September 25, 2003

The San Angelo Weather Station tried their new flood warning message the last part of August. It was the first time in five years that the station needed a flood warning. Conditions were set for flooding. A tropical storm was off Corpus Christi, and a cold spell was poised to come in from the Panhandle.

The forecast from Mathis Field weather station over the telephone hedged the warning to a call of "possible high water in low-lying areas." Much safer sounding than the one on the radio opening with an ominous growling sound like an old pickup starter cranking the final turn on a cold morning. That one said, "Flooding is imminent in the following counties."

Though I was alone at the ranch in a downpour, it's hard to frighten a shortgrasser of high water, especially a shortgrasser 2550 feet above sea level and three miles within a plateau.

The warning further lost impact after reports on the watershed began to come in of a slow half-inch rain. But up here an inch an hour was falling. No matter how drastic the weather conditions, no one calls the ranch. Alex the cook and I spent five days stranded by high water once down at the old ranch. We didn't know until the water ran down, but both banks of Spring Creek had been evacuated without as much as a curious sightseer checking on us, much less a helicopter. This time, however, I was unsure whether anyone called as rain fell on my tin roof so hard, I couldn't sit close enough to the telephone to hear anything except the lightning making the bell jingle. (Takes a fierce storm to electrify an underground line.)

Way back, Goat Whiskers the Elder's wife, Aunt Ella, reported the rainfall at the Whiskers outfit on Dutch Woman draw to the Angelo paper from time to time. Aunt Ella always held jobs requiring integrity. Scorekeeper at the bridge games and the one to do the room counts at the PTA meetings were an example of the trust placed in her.

Aunt was of Canadian origin. She received wide respect out here in the wilderness after she broke and trained her spirited son. The guy known today as Goat Whiskers the Younger was then known as "The Terror of Upper Dutch Woman." I think had she lived a long life, which she didn't, she'd have been a consultant for the rough string at the military schools.

Her second qualification to report rainfall was that Uncle Whiskers had one of the first rain gauges in the country. Most ranches then used coffee cans and wooden rulers as a dipstick. One hombre on the east side of the shortgrass country stuck his thumb inside the can to measure the rainfall. He had a fat thumb, so he always had more rain than any of his neighbors.

Aunt Ella wasn't responsible for giving flood warnings, or I don't think she was. It would have been a good service to have an armed flagman at every draw in this country to keep folks from driving off in high water. Must have been a latent urge to be submarine pilots, because old boys were always bailing off in cars in streams too deep to cross in a wagon.

Before the highway 67 bridge was finished over Rock Pen Draw three miles west of Mertzon in the 1930s, the bridge builders rigged a cable tow line to pull cars across the draw during rises. Water nearly reached the seat in Mother's Model A Ford the morning we crossed. On the other bank, a worker put the fan belt back on, dried the distributor, and off we went to school.

Weren't any signs on Rock Pen crossing saying "No life guard on duty," or "Children must be accompanied by an adult," or "All boaters must wear life preservers." Fording high water was a good lesson for a redheaded boy unable to even dog paddle, much less swim. It taught self-reliance to plunge off into a raging creek full of brown water in a Ford Roadster. (The first time I remember hearing the question, "Are you all right, little boy?" was in a movie in college. Andy Hardy was gently and tenderly helping this kid off the ground after a fall from his swing. Blonde, curly-headed girl from next door watched Andy with adoring eyes for being so kind to the little boy. I remember wondering whether Andy's mom ever took him for a ride across a flooding draw.)

End of August rain is perfect to grow grass. Good thing we don't have warning signals for all bad weather. A drouth signal would be worn out before the end of the first year. I don't remember when Aunt Ella's job ended. Might have just played out during a dry spell.

September 25, 2003

October 2, 2003

Reading classified advertisements is a deep-seated habit. First things I read in the Livestock Weekly are the real estate offerings. I study the ranches in Coahuila, Montana and British Columbia, dreaming the dreams of a 20 year-old setting out to spread my brand across the boundless West and run big steers in the shadow of the image of Mr. Goodnight.

I'm always looking for a chance there might be an outfit cheap enough to finance or lease purchase. Men of my advanced years need to think big. Never know when a deal might arise to take the pressure off the coyote buffer zone we are holding as a seedbed for bitterweed and prickly pear and a Mexican eagle flyway.

The influence of this obsession spurred my imagination. I thought of an advertisement for my outfit the other day while waiting for a truck at the gate leading in from the highway: "Historic West Texas ranch with 11 miles of frontage on major highway. Thirty miles too far west to reach 10-inch annual rainfall belt, needs water well rig to deepen wells." (I had just learned there was worse news than buying a new string of pipe.)

Bit more time passed and this one popped up, "Will care and pasture mother ewes for the next 12 months on halves. Need working partner to furnish 100 tons of number two shelled corn, 30 tons of fine stem alfalfa hay, and 15 tons of molasses blocks. No references needed." Hot on the subject of sheep, I wrote this one, "Old time sheep rancher wants ratio of predators to livestock balanced on his ranges to the sheep's advantage. Can assure privacy for eradicators. Please, no telephone calls."

The working partner idea brought back an old advertisement a rancher east of Angelo ran several times a year in the daily paper: "Ranch job open. Call before 5 a.m. and after 10 p.m. at night. Furnish wood and water." Moved forward to fit the times, "Lady experienced in ranch cooking, care of children, pump and gauge oil wells, ride and doctor sick cattle, have grade school teacher's certificate, needs to relocate east and north of the Mississippi River. Farther north and east the better."

So many items came back, like, "Lost or strayed three year-old red and white bull. Last seen in railroad right of way heading east. Gain positive identification by calling 325-835-2113. Keep bull." Or, an offer to sell cattle, "44 head of short bred Angus heifers. Been running with low birthweight bulls two weeks. Ready to go as soon as quarantine is lifted on ranch."

Toyed with offering the fleet of trucks and pickups parked by rusty trailers at the ranch. "Big dispersion of ranch rolling stock. Homemade bumper and gooseneck trailers, half-ton and ton pickups, propane units, tool boxes and grill guards, collection of lug wrenches and high-lift jacks, tow chains and tow bars, used radiator and gas caps, leaf and coil springs. Need time to apply for new titles and license plates. One, maybe two, of the vehicles are ready for state inspection."

Still no truck, and nobody willing to stop to visit on the highway, I remembered "Old Jelly Roll," the kid horse we bought who threw a bronc rider from Fort Stockton so hard, he threatened to turn us in to the Red Cross for fostering dangerous working conditions. "Jelly Roll" should have been, but wasn't, represented in an advertisement reading: "Nine year-old kid horse. Spur Mark and Cold Jaw breeding. Contact owner and trainer at Community Hospital during visiting hours."

On the horse subject, every night the Big Boss and his polo cronies sat in the back yard of the bunkhouse at the old ranch or met at stables or training fields, they traded horses, praised horses, matched races, and did everything about horses except ride and shoe horses. I'd sure liked to have submitted this offering for one of their pets. To wit: "Swap or sell polo prospect named 'Iguana.' Two expert farriers can change shoes in one-half day. Sound on three feet. Goes back to Glass Eye and Albino Brain. Back even farther to Slouchy Slug and Ex Lax."

By the time the truck came, I'd reviewed Border Collies close to chicken farms needing geographical changes: "Free puppies. Come after children's bedtime," to "Complete dispersal of Mary Kay cosmetic inventory 30 miles north of Van Horn, Texas. No deal too small."

Part of the new West passed through my imagination during my wait. Never had any luck before writing classifieds, but I never had gone so deep into the truth.

October 2, 2003

October 9, 2003

Workmen using staple guns powered by the wallop of air compressors are overhauling the ceiling of the air terminal in San Angelo. Only access to the beams is a stepladder blocking the hall to the men's room. Only way to communicate with the airline agent is by pencil and paper. Only reason I found the right gate is there is one gate for departure and one for return.

On our last trip, regulations required we check in two hours prior to departure, as our destination, Vancouver, British Columbia, is an international flight. Extra time is also needed to inspect all checked and carry-on baggage. Plus, I need 10 minutes additional to extract my passport and driver's license from the money belt inside my pants top. Ten more minutes to close the pouch and buckle my belt. From five minutes to 10 at each stop to correct answers to questions I failed to hear at the onset.

My traveling partner acts as a translator except in restricted areas. After passing through the metal detector, I am on my own. The only part I do real well is extending my arms straight from my body to be searched. As I told the officer, that's the way we used to spread our arms doing swan dives off a rock into "Deep Hole" close to Sherwood. He must have been hard of hearing, too. His response was, "Take off your shoes, mister."

The next challenge was on the ground at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. The airline from Angelo should award "frequent taxiing miles" to customers. The runway must be closer to Waco than to Dallas. Before recent terminal improvements, the planes had to hunt for a parking space. San Angelo must have ranked way low on the priority, as we used to be locked up for 20 extra minutes hunting for the right spot to unload.

Major airlines claim 55 minutes is legal time to change planes at DFW. I don't think the majors factor in jiggling across the tarmac for miles in a commuter, eyes switching from the seatbelt sign to a yearning for the sign "men only" in their timeframe. The big guys must overlook passengers coming off the feeder lines and galloping for a distant gate with a clamor of screeching roll-on wheels adding to the panic of the moment.

Once boarded on the Vancouver flight, I found the "snack" listed on our itinerary was a granola bar, six ounces of yogurt (fruit-flavored), and four ounces of California (black) raisins. Included was a paper napkin the size of a bandana handkerchief — a big bandana — packets of salt and pepper, and a setting of plastic dinnerware.

