HAT TIPS
Hello,
Well, Shirley and I just returned from our winter vacation. It wasn’t a long vacation, but it was a good one. We talked about going east. Maybe to New York, or Philadelphia, or maybe Boston. I’ve been to Boston and loved it. Ate clam chowder and talked like a Kennedy. Like my grandkids say, “It was cool!”
Then we talked about going south. Maybe to Florida to the Keys. Maybe the Louisiana Gulf Coast. We tossed Mexico and Jamaica around. That would be fun. We went to the Bahamas once years ago. And Milo and Julie taught the natives to polka. That was the best part of that trip. We talked of going to baseball spring training in Florida or Arizona. We have friends in both places.
That reminds me of something Linseth told me years ago. We were hauling a load of bucking horses across the United States to a bucking horse sale in Texas. I asked Lynn if he figured he would end up in heaven or hell. He didn’t even have to think. Just replied, “Well, I bet I know somebody either place!”
Back to our vacation. We decided we would do both. We would go east. And then we would go south for a while. As Corb Lund explains in his song, “You’ve Got to Have Cows Around,” when you have cows, you’re pretty well tied down.
So, on Saturday, after chores, we loaded up and headed east. To Mandan. We would attend the annual Cowboy Hall of Fame banquet and meeting, visit with friends, enjoy the fundraiser, sleep in a bed somebody else made, eat a supper and breakfast someone else cooked, and we could be home for chores in the morning. It was wonderful.
Then that afternoon, after chores, we headed south. Didn’t make it all the way to the Gulf. But we made it to Amidon. It’s towns like Amidon that make me proud of rural people. It was their annual play. I’ve been to the Harding County play in the Bullock Hall. And I had always wanted to attend the one in Amidon.
It’s just dang good fun to watch your friends and neighbors produce one of these grand plays. It’s family fun. It’s farmers and ranchers wrapping up chores and spending several nights a week for a couple months memorizing lines and working on costumes. It’s ladies baking cookies and cakes and lemon bars for snacks (I can’t spell ordurves). It’s grandmas and grandpas and moms and dads and kids and babies falling silent as the lights dim and the stage comes to life. It’s watching men and women transforming a tin building on the prairie to a theatre full of appreciative fans.
There is a show called something like “We’ve got Talent.” We dang sure do.
While at the Hall of Fame banquet, I was visiting with an old friend. He said he asked his wife what she wanted for their Anniversary, which was coming up. She replied, “A divorce!”
He thought a minute and replied, “I didn’t figure on spending that much!”
Later,
Dean