Defining Moments
reckoned by Johnny Rawhide at 2:06 AM
After the recent debate here at the Ranch about which lowdown owlhoot was gonna get the first Weiner Wrangler Award (see Concha Loca's missive on Friday last) I was left with my own thinkin' about these yahoos and how they seem awful typical of folks in elected and appointed seats of power.
It ain't hardly news how some like to bend the rules and regulations to serve themselves and kick the rest of us off the chow line. Bad manners is a certain potent of civilization slidin' down the riverbank, and some bad manners is plain criminal, and some plain manical, and some is just greed and corruption.
Seeing all them good folk down along the port of New Orleans and in the mudlands of Missisippi peerin' over the the heaps of rubble and trash for sign of aid stuck in my craw. And they was patient and kept on waitin' for the Cavalry that never arrived. And then here at the Ranch, I was watchin' the color TV last week and saw the man named Brownie, who was 'posed to head up the emergency relief shakin' away his failures and stampedin' blame in direction of the folks who had already lost so much--it left me kind of perplexed.
We've had more than one disaster at the Ranch, like the time Ned Fly got Concha's chickens all riled and some got loose and were never seen again, or worse, that time Shady Nebraska and Lonesome Bill got in a drunken brawl over a gal named Sally Hawkes from the Last Chance Hotel, and knocked down a lantern in the barn--the rest of the buckaroos at the Ranch all throwed in and doused the fire, even though I weren't there to tell them. It's their ranch too. And both of 'em stood in the kitchen after with heads hangin' and their Stesons in their hands and declared they was to blame and no one else--them 'pokes almost fought over who was MOST to blame. Shady and Lonesome are still here at the Ranch, but we never saw Ned again after he went searchin' for them chickens. Guess he knew to come back with somethin' or not at all.
I had to change the station on the color TV when Brownie kept lyin' like a pig in mud on a hot day, and then I seen this here advertisement for another government agency that calls itself Homeland Security. I seen these little youngins all frettin' and askin' their mommies and daddies what to do if some god-awful thing were to happen, askin' who to call and where to go. And the fella reading the advertisement says: "everybody ought to talk about what to do in an emergency."
Well, shoot--how much do we pay these varmints to tell us that? I am positive them advertisements on the color TV ain't cheap and tax money is what gets spent to pay the tab. All them folks up in Washington--and in too many other statehouses and county seats--can do is tell us, "Ya'll better have plan."
I know finding someone so full of sand they could dry up the Missouri River if they touched it ain't hard to do. Most regular folks do the right thing 'cause they was brought up right and not just raised. Pickin' out the names of those who ended up useless as teats on a bull's forehead has become a wearisome task. Once the farm has been run to ruin, you'd best be thinkin' of what's comin' at you next. 'Fore you know it, someone will come knockin' at your front door, with promises they can do better and wantin' you to sign on for another trail to nowhere.
When I was a sapling, old Ben Two-Shoes, who got stuck on a bare and bitter reservation 'cause of so many broken treaties, told me a Politician has eyes that see things that ain't real. How in hell can a body predict what a phantom from a ghost world will do?
There's a fellow from way back named Ambrose Bierce, who onct wrote a dictionary himself, which kind of explains how a Politician sees this world. And here is what he wrote:
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About the Writer
Johnny Rawhide is a Stinkhorn Rodeo
Ranch Boss and designated Sharp-shooter.
It ain't hardly news how some like to bend the rules and regulations to serve themselves and kick the rest of us off the chow line. Bad manners is a certain potent of civilization slidin' down the riverbank, and some bad manners is plain criminal, and some plain manical, and some is just greed and corruption.
Seeing all them good folk down along the port of New Orleans and in the mudlands of Missisippi peerin' over the the heaps of rubble and trash for sign of aid stuck in my craw. And they was patient and kept on waitin' for the Cavalry that never arrived. And then here at the Ranch, I was watchin' the color TV last week and saw the man named Brownie, who was 'posed to head up the emergency relief shakin' away his failures and stampedin' blame in direction of the folks who had already lost so much--it left me kind of perplexed.
We've had more than one disaster at the Ranch, like the time Ned Fly got Concha's chickens all riled and some got loose and were never seen again, or worse, that time Shady Nebraska and Lonesome Bill got in a drunken brawl over a gal named Sally Hawkes from the Last Chance Hotel, and knocked down a lantern in the barn--the rest of the buckaroos at the Ranch all throwed in and doused the fire, even though I weren't there to tell them. It's their ranch too. And both of 'em stood in the kitchen after with heads hangin' and their Stesons in their hands and declared they was to blame and no one else--them 'pokes almost fought over who was MOST to blame. Shady and Lonesome are still here at the Ranch, but we never saw Ned again after he went searchin' for them chickens. Guess he knew to come back with somethin' or not at all.
I had to change the station on the color TV when Brownie kept lyin' like a pig in mud on a hot day, and then I seen this here advertisement for another government agency that calls itself Homeland Security. I seen these little youngins all frettin' and askin' their mommies and daddies what to do if some god-awful thing were to happen, askin' who to call and where to go. And the fella reading the advertisement says: "everybody ought to talk about what to do in an emergency."
Well, shoot--how much do we pay these varmints to tell us that? I am positive them advertisements on the color TV ain't cheap and tax money is what gets spent to pay the tab. All them folks up in Washington--and in too many other statehouses and county seats--can do is tell us, "Ya'll better have plan."
I know finding someone so full of sand they could dry up the Missouri River if they touched it ain't hard to do. Most regular folks do the right thing 'cause they was brought up right and not just raised. Pickin' out the names of those who ended up useless as teats on a bull's forehead has become a wearisome task. Once the farm has been run to ruin, you'd best be thinkin' of what's comin' at you next. 'Fore you know it, someone will come knockin' at your front door, with promises they can do better and wantin' you to sign on for another trail to nowhere.
When I was a sapling, old Ben Two-Shoes, who got stuck on a bare and bitter reservation 'cause of so many broken treaties, told me a Politician has eyes that see things that ain't real. How in hell can a body predict what a phantom from a ghost world will do?
There's a fellow from way back named Ambrose Bierce, who onct wrote a dictionary himself, which kind of explains how a Politician sees this world. And here is what he wrote:
PLAN, v.t.He also defined another word which these owlhoots up in Washington use all the time and here is what Mr. Bierce wrote:
To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
RESPONSIBILITY, n.I got chores to do. See ya'll later.
A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Alas, things ain't what we should see
If Eve had let that apple be;
And many a feller which had ought
To set with monarchses of thought,
Or play some rosy little game
With battle-chaps on fields of fame,
Is downed by his unlucky star
And hollers: "Peanuts! -- here you are!"
"The Sturdy Beggar"
--------------------
About the Writer
Johnny Rawhide is a Stinkhorn Rodeo
Ranch Boss and designated Sharp-shooter.
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