Being road-wise, my friend and I sprinkled a pinch of salt and a few grains of black pepper on our tongues to deaden the taste buds. Crushed the granola bar in the wrapper and squeezed the raisin sack until the fruit was a near liquid. Poured the topping onto the yogurt. Shaded our eyes with the big napkin to prevent optical gastric reversal. Took bites as big as possible, ignoring even the most basic laws of etiquette. (At times, we play a game called "I dare you." Like, "Dare you to take the first bite," or "Double-dare you to look at your plate before eating.")

No smoking, no cell phones and little food distance the passengers. None of that oldtime congenial sharing of newspapers, or exchanging tales of bad weather and worse connections goes on. This is the age of head-down, fingers dancing across the computer keyboards writing or playing games, or sprawling in a seat to sleep off the tensions of the times.

One seat mate showed us how to unfold the new neck rests on the tops of the seats. But he immediately withdrew into his collar before I could tell him about a cowboy named "Sleepy Jones" who'd bet a hundred dollars he could slip his head from any head catcher ever made. Might have told you about the time "Sleepy" went through a whole work at the old ranch without ever being located except going to the house.

The change to Pacific Time put us into Vancouver Island at 11 o'clock, or one a.m. our time. Once we reached the hotel, we looked like we had washed ashore on a life raft instead of riding jet planes and a taxicab into town. The security guys had been through my checked bag, but I didn't care unless they had confiscated my pajamas. Yogurt, granola and raisins are powerful sleeping potions. Discounting the taste, the combination has some of the characteristics of food.

October 9, 2003

October 16, 2003

Travel bargains on the Internet are fast replacing grandchildren stories among the graybeards and granny set. Travelocity.com must be flying lots of folks around, as I hear of round-trip tickets to faraway resorts rich in luxury for less than the cost of a weekend playing dime a card bingo at the YMCA.

On our trip last month to Vancouver Island, I used a booking service to reserve an efficiency apartment at the Meridian Bay Hotel. Allow me, please, to go over the procedure: Me, the chump, logs in "vancouver.com" and clicks on the screen for hotel reservations. Views all the bargain rates. Loses his confidence booking online and calls the service's 800 number. Over the wire, loses his judgement, gives a friendly voice his credit card number for a deposit in the amount of $100 U.S. dollars or $130 Canadian to hold the space.

Then at checkout days later, the polite room clerk presents a bill for less than the rate quoted by the reservation service. Exhilarated by the unexpected windfall, overtips the bell man and makes a departure in a cab with a flourish befitting a northeastern banking magnate. Once back home, reality tolls the sad tune for a sucker in the form of a credit card bill showing the scoundrels at the reservation service charged the down payment payable to their account on the date of first contact.

Don't think I am going to admit to my luncheon group that I was skinned by an upstart of a booking service after all the time I've spent trying to wheedle a discount or an upgrade from every innkeeper on my path. Don't you go blabbing it around, either, how a gang of Canadian swindlers gave ol' Noelke a bitter lesson without ever straining a dot-com or exerting the energy to cradle a telephone for longer than five minutes. Sure makes a good story on a pirate ship to have a guy on board who didn't even have to be blindfolded to walk the plank.

Vancouver Island, however, was so pleasant I don't regret the loss. We rode a small bus around the clean city the first day, locating the museums, the gardens and restaurants. Unlike Toronto, Vancouver's tourist business hasn't been plagued by the horror virus SARS. Hotels showed decent occupancy rates; restaurants required reservations for the prime times to eat.

On the tour, the guide pointed to a grocery store featuring sourdough French bread flown from Paris every night for $90 Canadian a loaf. The lady sitting behind us sighed so deep her arms drew up in the sleeves of her dress.

"My lands, how many slices in a loaf of bread?"

The guide was already talking about Chinatown: Forty percent of the city is Asiatic. Chinatown is the safest neighborhood in all Vancouver. Only things sold under the table are live frogs. Ha, ha. (Tour guide talks in italics; the lady in quotation marks.)

"Good lands, how much is that a slice?"

Ten dollars, lady. Dolly Parton's son lives on Royal Street to the right. Likes to play hockey. To your left is where Henry Bankston, age eight, did the highest "wheelie" ever recorded on a tricycle. Ha, ha.

"Isn't it exciting to know where Dolly Parton's son lives? Wonder how old he is?"

First stop was the Granville Island Public Market. Huge affair of some 50,000 square feet filled with fresh cut flowers, baskets of blue berries and raspberries —plump and juicy — food stalls from all over the world and a solid mass of shoppers filling bags with cheeses and fresh fish.

Be back on the bus at 5:45. Anyone five minutes late will learn the cab fare back to their hotel. Ha, ha.

"May I stay on the bus? Cab drivers are reckless drivers. Cost a fortune to ride. Bad influence; brought my grandson home drunk one night."

As we crossed back to Vancouver Island, the sunset cast a film over the sea water like a veil dyed with rose petals.

We are now going to take you to see Stanley Park, named after Lord Stanley. Off Prospect Point, we'll see large black diving cormorants and beautiful great blue herons four feet tall with a wingspan of six feet. Maybe our bus driver Diane can shine the bus's lights over the water.

"My lands, sure is dark. How we going to see the black birds in the dark?" Before an answer could be made, "My stars, parks sure are dangerous places to be after nightfall."

Cormorants glow in the dark. Diane keeps a pistol and a flashlight under the seat to shoot bandits. Ha, ha.

Must have been 9 p.m. by the time the bus dropped us off at our hotel. Hard to sleep after seeing the street where Dolly Parton's son lives.

Last the lady said was, "My lands, you sure are a good tour guide. I'll tell the girls back home how to find you."

October 16, 2003

October 23, 2003

During my stop in Vancouver last month, I visited the old railroad hotel where the Big Boss and I stayed on a long-ago trip. The Boss and I had been camping so long in the woods, the room clerk probably thought we were fur trappers or Eskimos fresh from fish drying camp.

Fashions swelled formal in the 1940s in places swinging crystal chandeliers and spreading white linen cloths for china cups. On the afternoon my friend and I had a drink at the Hotel Vancouver, however, the Big Boss and I would have been overdressed among the table of guests wearing dungarees and scuffed exercise shoes. Aerobic exercise gives folks license to dress a notch above a sheep shearer's costume.

To be free to go where I please on the road, I pack a dark sweater for a coat, a pair of serge pants, a somber tie, and a blue oxford shirt. In high-class joints enforcing a dress code, I address the Maitre D's with "indeed," or "I beg your pardon." My biggest success was the "Pump Room" in Chicago; my biggest failure was a dance hall in San Antonio, "The Roaring Twenties." Sure hurts the pride to be directed to the coat rack to be stylish enough to go in a Texas honky-tonk.

But it was the Vancouver Art Gallery across the street from the hotel that lured us downtown to catch the flavor of the country. (Canadians call art museums galleries.) Art museums don't depend on the sun. The shadows are drawn or painted on the work hanging on the walls. The stillness, the quietness of the halls, settles the strain of travel. (I am supposing you want to know why a herder goes to an art exhibit.) On a Sunday afternoon, the visitors are off work. Guards stand mute as figures on canvas. The front desk keeps time. Verities in the weather make not the slightest difference. Your poke is safe. Babies sleep in carriages; mothers find refuge in the colors.

Doesn't mean I am interested in or appreciate all art. After spending the summer at the ranch with my 20 year-old grandson, I am having a hard time keeping from seeing the world through his eyes. A personal matter, but a very serious one for a graybeard to overcome. I'd be standing in front of a huge, classical oil painting featuring cream-colored, red-lipped cherubs, aristocratic ladies in plumed black hats wearing gold sequined gowns, and find myself imagining that a subject winked. Worse, I might offer to help a strange lady dismount from a cab, or fight an urge to pull out chairs for strangers. Go ahead and laugh, but you won't laugh if one of your grandchildren turns into a sorcerer.

On the third floor of the gallery, a prominent Canadian artist, Emily Carr, was on exhibit. What I found was a quote of hers that might explain better why hombres packing brushes and easels paint. "Everything is waiting and still. Slowly things begin to move, to slip into their places. Groups and masses and lives tie together. Colors you have not noticed come out timidly and boldly. In and out, in and out your eye passes. Nothing is crowded; there is living space for all."

On a tip from a guide book, we spent one morning and part of an afternoon in Stanley Park at the Vancouver Public Aquarium. Our focus was on the Beluga whales. The aquarium has three adults and one calf. Braving mobs of kids and harried parents, we held a spot looking through glass watching the underwater antics of the huge white beasts. At times the whales' faces were a couple of feet from our vantage point. Hudson Bay and the strait off Nova Scotia offer lots of whale sightings, but never as close as these in captivity. (Yes, you guessed. The whales are going to have to be released in the wilds.)

Being among so many kids was like trying to sleep in the jungle full of hyena packs on a moonlit night. We gave ground before we hit a baby buggy axle, or stumbled on a rattle. Went upstairs just in time to see a giant octopus unroll into a mass of waving orange tentacles. Thanks to Walt Disney, people are terrified of octopuses. My Aunt Myrtle was a lot like Mr. Disney at making up fantasies. Aunt M had us so scared of tarantulas, we had a hard time coming within BB-gun range to kill one.

I am sure the Boss checked us in at the Hotel Vancouver. I know he bought us each a tweed suit to wear to dinner. I know it was my first time in a Chinatown. I just had to go at night. I was terrified, but then as now, wanted to bring a story back to Mertzon…

October 23, 2003

October 30, 2003

On the fifth morning in Vancouver, we checked out of the hotel and crossed the bay to meet a ship to go up the Inland Passage. Went to the docks on Granville Island and boarded the Sea Bird, owned by Lindblad Expeditions.

