Laugh Tracks in the Dust

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This is the kind of story I love. A true story that actually happened to a dear friend of mine, ol’ Lon G. Horner.

Lon, a long-time local breeder of Longhorn cattle and an equally-long leader of that breed association, attended a breed sale near Butler, Mo., with his good buddy from Pawnee Rock, Kan., ol’ Mutt Hawler.

Mutt hauled some of his cattle for the sale to Lon’s home and they put his and Lon’s cattle together in the trailer and went to the sale together.

At the sale, both guys sold and bought some cattle, so it wuz well after dark of a long day when they returned to Lon’s place. They unloaded Lon’s new cattle and then backed Lon’s trailer up to Mutt’s trailer to transfer Mutt’s cattle for the haul back to Pawnee Rock.

I’ll mention now that Lon has an enthusiastic Great Pyrenees pup that’s already as big as a good-sized calf and, while the guys were loading and unloading cattle, the pup wuz underfoot everywhere trying to get in on the action.

Well, finally, Mutt’s cattle were loaded and he headed 200 miles west to his ranch. Imagine his surprise when he unloaded his new Longhorns from his trailer and the last one out wuz Lon’s Great Pyrenees pup.

Yep, somehow in the dark at Lon’s place, the pup loaded himself in Mutt’s trailer and made the entire trip riding with the cattle and arrived refreshed from a long road nap and with nary a scratch on him.

The next morning Mutt called Lon and explained the situation. Lon hadn’t even missed his pup yet. That day they met in the middle at McPherson, Kan., and Lon brought his pup home.

I guess it’s true that Great Pyrenees are as much at ease with livestock as they are with people.

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The next story is true, but the name is omitted because I don’t know it. The story wuz told to me by the local hardware baron, ol’ Nutson Boltz. He said one of the locals borrowed a neighbor’s chainsaw to do a little trimming.

When he wuz finished, the headed back to return the chainsaw to its owner. The saw wuz riding on the back on his flatbed truck and it bounced off during the trip.

Yep, you guessed it? The trailer ran smack dab over the chainsaw and smashed it to smithereens. That’s why he came into the hardware baron’s store to buy a new replacement chainsaw.

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The Flint Hills are a landscape of black and light brownish/green this week. After the recent rains, the burn ban was lifted and the farmers and ranchers in the Flint Hills are burning last year’s grass as fast as they can. The air has had a “smoky” tinge and smell to it for a week. I got Damphewmore Acres burned, too.

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Nevah and I went to a concert at the Granada Theater in Emporia last Friday to see two sons — Ben and Neal — of my favorite all-time country music singer, Merle Haggard, perform.

It was a great concert and a full house, but we were a little disappointed that only youngest son Ben got to perform. Neal wuz under the weather and unable to perform. Still, we were glad to go and hear many of The Hag’s biggest hits.

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Finally dried up enuf for a couple of days for us to get the first of this year’s garden planted. We planted peas, potatoes, and sweet corn. Plus, the apple trees and the cherry tree are blooming and I saw a number of pollinators working the blossoms, so maybe we’ll have a bit of a fruit crop this year. It all depends on if we’ve had our last frost — which is about a 50-50 proposition.

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My friend from Lakeview, Colo., ol’ Jay Esse, sez he started a diet on March 30 and has lost 22 pounds so far. He sez being so much lighter made it easier for him to “leap forward” when daylight savings time happened.

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Although he weighs less, Jay must do a lot of heavy thinking. He passes along these “heavy” ideas.

If it’s true that medical science has advanced so much in the last 50 years, he wonders why he felt so much better 50 years ago

It seldom occurs to teenagers that someday they will know as little as their parents know.

Since he got old and lazy, he just enjoys doing nothing.

Learn a lesson from your dog. No matter what life brings you, hike your leg, then kick some grass over it and move on.

He went to his doctor and the doc prescribed something that works like aspirin, but is 100 times more expensive.

A hard-boiled egg for breakfast is hard to beat.

Sometimes he takes his cell phone out and pretends to be texting, just so he doesn’t look so much like an old geezer.

And, finally, the wisdom for the week: Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy ice cream — pretty much the same.

Have a good ‘un.

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