Laugh Tracks in the Dust: Tough-looking hombre

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Chase County lived up to its name recently with a real life, semi-Old West, bad guy/good guys criminal chase.

It happened to a friend of mine, ol’  Phil Moore, who lives out in the country. Here’s a brief description of what happened.

Phil’s wife went into their back yard one hot afternoon and wuz like to scared out of her wits to discover a tough-looking hombre resting in the shade under their back porch.

Alarmed, she ran into the house, alerted Phil, and called 911. Phil quickly armed himself with a shotgun and went outside to confront the stranger.

The guy said that his vehicle had broken down a few miles down the road and he wuz walking for help, but got hot and needed to rest.

Well, about that time a county law officer arrived on the scene and, after listening to the stranger’s story, offered to take him back to his vehicle, but the guy said he’d cooled off and would walk back to his vehicle and see it he could fix it. The officer let him get aways down the road, then left and headed back to town.

The law had no more than gotten out of sight when the tough-hombre ran back to Phil’s farmstead and ran past the house and down to a machine shed. Meanwhile, Phil had re-armed himself with the shotgun, his wife recalled 911, and the stranger came roaring out of Phil’s machine shed in his vehicle and headed down the road.

But, the county law had re-arrived just in time to give chase to the stranger.

Off into the countryside on gravel roads they went in a real-life cops and robbers  episode. But, the guy went down a dead-end road, where he found another truck someone had parked by the river. When he got the new vehicle started, he turned around and ran the deputy sheriff off the road.

Meanwhile, more law enforcement joined the chase. The stranger got on a main gravel road and that’s when the bullets began to fly as the law tried to shoot out the tires on the stranger’s vehicle. Finally, they got the tires flat, but the guy just kept gunning down the road on the rear tire rims, dragging the rear gearbox in the gravel.

Finally, the gearbox wore through, the oil drained out, and it seized up and the vehicle came to a halt near the home of another friend of mine. The elusive guy still refused to give up and ran for the house. But, the law dropped him with a taser and got him in custody. The Chase County chase had gone for more than 10 miles.

The law finally identified the stranger as a homeless fugitive from Wichita who wuz driving a stolen vehicle. Apparently he’d been on the run from the law and knew he needed to get off the highway and out of sight. He evidently spied Phil’s secluded machine shed from the highway and thought it offered a place to hide.

The end result of the Chase County chase could have been much worse. Turns out no one got hurt of killed. And, the homeless fugitive now has a comfortable home with full service — behind bars.

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The 2016 Chase County Fair is history. My job on the fair clean-up crew is helping dump the trash barrels around the fairgrounds. It’s not a pleasant job, but it’s one I’m mentally and physically competent to do.

Ol’ Nevah and I scored big on our fair entries. She got two reserve grand champion ribbons on her quilt and table runner. I scored no championships, but got first blue ribbons for two classes of potatoes and two classes of onions, a red ribbon on a tomato entry, and got third place in the biggest tomato class. Grand total of all my premium monies $14.25. Nevah collected more than $20. We’re rich and don’t know how to spend all out winnings.

I also entered a really ugly, molting rooster in the Foulest of the Fowl contest, with a $10 jackpot on the line to win, and “rented” three other roosters to “rooster-less” friends so they could enter the contest. The winner wuz selected by the public’s voting for ugliest rooster.

Alas, no jackpot win for me in the poultry show. Guess I’ll have to grow uglier roosters or else make more friends who will vote for my entry.

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The rampant coyote struck again this week. This time Murphy’s Law of Poultry came into play. With dozens of plain chickens to kill, Mr. Killer Coyote chose to dispatch the lone Lavender Orpington pullet that I paid $7.50 for as a chick last spring. Ah, well, I’ll bet I kill that pesky coyote before he kills my entire flock.

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I learned at the county fair why I’m getting so fat and pot-bellied in my old age. It’s the way I wash my hair while I’m taking a shower. I use shampoo in the shower and when I wash my hair, the shampoo runs down my whole body. And, someone told me to read the label on my shampoo bottle. I did and it reads: “For Extra Body and Volume.” That’s a clear enuf warning, but I wuz unaware of it.

Then someone else said I could become skinny again if I start using Dawn dish soap instead of shampoo becuz it’s label reads, “Dissolves Fat That Is Otherwise Difficult to Remove.” I’m sure that’ll solve my body shape problem.

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Since this column has devolved into bathroom humor, I might as well sign off with a few wise words about baths. Rodney Dangerfield said, “I could tell my parents hated me. My bath toys were a plug-in toaster and a radio.” And, Arnold H. Glasow said, “Telling a teenager the facts of life is like giving a fish a bath.”

Have a good ‘un.

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