Our cabin was next to the captain's on the top deck. Beds, bedding and bath ranked 10 to 20 times superior to a rusty little German tub we once sailed on in the Galapagos Islands. Sleeping on a life preserver on the deck of the Sea Bird would have been superior to the bunk beds in the hold of the Gallapago vessel.

You may have forgotten us having to carry an oar on the decks of the Galapagos boat to kill cockroaches, but I sure remember swatting those black monsters until the decks were as slick in carnage as a whaling ship. As we were to learn, gulls following the Sea Bird ate better than we did on a cabbage diet on the Pacific trip. Toward the end of that voyage, the passengers would have jumped overboard if they'd had the strength left to climb over the rail.

Right off, the style of the Sea Bird came forth in the salon. At the first briefing, flutes of champagne stood on a buffet among plates of cheese and smoked delicacies. All 45 passengers had plenty of space to eat and drink at tables and sofas. Trained servers whisked away empty glasses and plates. Corks popped; more hot and cold appetizers appeared from the galley. Linblad has a reputation of style among travelers. Here it was first-hand.

The small ship and the reduced size of the passenger list gave us more for our money. Little or no time was spent waiting in line, or the proverbial delay for late arrivals holding up the programs. The economy and the curse of the September 11 tragedy are probably the reasons for the reduced bookings. We docked once next to a cruise ship carrying 3000 people. Lines leading to the gangplank looked like the mobs going into a football stadium for a Saturday playoff. Made the 70-passenger capacity of the Sea Bird sound like a life raft floating into harbor.

In the introduction of the staff, the captain said he grew up in Georgetown, north of Austin. The lakes on the Colorado River are the largest bodies of water close to Georgetown. Whatever talent the captain had for sailing, it sure wasn't an early beginning. He must have been self-conscious about being raised a landlubber, as he pitched in helping the crew load our gear. The few ship captains I'd known considered pulling out the chair for young ladies as heavy duty.

Departing from Vancouver was a slow cruise of the entire harbor area. Rain clouds cleared, arching a rainbow off port side. Decks were not crowded. No demands were made to dress for dinner, or restrictions imposed on seating in the dining room. I suppose such a small ship with a small passenger list was close to being a private charter.

The following days on the Inland Passage going north passed into narrow inlets and calm, deep fjords formed centuries ago by glaciers. Massive western red cedars made 200 foot long reflections in the water. Fragments of clouds fogged the upper reaches of the banks into white streamers frosting a green conifer background. Light mist cooled the hikes in to waterfalls and forest trails. The nautically inclined paddled kayaks in the still waters. Rare was the sight or sound of boat traffic. Ferries ran on reduced schedule because of the lateness of the season. Passengers seeking solitude were able to find empty chairs on the deck.

Servers in the dining room, young adventurous kids, had difficulty understanding my Southern drawl. First evening, my order of roast duck came as a breast of chicken. Table mates laughed until a second order of roast duck turned out to be chicken for an old boy from Boston, who spoke universal English. More laughter and more wine as the other diners carved thick strip sirloins while the Boston guy and I ate an indifferent piece of fried chicken.

Mid-meal, the waitress caught the mistake. Aghast, she wanted to know what to do. Being appreciative of the language barrier and the temperament of sea cooks, I suggested she ask the cook to draw a picture of a chicken as a basic test. The cook may have been at sea so long he forgot the difference between a chicken and a duck. Never was able to catch her eye again to see if he'd comply.

Days became as calm as the water. Hardest work was raising our field glasses to our eyes or removing a marker from a book. A glorious time it was to be sailing the Inland Passage. Thus relaxed, my enunciation must have improved, as I was able to order duck one night for dinner.

October 30, 2003

November 6, 2003

Before leaving for Canada, I called Linblad Expeditions to know whether we were going to make wet landings on the trip up the Inland Passage. That's important to know, as rubber boots take up a lot of space. Shoes seasoned in the shortgrass country take days to dry on a ship in a humid climate.

The worry was unnecessary. The crew was careful boarding us from the ship's deck on zodiacs (rubber boats). On shore, they had enough people to pull the zodiac onto the bank. So much concern was shown about making the three-foot drop from deck to zodiac safe that on my turn the sailors sighed in relief once I was seated in the middle of the zodiac. The life jacket over my wet suit looked as trim as a deep sea diving outfit. I am sure I won the middle seat to be the ballast.

On one walk, we saw not a feather or a track across the trails. Every clearing was a fresh green meadow. Perfect setting for a deer or an elk. I suspect as late as September, migration or hibernation might be the reason for no game. The city folks invigorated by the fresh air were having a romp like an Irish setter released from his kennel. I didn't want to spoil the fun by asking the guide where the animals were.

The only port where the ship docked on the northward trip was at Alert Bay to go ashore and see the unveiling of a totem pole. We walked a mile or so along the bay to reach the site of the ceremony. Understand, totem poles are only mysterious to white men. The first nation people, or Indians, carve the poles to portray family history, or perhaps go so far as to record the family's enemies.

Appreciate, too, that the potlatch ceremonies of the Northwestern tribes are difficult to understand. When the people gather for a potlatch, the hosts give presents to friends and enemies alike and again present the family history. The family has two years after a death to be at peace before they can hold a potlatch commemorating the dead. (As many estate squabbles as I've witnessed, two years would equal the first round of golf on a miniature course for us to ever potlatch.)

Further proof we can't understand totems and potlatches: in 1870, the government prohibited potlatches in Canada. Came and seized the relics, interrupting historic succession of the families, never to be completely returned. The law wasn't enforced, but the damage was done.

But back to the unveiling of the totem pole. Here we are all standing: guest from the ship, the tribe, the chief, school children, a Mountie and dancers in colorful costumes. Wind off the bay whips and pops a blue plastic tarp large enough to cover a 20-foot totem pole. The chief welcomes us and his people. Calls for a moment of silence to honor a friend who has died today — an English fellow. Claps for the dancers to begin. Gives off a radiant friendly countenance. Next, a few words spoken in his language.

And then the discovery that the wind has fouled the ropes to drop the tarp. The chief laughs and says, "Go on up to the Big House for a dance and food. Fred will come with his bucket truck and remove the tarp." (At this moment, a special thing occurs. Two high school boys start to pass in front of us, then pause and say, "Excuse me." I feel faint.)

Up at the Big House, a log structure the size of a gymnasium with a huge fire burning in the center, the young people dance in costumes. "Hi-yea, Hi-yea," the singers chant to the beat of boys and girls doing more than an act. In the end, the ship passengers join in the line, laughing and dancing. Minutes after the dance, a long table of food is spread so no one can leave without passing by servers. (Laws governing tour operators require one folk dance per trip. The most focused dancers are the wild Huli Wig Men in the Southern Highlands of New Guinea. The pygmies' eyes literally feast on the audience.)

First, I asked the Royal Canadian Policeman about his assignment in Alert Bay, expecting crime statistics to be his answer. However, he replied, "I've only been here three months. I like it. The people serve food at every function." Second, a lady comes over, scolding me to eat. I ask her if her tribe can communicate with the Navajo people as I had read. She laughed and said, "Not only can we not communicate, the ones I tried to talk to in New York were so solemn I gave up talking in English or the dialects. Now, get some food."

Several times during the trip and in supplemental reading, there were explanations of totem poles and the potlatches. I suppose if we could defend our death customs, then we would understand why a generous tribe of men exists.

November 6, 2003

November 13, 2003

The only family along on the Inland Passage trip last month was a mother/dad/grandmother combination and two children from Mexico. Delightful people, friendly and in full control of the vigorous eight and 10 year-old kids.

The grandmother, grayed to a regal black-eyed beauty, was careful to trace the family's origin to the Basque of Northern Spain. Her son, a tour representative for Linblad Expeditions in La Paz, Mexico, became an ally early on the trip. He recognized my ranch orientation from my Texas drawl and Northern Mexico Spanish. Our final bond tied when he said in privacy, "I understand your secrecy; ranching today is nearly as unpopular as bull fighting."

I had told the other ship's passengers that I was involved in hunting buffaloes and smuggling flax on the Mexican border in exchange for duty-free burros and authentic adobe bricks. One chap wanted to know how long it took to skin a buffalo bull.

"Takes four experienced men 45 minutes with sharp knives," was my reply, "plus time to salt the hide. You wanna buy one?"

My friend warned me to tone down the smuggling stories, as the ship still had to pass through U.S. Customs from Canadian waters in the San Juan Islands. I had an open tube of Canadian toothpaste and 30 blank postcards to declare against the $5000 cash limit. I needed to make $4960 in U.S. currency in the next three hours taking orders on buffalo hides to reach par. Had the agents searched my billfold, they'd have thought it was a leather case to press flower petals or collect silk thread.

After sailing into U.S. waters, the crew lowered zodiacs to search for whales. Only the naturalists were allowed to go on the hunt. Guide books say Orcas are the same as killer whales. The Orcas are the wolves of the ocean, killing gray whales, seals or big sharks for no reason. After reading the restrictions on swimming, I read further proof favoring the warning that killer whales fancy the tongues of gray whales, leaving the rest of the carcass for carrion.

The fellow who asked about skinning buffalo found a pod of whales. (You who work crossword puzzles know a school of whales is a pod.) By the time he returned, we sighted 20 or 25 black and white Orcas swimming, backs arched and triangular fins exposed the way porpoise swim close to the surface. Smooth skimming motions cut the water without visible ripples. Then came an explosive "spy hop" above the surface, a white belly and broad black stripe arising to plunge back and breach the sea with a big splash, setting off camera shutters by all on deck. The drama of an eight-ton sea mammal pitching straight up from the sea can't be described, or why the beast so performs.

