Slim Randles' Home Country

Abyssinia, Charity, Murgatroyd, Sassafras, Chlorophyllis and Fred

[August 25, 2014]  The speculating began Thursday again. You see, when it’s either too hot or too cold or too windy or the snow’s too deep or we just get tired of thinking about work, we speculate. It’s one of our favorite sports.

There’s speculating about why Sarah down at the Read Me Now book store has a section called “Love and other Fiction.” She’s never given us satisfaction on that score, and we even sent ol’ Doc over to ask her. He struck out.

Then there’s the speculating about Steve’s cabin. Well, not the cabin itself, as every cowboy needs a hole-up spot, but we still speculate about Steve’s turret. Not every cabin has a turret. Steve’s does. Sure we asked him. He just looked at us and said, “If you had a cabin, wouldn’t you build a turret, too?”

Well, yes, but that still ….

But this summer, our speculating settled on Mrs. Doc once more. We know from written-down historical fact that she must have a first name. Doesn’t everyone? But with Mrs. Doc, she just introduces herself to people as Mrs. Doc. Doc just calls her Honey, and he won’t tell us her name, either. He says it’s one of those old-fashioned women’s names and she doesn’t like it.

I mean, even the other ladies in the Ladies Literary League and Garden Society don’t know.

So the speculating goes on. Herb even walked up behind Mrs. Doc one day in the store and said, “Hi there, Ermaline.” Didn’t work. So the speculating ran to names like Abyssinia, Charity, Murgatroyd, Sassafras, Chlorophyllis and Fred. Bounced them off Doc. He just shook his head.

“Not even close,” he said.

Maybe we could bribe someone at the driver’s license department in the city … let’s speculate on that for a while.

[Text from file received from Slim Randles]

When you listen to the “Home Country Hour” podcast at www.slimrandles.com  please remember it’s not polite to ridicule old people.