought to come close to covering the admission and leave a remainder to take care of such extra expense of joining high society as taking my dark suit to the cleaners and getting a haircut to compensate for how much brighter the light is at the museum than at the Suez.

However, I never left the parking lot at the post Office without changing my mind. An old hard luck boy ranching over on the county line came rattling to a stop in front of me. Bed of his pickup was full of empty sacks; he was down in his back from handling so much feed. The beautiful black and silver envelope slipped from my hand to the fall in the paper on the floorboard. It was all just as well, as the Suez dropped Red's contract and hired a band called "The Three Tiered Texans" that never missed a beat way into the new century.

April 27, 2000