At dinner, the naturalist who discovered the whales startled me by bringing up buffalo hunting again. He asked if all buffalo hunters wore red bandannas and crushed safari hats over white whiskers. I explained that hunters wear red bandannas to mark and claim the kills in a racing herd of hairy beasts, throwing dirt clods in the riders' faces in a death-defying ride to enact the slaughter.

Still puzzled, he continued, "But why do you wear bandannas at sea?"

"Because I come from timid country stock. Being prodigies of the soil and prisoners of a provincial background, doctors say, manifests itself in bright if not absurd costumes."

A lady I barely knew to my right gave me a stiff elbow blow to the ribs befitting a 300 pound Japanese wrestler. The only sounds at the table were crab claws cracking and napkins dabbing away the residue from the crab dinner.

The occasion was the Captain's dinner. "Why," I thought, "won't old Cap speak?" Not since Miss Green Gross' retirement speech at the end of my sixth semester in the fifth grade had guilt cut such a deep wound. All around at other tables, glasses clinked and diners' merriment pitched to a higher peak over the succulent steamed crab meat, buttered corn on the cob, and fine French vintages. At my table, the sounds of napkins threading through a ring were loud as an anchor rope dropped at sea.

Out on deck in near darkness, I strained to understand why I couldn't tell city folks I was a herder and behave like a normal person. Remembered how ashamed Mother was when the third grade teacher told her of my report that a blue-eyed albino rattlesnake had chased me to school, causing my homework to fly from by book satchel.

Feeling the presence of my friend who knows me well, I recovered and wondered if Old Cap had seen blue-eyed albino rattlesnakes in his school days in Georgetown, Texas. Vowed the next morning to ask the naturalist if he'd like to organize a whaling adventure to set sail for the San Juan Islands.

November 13, 2003

November 20, 2003

On the last morning of the September trip on the Sea Bird, the ship docked in Seattle. Cabins had to be vacated by 8 a.m., all our gear removed to rest on the sidewalk above the dock 30 minutes later. Goodbyes were hurried, as shipboard friendships have short shore lives.

Walking down the gangplank for the last time, the urge hits to look back up on the deck to your cabin door, closed and locked to become a memory instead of your floating residence. In minutes, young stewards bearing a tray of disinfectants swipe away your fingerprints and spray away your image from the mirrors. Shake your dreams from the pillows. Dump the check lists for the final packing; toss the shopping bags in the big black plastic bin without appreciating treasures once in those white and green sacks. And return the space to an impersonal piece of rent property.

Our hotel was 10 blocks from the harbor. Might be four floors in the small hotel. The clerks and bell men are trained to be polite and give full service. The restaurant and the bar are lined with books from the floor to the ceilings. The only door guests open is the room or bathroom door. Receptionists take pride in remembering guests' names.

Big test came when my granddaughter drove from school down the coast to visit us. She roared into the hotel's garage, took a ticket, and instructed the attendant to charge one night's parking to her grandfather. On the way to dinner, a starter out front asked her if her grandfather had a name. After giving my room number, she said, "His real name is Granddad."

Parking granddaughters was just one of the services. Every evening in the lobby on the coffee tables, the hotel stacked blank postcards and water colors for guests to draw or color and mail home. Took more than one allotment to cover my postcard business. I post two or three dozen cards a month. I wasn't able to illustrate my cards, but I was able to fill in the front side, spreading the word of seeing killer whales so big the calves weighed half a ton at weaning.

One morning, the book next to my side of the breakfast table was titled The Last Days of Buffalo Hunting. Couldn't have been a more timely topic as I had just written about telling the people on the ship I was a buffalo hunter. Per chance, the book opened to a chapter on a buffalo hunter in Oklahoma winning the state of Texas in a poker game. Seemed a Tennessee farmer named Hiram Johnson, turned buffalo hunter, fell in with a poker table full of sharpies and lost all his dough from selling hides.

After the game, one of the sharks said, "Mr. Johnson, I feel bad about you losing all your money. Got more land than I need, so I am going to write you a deed to the whole state of Texas."

After regaining his stake and growing tired of hunting, Mr. Johnson decided to visit his lands in Texas. Traveled across the state visiting his tenants without disclosing they were beholden to him for using the land. Would play with the kids and brag on the women's cooking. (I have to make up a little of this story. The book didn't say he played with the kids or bragged on the women's cooking, but didn't say he didn't, either.) Died and was buried in an unmarked grave in San Angelo, Texas, in 1891. (According to a friend in San Angelo, identification on many of the graves was lost when the cemetery was moved to its present location.)

I was ashamed to steal the book with my friend sitting across the table. Also, she had had a full course of buffalo hunting before leaving the ship. Part of the book, however, was appropriate to buffalo fatigue. Said a common lament of buffalo hunters exhausted by the trade was to say: "I'm going to start walking with a buffalo tail over my shoulder. First place I hit they ask 'where'd you get that rope,' I'm going to settle down."

The Big Boss gamed all his adult life. Never told a story of a man winning Texas in a poker game. Knew lots of tales about chicken fights, foot races, horse races, dice games, and big stake games that ended in matching chicken fights, foot races, horse races and dice games. Shame Mr. Johnson didn't file his deed. Part of the state is pretty good ranch country when it rains.

November 20, 2003

December 4, 2003

Only my hands smell stronger than the ranch kitchen. The whole room reeks with the sour pungency of a nursery after a bad siege of colic.

Where Mother placed a sweet little porcelain figurine of a blue and white shepherd boy rests a big jar of powdered milk. Where she kept a vase of flowers on the window sill stands a corral-stained milk bottle with a big red nipple. Down at the barn where her gentle yellow Jersey cow nursed dogie calves, a high-strung black Angus momma kicks her adopted calf with blows more akin to a bucking chute than a milk pen.

We are 28 days into heifer calving at this writing. At the rate we are delivering calves and bottling mismatched and unclaimed calves, by press time, I'll be so stooped I'll have to lift my head to see eye to eye with the keyboard of this word processor.

But don't be swayed by my ill fate. I had better opportunities than ranching. The old barber where I shined shoes offered to teach me to cut hair after high school. In those days, too, the railroad line running through the ranch hired young men to work on section crews, help in freight depots, and live and ride on work trains to such exciting places as Minerals Wells and Brownwood.

Oh no, Eugene Manlove Rhodes and later Elmer Kelton combined with J. Frank Dobie sang my love song. Hadn't been for those word purveyors of the Western myth, I might have done something useful with my life. Instead of dreaming of owning a big ranch west of the Pecos River, I would have been a lot better off trying to buy Pete's gas station at the crossing on the Pecos and devote my days to serving man by filling the gas tanks of short-sighted travelers crossing the broad alkali desert.

The heifers were bred last January to four low-birthweight bulls with high weaning weight scores. Bought the bulls in November 2002 at a sale patronized by the wealthiest heifer bull buyers in Texas. Only time I ever spent that much money on cattle before was the compound interest on a herd I bought in 1950; I didn't retire the paper until eleven-odd years after the old cows were sold.

The bulls' offspring do have an early weaning date. We never have had so many calves born to mothers not ready to give milk. By the time we have pulled her calf, the cow is so upset she acts abnormal. Her calf has been through such a traumatic delivery he just wants to collapse on the delivery slab. And we, the unlicensed doctors and nurses, are so exhausted, we aren't any consolation, tearing around taking the halter off the new mother and moving the calf to safety. In so much excitement, the black and white cow on a Borden's milk carton couldn't come to her milk, much less a range cow only knowing man from six feet away on the feed ground.

One problem for an old hand selecting bulls nowadays is understanding the scoring and ultra-sounding. The secretary of the Angus association spoke before the last sale, imploring us to ignore a bull's looks in favor of his EPD. Said the buyers looked for cattle rated for gain. Off-color or white-bellied calves from black cows must tip the buyers that a bad EPD is hidden under the hide or in the white hair of the flanks, as my pintos and brindles always sell at a discount. Being "too full" or "too short" must also signal a poor EPD, as my sales sheet comes back marked down worse than a horse player's race card.

The rating goes farther to label bulls suitable for buyers who sell their calves through the auction, or the ones who choose to feed their own cattle. I sure like the idea. I look on it as insurance: if I only buy bulls for raising auction ring cattle, it might keep me from trying the feedlots one more time. (One herder at the last bull sale claimed to have made $253 a head feeding his last calf crop. Be his good fortune to find a memory drug strong enough to erase that deal.)

Don't guess all our problems are the bulls. Might be the good year causing the calves to grow bigger. Having sheep for so many years, I can't judge cow grass because the woolies kept the ground slick as a new Oldsmobile's hood. But I am going to run DNAs on the calves we've pulled and the four heifer bulls to see whether we can find the culprit. If it works, it will be our first scientific success.

I don't know whether Noah took along first-calf heifers on his Ark, but if he'd made a second voyage, it's a cinch he'd have left them to drown.

December 4, 2003

December 11, 2003

I always leave the stamp of origin to the last peeling fruit. Brings a deep sadness to hold an orange or apple from New Zealand, knowing a farmer down in Florida or up in Washington State needed to make the sale. Feel guilty betraying the future by supporting foreigners. Only consolation in all the imports is that Hong Kong men's pajamas drape better than Taiwan pj's.

Last month the hotshot financial paper, The Wall Street Journal warned consumers to expect higher prices due to the cost of freight on ships coming into our harbors. The article omitted the price consumers will pay the day the ships dock in the harbors offering the highest price for the load. The definition of "open seas" will take on deeper meaning if Japan or Singapore has a better market than, say, the West Coast of the U.S. (I am going to play this dirge to the hilt. Last chance before Christmas.)

