Slim Randles'  Home Country

Systems to solve things

[May 31, 2008]  When, in the course of rural events, it becomes necessary to straighten out the world situation, invent a new gadget or provide for the common fishing good, there are two venues: coffee or the hunker.

It struck Dud out at the sales barn the other day. No coffee, therefore no choice. All the signs were there. He turned quiet and he started checking the weed margins for a grass blade.

In a hunker, two props are necessary: a stick and a blade of grass. Oh, sometimes straw is substituted, but it's kinda like trading your french fries for cottage cheese on the lunch special -- they'll do it, but it isn't the same.

Dud found a good stick, finger-thick, about a foot long. Cottonwood, maybe. Then he found a tall blade of orchard grass, broke it until it was hunker length, and stuck it in his mouth. Doc and I, having witnessed these events, began looking for our own grass blades, albeit reluctantly. Our knees aren't as young as Dud's.

That's when Dud went headlong into Phase Three. Grass ... check. Stick ... 10-four. Phase Three: the right location.

Dud began turning slowly, checking the ground beneath his feet, lining up with the azimuth in just the right way so as to maximize his powers, keeping the sun in the proper location to light his face while not causing his own eyes to squint. Slowly he turned, like a mare about to choose her foaling bed; then a silent string was pulled in Dud's mind, releasing the knees, and he dropped down into a proper country hunker.

Doc and I stuck our grass between our teeth and -- with occasional moans -- followed suit.

Dud silently brushed a clean slate of dirt in front of him and doodled on it.

"Been thinking," he said.

Doc and I nodded and checked the doodle to see if we could recognize anything about the design. Nope.

"I think," Dud said, "if we could just irrigate more, we'd get more rain."

[Text from file received from Slim Randles]

Your friends at Cabela's remind you to take a kid fishing with you this spring.