|
 “When
you been maturinatin’ ‘long as I have, they’s a few ultimatum facts
about life that jest can’t be ignored,”
With that, our favorite old-time camp cook, mule packer and
occasional predictor of things that haven’t happened yet, Windy
Wilson, stirred the sugar in his coffee and looked at the rest of
us. Wisely. Well, as wisely as old Windy ever gets.
We knew we were in for another dose of campfire education, even if
it’s totally wrong. We smiled. Some people need cable TV to find
this kind of fun.
“Like them measurementals we use when we’re cookin’, he said. “If
you look in them recipe books, they slam a buncha measurementals on
ya that you never heard of and no one to convert them into plain
American, like we speak here.”
“You jest take in there them bakin’ recipes,” he said. “Cups a this,
then you gotta shift them so they don’t stick together with stuff
you already tossed in a bowl … like a dramblin’ of this or a sticker
of butter. You ever see that stuff? How in the everlastin’ hoot owl
drumsticks they spect us, ‘way over here in the United States of Our
Country to figger that out?
He sipped and stirred and looked up at us in that same way old Sam
Elliott does when he finds a greenhorn he wants to set straight.
“Let’s figger out real cowboy measurements and use ‘em. That’s what
I say.”
“Like which ones, Windy?
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column] |
“Why, Doc, didya know there are
them caf-ma terial ladies all over the place don’t know what a
herman is? Truth. A herman, as all of us know, is a cubic fistful.
Jest right handy fer makin’
biscuits in a Dutch oven. Set ‘er on that campfire and let ‘er go!
Gits too hot? Hey, jest pull ‘er back a mite ‘til she’s settin’ more
in the coals out where the state line would be if campfires had
states.”
Our resident working cowboy, Steve, got up to pay his bill and
leave.
“Don’t run off, Steve,” said Windy, “ was jest ‘bout to start
‘luminatin’ on stuff like gloogles, gurgles, bellyache triggers,
slushes and nips.”
“Next time, I guess,” Steve said over his shoulder as he headed out
the door for his getaway pickup truck.
[Text from file received from
Slim Randles]
Brought to you by that
marvelous stocking stuffer, Home Country (the book) on Amazon.com. |