Over Thanksgiving, I warned my grandchildren to help their mothers and dads hold onto my estate after my last call. Six or seven percent of the ranch can be tilled. Damp spots around the edges of the concrete tank are especially fertile. On the years the annual rainfall shoots on up to 10 inches, part of the arable ground grows white squash and black lentils dry enough at maturity to store in a cellar without any more protection than a paper sack. Squash and lentils mortared into a paste will sustain life to a peak that would reduce a power bar to the same scale as a lollipop.

However, an audience was hard to find and hard to hold once located. Deer hunting kept the boys in the pasture. The girls sat outside in the late fall warmth watching birds land on the yard fence and yellow butterflies make the final stand before cold weather. "Need any help" guests passed through the kitchen wary of pans falling from steel cabinets. An exhaust fan roared over my head as I fired, parboiled, scalded, burned, and boiled on four burners backed by an oven door opening and closing on heat more attuned to melting iron in a foundry than roasting a 20-pound turkey.

Somewhere and sometime in this wild melee, a granddaughter and daughter-in-law began to peel potatoes. The granddaughter broke the spell: "Granddad, what's the agenda?"

Granddad (me): "Granddaughter, a famine looms over your future is the cursed agenda. One percent of our countrymen raises food. Watch the squirrels and woodpeckers storing hard-shell pecans. Live not in the images of Wal-Mart, but copy the thrift of the lowly pack rat who replenishes and relines her nest with the waste of the world."

Pots scrape against the grill guards. A stove lid rolls out and under Mamaw's cabinet. The oven rack in an overloaded state jams and tilts the turkey pan enough to send brown grease dripping down between the oven door hinges.

Granddaughter: "Granddad, I mean today. What's the plan for this Thanksgiving Day?"

Granddad: "The plan is for 20 of us to eat 20 pounds of turkey, 40 scoops of dressing, 60 strings of green beans, one pint of cranberry sauce, five pans of oatmeal rolls… and my gosh-a-might, I've stepped in turkey grease."

Hunters crowd into the kitchen, bringing the pungency of early-rising young males too obsessed by antlers and backstrap to use Palmolive products. "Saw one 1200 yards away that'd make a Boone and Crockett spread look like a grade school pocket ruler. Nearly had my sights on him."

"Out of my way," the cook roars (me again). "Scat, vayate! Get the hell out of my kitchen."

Potato peelers switch to peeling onions. Granddaughter: "Granddad, tell me a Thanksgiving tradition." (Open table shot, side pocket on that one.)

Granddad: "Hon, be forewarned, for anon we have known if you take a nap after the Thanksgiving feast, you will want to take a nap every afternoon until Christmas."

Daughter-in-law sighs; granddaughter begins to peel onions at a furious pace. Timer rings for no cause. Double boiler goes dry, stockpot boils over. Acrid burned grease smoke from the oven vent sets off the smoke detector in the back bedroom. Hunter bearing deer liver and heart to wash in the sink yields to vegetable peeler's feet blocking path. Guest arrives, asking how soon the oven will be free to start cooking her rolls. Smoke detector stops, telephone rings.

By Saturday afternoon, every guest left, even the black bird dog. Alone at the kitchen table, I tried to eat a cold spare rib on a crumbly piece of day-old cornbread. Nap shadows began to cloud my vision. Chin weight caused a deep dip to my chest. So be forewarned: if you nap on a feast day, you will want to nap from then on to Christmas.

December 11, 2003

December 18, 2003

Two trips to the wool house in Mertzon Christmas shopping for socks have been wasted. Demand is so high for mohair socks there must be a plethora of hombres staying below the sensible $10 limit on gifts.

After the second trip, I scanned the mail order catalogues for presents for my brother and sister. Prices are dreadful. The company offering fill-in-the-blanks thank-you notes has shot the price to $9 from $6.50 for 48 cards packed in a pretty box. Repeat customers should be favored. Until high school seniors and newlyweds stopped sending announcements, I gave fill-in-the-blanks cards to all parties. Never received a card back from a recipient, but if you preach gratitude, you should use symbols of gratitude. One of these days, used fill-in-the-blanks thank-you notes are going to be collector items, I think.

Next gift idea came in a strange way. One of the ranch families down south of the ranch requested their father be memorialized by donations to a college scholarship fund for the West Texas Boys' Ranch. Mellowed by the church dinner afterward, it sounded good to help the Boys' Ranch kids go to college.

Back home, I found the scholarship office in the directory listed at an impressive address in the Wells Fargo Bank building in San Angelo. Renting an office in the bank building answered the question of whether the scholarship funds were separate from running the Boys' Ranch. I learned right away that five of the boys were in college. I did not learn why the scholarship fund needed an office in the bank building, but didn't need to ask as I read the Wall Street Journal and stay up with trusts and such like. (Back when the building housed the Central National Bank, the jugkeepers taught herders advanced lessons in finance without scholarship funding. In dry springs, you'd see old boys leaving the lobby marching stiffer than a rusty-jointed tin soldier.)

Once I reached the office on the wire, I promised the next time I was in Angelo I'd come by and peel off a 50-dollar bill for the family down south's memorial, a Christmas present for my brother and sister, and help for the five college students. Didn't tell him my prior limit for college students was new two-dollar bills, as I didn't want to boast.

Thought for minute we'd lost connection. After a silence, he asked, "Anything else, Mr. Noelke?" (He'd been calling me "Monte.")

"Yes sir," I answered. "Don't use my dough to send the boys to Angelo State University. Not only are my brother and sister-in-law professors at the college, several of my friends teach at ASU. All are strict and cranky. If I have a conflict of interest, I want the conflict and the interest to work in my behalf, not have the kid I'm sponsoring flunked by known taskmasters."

Not much happened after my stipulations. I understand. Back when I bankrolled college students, my patience was thin. If I started a semester with a sense of humor, it dimmed the first six weeks and disappeared the next six weeks for good. For further proof, a fortnight ago I sent my grandson studying in Santa Fe at St. John College a novel. His dad dashed a scalding note the next week, stating in blunt language that as long as he was paying the bills to send his son through college, I should keep my books at the ranch. From the way he carried on, you would have thought I'd sent my grandson a case of absinthe with a road map to the Mexican border on the lid of the box.

Took a lot for me to offer to contribute fifty bucks for higher education. Higher education emptied the saddle racks at the barn. A doctor and his wife gave more than 10 million bucks for a new building at Angelo State this year. Had he and his wife used one-fiftieth of that amount building a big pool hall with snooker tables and pinball machines handy to a draft beer spigot, a few lads might have been forced to drop all that college nonsense. I told Doc the same, but he didn't seem to understand. Of course, it is difficult for a brain surgeon to relate to a herder who can do his most tedious job without taking off his White Mule gloves.

Christmas sure loosens us up. The day I went by the wool house for vaccine, the warehouseman was ordering more socks. I hope the Boys' Ranch sends nice cards. Strange the administrator didn't ask for my address. Guess he has it in an old file.

December 18, 2003

October 27, 2005

October 27, 2005

Somewhere in Colorado

Grids projected to latitudes and longitudes won't help in locating where my pal and I stayed in Colorado last month. Better to stab the topographical map west of Denver close to the south slope of a big snow-peaked mountain with brush cleared around the base than take a reading.

Forty years ago, my editors insisted readers cared for such details. Four decades of covering personal weather failures and individual market sorrows slanted in an appeal for charity without receiving one card or one nudge of support, assigned readers to a general rule. To wit: the Black ranch herd of llamas over at Ozona care more about the plight of scribes than the general public.

All said, the closest outpost fits in a narrow valley with space for maybe 60 citizens. A big blue post box serves as the post office. The general store's floor space might be 20 by 40, including the space covered by the bases of shelves and potato sacks slumped over in the aisles.

The general store keeps more reliable hours than the one café. Never was sure whether we were going to shop for fig bars and potato chips on a Wednesday at the store, or eat out every day except Monday at the café.

The lunch and dinner menu offered the same nine choices every meal. No, eight choices were listed; scratch the meatloaf and brown gravy. Going way back, my credo forbids eating meatloaf with or without brown gravy in months having the letter "r".

Last time I broke the rule was helping ship lambs on Dove Creek in 1946. After a lunch featuring grease-jelled meatloaf, the boss cut me a horse called "Trotting John." Two hundred yards from the barn, the boss struck a lope. Two hundred yards and 10 steps form the barn, old John hit a gait so rough, the meatloaf fumes from the tomato paste and dried sage surged up my gullet with mighty force. Such force that my taste buds became so numb for years thereafter that couldn't tell the taste of a chili pepper seed from a grapefruit seed.

Bands of sheep passed down the valley by our place two weeks previous to the visit. The smell of the woolies lingered on the trails and set off a yearning for those sharp fall days shipping whiteface lambs at the ranch. Woolie operators are among the world's most sentimental people. Just humming "Mary Had A Little Lamb" might bring tears — especially to an old herder who had just taken a whipping on his lambs over at the Angelo market — that'd make a ship flying the Jolly Roger look like a rescue vessel.

Fellow in an art studio close by said his boys had to be kept indoors on the days the flocks passed down the road. The herders use big fierce guard dogs to protect the sheep from bears and coyotes. The artist said the dogs must think his sons are a threat to the sheep, but he didn't know why.

To know why guard dogs behave so, I needed to know how the boys behave, like maybe lobbing a few jagged igneous rocks at the sheep over the yard fence or from the pickup bed. Also, Pyrenees dogs are high enough off the ground to see over a car door or a yard fence. Be plenty shocking to an old dog used to seeing his master wearing a hat with the brim pointed in front to see a kid wearing a baseball cap backwards for the first time. I'm not saying he would want to bite the kid, as at early stages of maturity, the normal response of canines to the odor of pubescent boys is to fall over and roll in the dirt.

He said after the boys reached school age, whether to bus the students to a big school or hire two teachers for a small school became a hot issue in the district. Part of the cry by oldtimers was a lament that 10 years ago, the community got along — worked out differences.

Lacking the temperament or the inclination to enter a political battle, he said he audited previous elections going back past the 70s. Found the vote to be split evenly 16 for and 16 against every issue and every candidate. That ended any contention that the community was ever in agreement and confirmed that the Colorado outback is no different than small outposts in Texas. (I didn't check this. It just suited my purpose as a way to end his story.)

Every morning, the aspens gilded the fingers up the fissures or chasms to the mountain tops and at times draped a cloak of gold on the slopes. Light frost began to loosen the white petals of the wildflowers. And sometimes as often as every three days, news came of the misery of heat waves and hurricane in Texas.

Oh yes, don't be peevish about me omitting my location. Chances are I'll let it slip when I get home.

November 01, 2005

November 01, 2005

A Deep Understanding

Our closest neighbors in the mountain phase of the Colorado trip were a newlywed couple and a big black pup. The couple stayed secluded, but the big black pup pranced about, eager to be seen and heard day and night. He had yet to realize in his youthful exuberance that being a watchdog for a honeymoon cabin is a lonely assignment.

Dogs were at mind. Before leaving home, my doctor pal bought a Cavalier King Charles spaniel to share a big apartment in Angelo in the Christian Village. Seems the dog's breed's name outclassed his behavior and his welcome to the village. The good doctor claimed the dog ate the stuffing in a goosedown feather pillow, defying pedigree incrimination or justifying tracing his DNA.

Further, beyond the experience or understanding of a layman's interest in canine feather-eating, Doc verbally traced the feathers through the nine-pound dog's alimentary canal at a weekly lunch meeting in an Angelo dining room, including detailed analysis of the quills and plumage in the fecal matter. Did such a remarkable and audible job that people at the table next to ours decided to move to the player's lounge to lunch on steamed hotdogs and canned beef chili.

The vacationing pup, however, showed no symptoms of eating down feathers. He displayed more aptitude at dragging his master's rubber fishing boots off the front porch of the cabin down onto the road than eating the pillows on the porch swing.

Not wishing to show disapproval and chance ruining the couple's celebration, I put on a big act of being delighted to share the grounds and the environment with the black pup. Petted him and called him "Sugar." At the same time, under my breath, I warned him not expect rewards for marking all four of my car tires in canine code, or to win approval for defecating on and around the bird feeder in the back yard.

No wonder the pup was invigorated and excited by the outdoors. I don't know where he was from, but the slight frost and wisps of fog floating in and over the valley of mornings, breaking into a special light to illuminate the aspen's gold leaves, sent charges of energy to my desert mind and body.

Morning walks changed from the routine of the lowlands to bounding off to the rushing stream to kick loose rocks off the low bluffs and watch them roll and tumble in the swift water. Affected by the pup's behavior, no doubt, I found myself pulling tree limbs over to smell the sharp fragrance of pine needles and rubbing the sap off my hands on my pant leg with no thought of the stain.

One morning, an English couple staying downstream at a hotel stopped to ask directions to a foot bridge across the river. Jolly people, burned by the unaccustomed mountain sunshine so different from their foggy homeland, they understood — but barely — my drawl.

As is the custom between the "Yanks" and the "Brits," there had to be a joke common to our historic relations. So to the question: "Where are the cowboys and Indians?" I replied, "We always, first thing, drive the good people out of our country."

Unsure whether they understood my Southern Inland accent, I quoted a book I was reading, explaining that the Ute Indian nation claimed all this country in Colorado for centuries from the mineral springs downriver to all the mountains and passes down to the lowland, miles in grand size. Laid the tale on in a big way, how after exploration and the big movement west, we (the white eyes) couldn't spare the Utes (redskins) so much space. Further, we needed lots of land to plant the low country and mine the mountains to make big bags of money, or "bags of wampum" is what we told our red brothers.

Those British guys speak 26 or maybe 36 different dialects. However, have you ever noticed how they sort of roll the word "tut" into a gravely sound with a lot of "r's"? They make the sound when puzzled, or perhaps doubtful of the story. Saw the couple once more at the hotel, but they seemed too occupied reading brochures to look my way.

The pup became lonesome. Every morning he waited for an invitation to go for a walk. Upstream, bear tracks spotted a shallow trout run on the river. I figured if a pup jumped a cub or the mother, I wanted the bears to understand that I was a pacifist not associated with guard or hunting dogs, so I declined to take him along even for short excursions.

All that was left of summer was one night of a dramatic thunder and lightning storm. Heard the pup howl once, I think, in the pitch of rumbling thunder crashing in the canyons. For such a short amount of time, he and I developed a deep understanding.

July 31, 2008

In Search of a Bearing

Seven days before the calf shipping in July, a bearing began to squall on the air conditioner on the roof of the ranch house, piercing enough to change the setting on my hearing aids. The occasion honored the ranch law that plumbing freezes in the winter before holidays; the cooling fails before the Fourth of July.

            Services out in the country, however, take days, if not weeks for calls. On batch outfits, little inconveniences like indoor plumbing failures aren't as urgent as in two-member households. A bucket of water can be dipped from the stock tank by being careful to part a spot in the moss. The same can be pitched out the backdoor from the dishpan if you watch for the cat.

            Six days before shipping, a dentist visit in Angelo provided a perfect excuse to stay in the shade. Directions on the antibiotic he prescribed to arrest the infection in a broken tooth sounded like if the patient became overheated, he would have barely enough time left on this cold earth to conclude more important matters than weaning calves.

            The 14 pills provided insurance to keep from working the two weeks needed to ship and shape the cattle. Gentle as those ol' black sookies are, they can't be worked indoors.

            On the day of the dentist appointment, I read a grim poem from my mail run by a grandson dramatizing how sad it was that his grandfather was no longer able to saddle his horse.

            A quick glance for a date on my checkbook linked to a veterinarian's call showed that three months had passed since I last rode "Shineman." On the stub side of the checkbook, I noted by numeral one "to saddle 'Shineman' first time no one was around." Under number two, "go back to taking vitamins and iron pills."

            After the encouraging news from the dentist that the toothache cure was to be by extraction, the matter of extracting the air conditioner bearing and replacing that ache (90 bucks) with a new part was addressed. The big problem was that evaporative coolers are so outdated that the last full-service agency in San Angelo closed years ago.

            Bearing supply houses tried to find a replacement. One outfit went so far as to send a bearing free for the right shaft size (one and three-sixteenths inches), but the wrong mount to fit. On the wire the people responded in a courteous manner; however, on a second try, a receptionist, in an unsuccessful move to muffle her phone, said to service, "It's that pore old rancher with the broke-down swamp cooler and a toothache to boot."

            Afternoon temperatures approached a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The tooth only throbbed when jiggled by my tongue, or if the breakfast oatmeal gruel cooked into hard lumps. Jell-O chilled in the refrigerator soothed the soreness. Cook's Illustrated helped by offering a new milk toast recipe using skimmed milk to avoid the sticky film of margarine on the broth.

            Helpers promised to come, good hands willing to ride horseback. Men so professional, the married brother offered to back his older single brother in the event the early stages of a new love affair turned so serious and he became so dislocated that he lost the way to the ranch or wandered off to the wrong pasture.

            For sure, man and woman, families and bosses, suffered through similar love-fevered trials throughout the ages. Raising eight children, every month featured a Valentine's Day. Love affairs spread over so far to so many high schools that the long distance telephone bill looked like a recast of Mertzon's football and basketball schedule.

            The invention of the school bus started the trouble. Problems were so much simpler before young bodies jostled close together in bus seats on long rides. In my tenure on the school board, I'd supported any change from single cockpits to monastery cubicles to correct the situation.

            Desperate for a bearing, I went to a discount joint the size of the holdover trap at the line camp. Once at a border crossing in French Morocco, a customs officer acted as rude as the fellow working in the air conditioner department. The chap swept his hand along a shelf and muttered, "There's the bearings." He left before I discovered that one inch was the largest size.

            When I contacted a wholesale house in Llano, a polite lady located the bearing in Little Rock, Arkansas. She arranged for direct billing and shipping to Mertzon. On the call back, she said two aspirin might help the pain more than chewing on toothache bush.

            The extraction comes next week. The house is cool. The calves averaged 554 pounds. And I was able to throw my saddle on "Shineman" in spite of the dietary regimen of milk toast.

July 31, 2008

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Thursday, July 19, 2007

A Storyteller's Introduction

By the time we registered for workshops at the University of Iowa, the college hotel was booked. One downtown where we had stayed previously offered the same rate, plus complementary van service to the campus. So we took a comfortable room close to restaurants and a 10-minute ride to classes.
First morning, a Sunday, one of the two elevators stopped elevating. Big wedding party scattered among the six floors decided to go home at the moment of the failure. I came in the lobby from a walk as the mob of recovering celebrants shuffled out of the service stairway, carrying bags instead of plastic cups of champagne of the night before.
Through the door in top form from the cool morning walk, the twirling of my walking stick cast such a windmill shadow in front of the reception desk that one ol' boy shied so far off course, his roll-on spun into a deep, screeching wheelie. I considered comforting the lad, but remembered how long a fit lasted for a hot-blooded colt fearful of shadows.
Twirling a walking stick goes back to walking in Mertzon before all the town dogs started sleeping indoors and stopped biting walkers outdoors. The shadowmaker I carried in the hotel came from the lost and found closet. The cane or stick wasn't a cane or a stick at all, but an abandoned piece of telescoping aluminum tube for short-statured lightweights applying for disability benefits, or caught in a tight corner and needing a walking stick for a stage prop.
On purpose, I leave mine home. By the time I pack different weight clothes, rain coat, sunscreen, parasol, chap stick, extra shoelaces, and maybe a sewing kit, passing through inspection feels like an imposition on the government agents. Asking the inspectors to scan a walking stick, plus my other necessities like arch supports and corn pads, files and clippers, inhalants and eye drops, dental flosses and pastes, and ammonia swabs and chloroform patches to meet emergencies, seems too much.
Descending the four flights of stairs earlier allowed time to review the best places to borrow a walking stick. Underneath bar stools is one spot where they are forgotten. Streetcars and buses net a few. Old grannies grow careless in casinos and at horse races but are poor losers and the worst of sports, if you are caught nicking one. It was a stroke of good fortune finding the cane in the lost and found after weighing the possibilities.
The first class met after indoctrination on Sunday afternoon. The University of Iowa writing workshops rank among the best in the country. The catalogue listed my class as "The Art of Metaphors." Omitted was the fact that course attracted students experienced in launching rockets, medicine, research, law, libraries and education.
As each person gave an opening resume, the reason I was admitted became clear. I was admitted to make the rolls well rounded, to add a common country touch — the old Norman Rockwell, Carl Sandburg "aw shucks" flavor. Heartland America mixed into urban sophistication to balance the roles, to bring out true democracy in the classroom.
Self-introduction to an unknown audience is too much temptation for a storyteller. I was already using my full first name, Montgomery, for a dodge to keep folks from thinking I was saying "Bob" for "Monte." Further, Oscar Wilde warned, "Keep telling the truth and it'll catch up with you."
Twenty-five years — no, longer — ago, I learned not to admit to being a journalist, or more precisely, a scribe at a livestock journal. Writers unable to parse the syntax of Mary Had A Little Lamb scorn newspaper people.
The rocket scientist drew the most attention. He admitted that President Reagan ending the Cold War ruined his career at Cape Canaveral blasting off rockets. When the busybody of a peacemaker, (my version) Mr. Reagan, made a pact with the Russians, he lost his job to shower the heavens in explosives.
Second was a guy who majored in cell research. Like many students, he wanted to write his memoirs, except in non-technical language. As my turn came closer, ideas arose like offering to ghost a treatise for the cell guy and the rocket shooter. Offer a deal in the most commonplace language away from and outside the dock workers' hall in Galveston, Texas.
At my time, I lowered my head a bit. Said, "I'm Montgomery Noelke from the eastern edge of the Chihuahua Desert in Texas." Raised my head. Continued in deeper dialect: "Ah raise sheep and cows, git my mail at Mertzon, fear the Almighty, and trap coyotes for extra income."
The teacher replied, "Thank you, Mr. Nolek. Class dismissed." The classroom door was a lot further walking back than coming. Can't say whether my classmates grew quieter as I passed, as my hearing isn't that acute.

January 5, 2006

You cannot turn your back upon a dream/for phantoms have their reason when they come. Robert Lowell in his poem "Ghost."

            Someone in the family, perhaps a grandson or granddaughter, needs to know that a five year-old dark sorrel mare lies 50 feet due north of the railroad at Noelke Switch in an unmarked grave. The westbound midnight freight of the Santa Fe Railway killed her on Christmas Eve of 1952 at the Noelke Crossing.

            The engineer's report described her standing on the main track, blinded by the light of the onrushing train. The engineer said further, "I switched off the lights, blasted my whistle, but she never gave an inch."

            Christmas morning, the section foreman called, offering to bury her right away. I deferred. The section gang, we agreed, needed the day to medicate on menudo and bed rest. Christmas Eve had been a big night in Mertzon.

            On the 26th, the section crew buried her in a hand-dug grave on railroad property, according to company specifications for interring farm animals. On the same morning, Jose Aguirre, Elton Howard_, Feliciano Rocha, and myself rode across the tracks, driving 800 ewes, facing a north wind, heading for fresh pasture to hospitalize a flock of bitterweed poisoned sheep.

            The tail end of the herd wobbled across the rails, afflicted by the poison. We looked some better than the drags, concealed in white salt sacks tied up under the chin straps holding hats in place, over faded green overalls braving the winds. Our task, however, was better than that of the six-man section crew hitting the hard-packed red clay with shovels and picks, jarring their scalded eye sockets and hammering on tender nerves.

            We took turns walking behind the herd, using the woolies as a shield to warm a bit from the high winds blowing off the iced-over mesquite limbs. Part of the time, one rider held back the lead to wait on the sick ones.

            As I remember the ride, no one spoke or rode close to me. Don't recall the horse I rode. Couldn't have been Badger, as he was too tall for me to reach the stirrup while wearing a winter costume. Would have been a blessing if that old fool spent all his limitless Christmases on railroad tracks, county roads, and U.S. highways. Would have been my pleasure to free him to range on the Dallas-Fort Worth turnpike if there had been a way of cooling the Big Boss's love for such a deranged mass of horseflesh directed toward making cowboys miserable.

            If motorists had been able to look off from the icy track at the highway crossing, they'd have thought we were a band of horsemen looking for stray camels to play a part in the Lawrence of Arabia movie, instead of being simple herders. By then, the white salt sacks had worked loose from around our necks and the baggy coverall pants strangled our legs under our chaps. Lucky indeed was the one of us who hadn't lost a glove, or even owned matching gloves. (Saddles don't have an instrument panel. Way to tell below freezing is when breathing the cold air hurts as bad as a tonsillectomy.)

            But move forward to this past Christmas of '05 and a midnight trip by Noelke Switch on the way back to the Divide. I stopped and pulled over in the space directly across from the railroad crossing. Grew still and watched the moonlight reflect on the rails as I had many times before in the old days.

            Suddenly, dust began to rise from the shipping pens. Poke sticks long as lances aimed by mounted men, punched cattle up the alley to the loading dock on the railroad.

            Heard a horse set back tied to the big mesquite in the run-around tuned to a manila rope snapping. Heard a Mexican cowboy's cry, "Hi-yai cabrones." Heard hooves tapping the chute floor in a rapid staccato of the successful drive.

            Boxcar doors slammed; a rusty brake screeched under a massive wheel. Smelled coal, creosote, smoke, tar and wet sand — all part of the dark, dingy, rigid, black world of rails. Thought for a minute I heard Elton's voice singing the hymn he sang on the ride to the house. Longed that last moment in the moonlight to once again to feel the might of a horse under a tight saddle and to be the horseman looking down on a railroad hand on shipping days at Noelke Switch.

            The mare's name was Doll Town. I guess I liked her. I know I liked to ride her better than the ones that kept me in a state of disgrace among the riders and the ridden. I know she was buried with the sweat marks of my saddle on her back. Can say for sure she was a better horse than Ol' Badger. He was so sorry and mean, he'd have wrecked the train upon impact.

            I followed the tracks four more miles to the next crossing. I read after Christmas that families become stronger when they know the parents' past. Guess I will tell a grandson or granddaughter where Doll Town rests. Maybe some night on Christmas, they'll see the replay in the moonlight.

 January 5, 2006

January 12, 2006

On the trip back from Fort Worth before Christmas, burned grasslands spotted the roadsides. First notice was outside the city limits from a rig accident on a gas well. Others fires on the right of way appeared to be from catalytic converters sparking the dry vegetation — a guess later confirmed by a highway worker.

Sure took away the jingle bells from the trip as my pal and I drove west. Every roadside firecracker joint symbolized that the stands outside the city limits of San Angelo were laying in loads of small explosives to light the skies and scatter incendiary fallout in all the surrounding shortgrass counties.

Bolstering my sense of dread was the fact that Mother's old home in Mertzon, in addition to adjoining overgrown vacant lots full of fuel, sits to the east of a row of six 30-foot pine trees. Beautiful yet drouth-responsive, those trees hold dry needles aloft in upper branches perfect for a skyrocket to land.

Came to mind, too, the deer camps and oil rigs too close and too many to rate the danger. Powerlines and high-pressure pipelines joined us on the ride, strung and laid across the countryside to create aerial and subterranean arson. (Okay, I apologize. Kind of got carried away.) Unpapered aliens cooking by water tanks and oil transports backfiring off the road came on board. The specter of ruin riding in the car became so real, we began to plan backfires to save the ranchland — to save the whole county.

Irony of all irony_, we passed through the small town that later would suffer huge losses of homes from grass fires. I never thought of the land east of San Angelo being dry enough to burn. Now, west of town, the ranches had always had big prairie fires.

The worst times for us were the World War II years, when practice bombing set off fires before fire departments existed to put them out. Like a lot of life's history, that era has been covered in the 40-odd years I've been a storyteller in print. Wish now I had coded my material, so I'd know the made-up part from the truth. Would help, for example, to know if 10,000 head of sheep burned in one big fire east of the ranch from bombing practice in the 1940s, or I imagined the 40 or 50-section fire burned a hundred ewes.

One point is for certain: writing the big fire story today, feeling safe that no witnesses remain, would be a sure way to contact all the fellow firefighters. It would only take setting the scene as three days and three nights over there in the rocks and playa lakes stumbling over prickly pears, whip mesquites and burned sheep carcasses to all but bring back the dead to dispute my story in an onslaught more fierce than the roll call that fateful night.

Just last year I felt safe enough to slip in a ringer about a picture of a 1920 model chuckwagon that the editor of Vogue Magazine knew more about than I did. Three days after the posting, a lady in Vermont wrote an e-mail saying the cowboy described in such detail, standing by the lid of the chuck box, was her father. I couldn't have felt worse if I'd ridden up on those cowboys in a buggy wearing a pair of golf knickers stuffed in knee-length socks.

No time was spent in Mertzon after reaching home. I knew I couldn't sleep with firecrackers popping until midnight. We'd already passed the Twin Mountain stands proclaiming "Buy One; Get One Free" to provide enough nightmares to last several Christmas naps. We'd already flinched at the long line of cars trailing out to load the home powder magazines and bombard the lake beds, subdivisions and any other areas unprotected by laws prohibiting shooting fireworks, like farms and ranches.

Once unloaded at the ranch, I connected the hose in the back yard used to fill the livestock sprayer. The hydrant made the sucking noise related to an empty pipe. Then it hit me that the guy working on the plumbing killed the water line going to an old wash house. Would have been a fine start to fighting fire to throw the hose over in the sprayer without checking the flow of water. Instead of being angry, I was grateful for the warning.

Our fears were justified. Big fires and bad fires hit all around. The blazes ranged from 50,000 acres burned in one block up in the north end of the county to fireworks in Mertzon burning the city blocks close to the courthouse and library while the fire trucks were at the big fire.

Until rains fall, it won't take but one ring to reach the ranchers. The smell of grass burning still lingers in the air. I plan on having a fire drill as soon as the back hydrant is connected.

January 12, 2006

January 6, 2005

Over the holidays, a new plan developed for handling guests at the ranch. Discovered at Thanksgiving how to delegate power along with delegating work. I appointed my Austin daughter-in-law, Holly, to assign bedrooms but reserved the authority to handle complaints from the assignees.

The issue covers the ranch house and the Mertzon house bedrooms, also the couches and the floor space in the two living rooms for the student bunks. Second floor, or the loft accommodations at Mertzon, serve weaned and near-weaned kids still in playpens, cribs, baskets, or papoose frames. I learned years ago that the strain on a mother of capturing a child just before he plunges down the stairwell shortens the stay. Any trick to get the Pabulum set on the road, dirty or fair, beats Grandpa being crippled from stepping on a toy crocodile or steel top.

            However, the unplugged TV set and computer downstairs comply with new findings by baby healers. The American Association of Pediatricians just released a warning that children should be two years of age before allowed to sit in front of computers, VCRs, and TV's more than two hours a day. They recommended freeing babies of sitting in Mom's lap while she plays games on the Net or spit-curls her hair in front of the television screen. Made me reconsider giving my new grandchild her first laptop.

            My daughter-in-law qualified for the reservation job in an indirect way. Her coffee recipe reduces the need for sleep. After a cup at breakfast, the morning paper's print waves like a six-point Richter reading on a California quake. One cup contains enough caffeine to give a 65-pound sloth insomnia. Once, on a half-cup cut with milk, I did a pirouette so high up on my toes that I bumped my head on a fixture flush with the kitchen ceiling.

            My experience dealing with holiday complaints goes way back. The Big Boss spent a lot of his Christmas holidays at the old ranch as an intermission between his principal interests of polo tournaments and big game hunting trips mingled with prolonged winter stays in cabanas on the peninsula of Florida and summer vacations to the Colorado mountain slopes.

            Always complained how he disliked the holidays because it wasn't possible to get any work done during Christmas. Came to breakfast grumbling about mechanics stopping work and the hardware store closing for two days. By lunch he had read enough in the day-old newspaper to be incensed over the Mertzon drugstore failing to open to deliver his latest edition. The season he ran short of seltzer water and Travis Club cigars is hard to relate to in this age of all-night chain stores filled with chasers and stogies.

It took four cowboys, two wagons, four mules, and two 300-acre traps and a bunkhouse to hold the riders, the ridden and the harnessed stock required for the feed run at the old ranch. His orders were to feed the cattle double on the 24th. On Christmas morning, feed the horses and mules and do the chores. (Milk the cows, feed the hogs and chickens, and doctor the hospital pen.)

            Over and over, he said how sad it was for an old pony to be without a bite on Christmas morning. The ones of us riding those old ponies were tenderhearted, too. The times we arose in the cold bunkhouse after a Christmas ball, unable to hold solid food on the raging stomach fires and brave thunderous throbs in our temples, we developed a compassion for man and beast as we pitched a saddle on a horse or collared a mule. The tenderness was so strong, the undertow would make Mother Teresa seem hard as a faro dealer.

            The complaints I handle are current ones, however, not those of 1950s times. Suppose a grandson says, "Granddad, my face and chest were cold where I slept last night." A good answer would be, "My son, turn over from time to time and sleep on your stomach." Might be, "Granddad, I'm starving." Sure to be, "Look on the bottom shelf of the cabinet for a stick of sugar-free gum. Excellent remedy to curb hunger, my boy." A likely event, "Granddad, 'Aurb' fell off Kate." Standard script, "Go catch the horse before she breaks the new reins J.R. made last week."

            Hardest to please are grown sons. "Dad, the furnace was too high last night. Couldn't sleep." The solution, "Oh, I am sorry. Tonight, go down before bedtime and sweep the barn. Odor of fresh hay straw is an ancient cure for insomnia." Might be a whispered reminder that his guest is a vegetarian: "Dad, please, please carve the rib roast in the kitchen." And Dad (me): "Sure, son, if you will ask your guest to stop eating seaweed and raw okra in the living room between meals."

            We are making big progress. Fielded fewer complaints over Christmas than ever before. I sure missed having my daughter-in-law on the ground, but followed her policies and was able to bed the crew…

January 6, 2005

January 13, 2005

Best not to bother trying to put this story in the right timeframe or sequence. Learned years ago that folks object to my being at the ranch overburdened with calving heifers before one deadline, only to be fretting with airport security far away from the ranch the next week.

But I realized the morning I checked the heifers and left the front gate to the yard and the front door to the house open in the chill of a December morning that I needed to make a business trip to Austin. "Business" meaning eating on white linen, sleeping on high thread count sheets, using Turkish towels to dry in a big hotel to address business in a newspaper left by the hotel room door every morning at 6 a.m.

            The part that's hard to connect is that during the business trip, my friend and I moved to a private residence across Austin from the hotel. First night there, we discovered a raccoon lived in the attic — a heavy-footed, restless, light-sleeping raccoon. The kind of varmint, though nocturnal, given to walking in his sleep. Think of a clog dancer rehearsing over your bedroom, or Hogarth the dreaded Viking of the North Sea walking in hobnails overhead.

            At daybreak, investigation showed the coon had gnawed a hole in the roof by the rock chimney. Had opened the attic to all of the protected fauna, endangered flora, and global warming climate currently on defense in Austin, Texas. Standing in the backyard looking at the damage (second raccoon offense against her roof in '04) and clasping my friend's hand to support her, the image of a blue steel, snub-nosed .38 Special Smith and Wesson pistol Jose and I smuggled into Mexico so many decades ago flashed. Felt the checkered wooden grips; recalled the broad target sights and the recoil from a heavy grain load.

            Back indoors, I called my son Ben to borrow a shotgun and a couple of shells. He stalled my request by asking what I needed a gun for on a Sunday morning in the Capitol city? Became specific by saying: "Dad, you two aren't on your Crockett County grounds. Whatever you are planning to shoot is protected by law and by a vast majority of the town's citizens."

            Deterred, I requested he bring us one of those urbanite heart-something-or-other traps to catch a coon long enough to repay the sapsucker for eating a hole in my pal's roof. I told him not to worry over public opinion, or city, state, federal, or common laws. "Once that merriweather sapsucker is captured," I said, "I'll read him his rights and mete the sentence."

            By mid-morning, Ben arrived with a big rusty cage opened on one end by a trap door set by a trigger to bait in the other end. The trap goes by the name of "Have a Heart Trap." Sure was well named, as the next night the coon ate a big can of sardines, digested the bait on the trap floor, and escaped without tripping the door or turning a hair the wrong way.

            Called my son George next morning: "George, been planning on going on a little hunt at your brother Lea's ranch in Llano County. Need to borrow your four-ten shot… Oh, you heard about the coon." I paused; it was not necessary for him to repeat the identical admonishment as Ben's on how Austin folks treat swatting a garden gnat as a major breach against the balance of nature.

            On the second or third morning, my friend contacted a pest removal service. At 10 a.m. a neat young man arrived carrying a clipboard, businesslike as a stock broker. In fact, he smelled more like a stock broker than a trapper. He was late, but his excuse wasn't that he'd been tracking a phantom bear, the dreadnaught of Onion Creek, or making a set for "Old Three-Toe" the wiliest coyote bitch on the Colorado River. Further, he made me suspicious not trying to top my story of the winter of '36, when "Polecat Edward" caught 63 bobcats on Spring Creek without losing one bait or one trap. Knew he was a phony when he smoothed his hair and checked his fingernails.

            In the windup, my pal hired the metro humane trapper for a price many times over what 10 coon hides brought after World War Two. Ben came for the sardine buffet trap that leaked grown coons. A carpenter closed the hole to the coon's den. (Not sure, but mark this 300 bucks on the bill.) George promised to check on the roof after we left for home. And Lea Noelke rang, puzzled why I wanted his legal assistance to inform the city government of my rights under Article Two of the Constitution.

            Last day in the city, I read a touching article of the woes besetting Lakeway residents from marauding coyotes. Thought as we packed of sending the city slickers a pack of soft rubber bands to shoot at the prairie wolves. Last I heard, Prince Charming hadn't caught the raccoon.

January 13, 2005