What can we reason but from what we know? -Alexander Pope
What can we reason but from what we know? -Alexander Pope
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If I could find my “Under The Wire” column written exactly one year ago, it is a pretty sure thing there was a reference to our part of the country being very dry. We were ankle deep in dust with poor to no grass and a rapidly shrinking hay stack. Adding insult to injury, hot dry winds howled nearly every day. Everyone who prayed, almost always included a request for rain. One year ago there was an explanation when something that should have happened, didn’t. “Due to Covid," kept tractor...
You can take the boy out of the country but ... you can’t teach him how to drive in the big city. It seemed like a simple task. All I had to do was attend a meeting in lower downtown Denver. LoDo, they call the area. Before this project was over, I’d re-named it. Over the phone the directions seemed easy enough. I-25 south to Speer, Speer to 15th, left on 15th, etc., etc. It couldn’t be any harder than directions in our town. You know, left at the grain elevator, go down the street to where the...
Things have a wonderful way of working out sometimes. Call it fate, predestination or just plain luck. There are times if you sat down and wrote out the best possible outcome for a situation, you never could dream up what actually happens. Several years ago, Sue decided she wanted a cat. This surprised me because we already had about 20 hanging around the barns, haystacks and fields around our house. The problem was, she said, they are all wild and don’t come up around the house. She wanted o...
Like most of you, over the years I have worked at a variety of jobs. At an early age I worked as a carpenter’s clean up boy, moved up (or down) to irrigating for a farmer, then found what I thought was my true calling as a ranch hand/ cowboy. An odd twist of that job landed me a job at a livestock auction. I was 14 years old and totally hooked by the excitement of the sale barn business. It became my passion. My career started on the very lowest end of the business, sorting, feeding, chopping ic...
Today’s column is written for male readers only. Sorry ladies. Today you’ll just have to flip the pages to the classifieds or somewhere else. The subject matter I intend to deal with in the next few paragraphs is just ... well, let’s say, it’s too sensitive to us guys for you to see. OK, men, now that the women are all gone, I’ll explain the secrecy. It’s not that females wouldn’t have understood. In fact, it’s the opposite. They would probably understand. Even worse, they would agree with me....
For years I have heard people say “there is no such thing as a dumb question.” As with most sage comments as this, someone had to be the first to say it. A little time spent on good old “Google” in search of the famous philosopher yielded a surprise. No one seems to know the answer. A few guesses include Einstein, Carl Sagan, Socrates and Ann Landers. I have a theory why no one has stepped up to claim credit for the line. There are, in fact, hundreds if not thousands of dumb questions floating a...
It was 3:30 on a Wednesday afternoon when the phone rang. It actually was the third time if had rang in the past 15 minutes. The first one was from the IRS informing me they wanted me to know they would be bringing charges against me soon unless I called and gave them the information they needed to dismiss my case, including address and, of course, social security number. Not so respectfully, I declined. The second was from my Congressman asking me how he was doing in Washington. Glad my Mother...
In a previous “Under The Wire” you may have read about an encounter between my right hand and a sharp piece of metal barn siding. The contest was refereed by a very competent hand surgeon who declared the contest a win for the sheet of metal, then put me on the injured reserve list for at least six months. The bad news was my right hand for weeks sported a big, bulky brace. More bad news. I’m right handed. Make that, “I used to be right handed.” The next few months, just call me “Lefty....
I have a lot of old friends. Now, that sentence can be taken one of two ways. It either means I have known a lot of my friends a long time or a lot of my friends are old. Guess it’s a mix of the two. Most, however have one thing in common. They were or still are, cowboys. Fact is, if they weren’t they never made my list of permanent pals. Please understand, I’m not prejudiced. I just can’t hold a very long conversation with a dentist, car mechanic or nuclear physicist. Heck, I couldn’t even spel...
Did you ever get the feeling you’ve wasted your life? Maybe you should have gone into another line of work? Everyone else seems to have done better with their life than you? No? Well, me neither. Most of the time. Normally I’m pretty content with my life. I get to talk to about three million people on the radio every week day morning and write these columns. My wife and I have put together a nice little ranch with a decent house, plenty of grass and some good cows and horses to look at. Truth is...
If I have ever written a classic column, it would be this one. No probably 30 or more years later, I want to share it with you all again. I felt really guilty, standing there watching an old friend go up in smoke. Disloyal, a traitor. All described my emotions as the flames danced and consumed. It had started a few weeks after Christmas last year. It was hard to imagine such a happy occasion resulting in such sadness now. Maybe it’s a law of physics or an unwritten axiom, I’m just not sure, but...
“The pen is mightier than the sword.” A guy named Edward Bulwer-Lytton said back in 1839. One hundred and seventy-four years later, I have found a way to rewrite his thought to describe my own experience. “The pen might get you chased by someone with a sword.” Ed’s quote was one of many things that led him to be remembered 17 decades later. My hopes are that the world will quickly forget a couple of slips of my pen that came close to the sword chasing variety. Months ago Sue and I visited I...
She was willing and available. She was my best friend’s wife, but I needed her. Heck, at that point, I needed anybody! We were going to pour cement for a new pasture stock tank and help wasn’t exactly lining up at my door. (Well what did you think I was talking about, anyway?) My friend was absolutely the best help a person could have. But even with his talents and strong back this was going to be a challenge. When his wife offered to help, I was skeptical. Sue, my wife, was going to help. She...
Every cowman who has ever calved out a bunch of cows knows the stages an old mama cow goes through leading up to the big day. Signs begin early with “looking calvy” to “springing up," “making a bag.” The list and descriptions goes on and on. Since I tend to give cows credit for being smarter than most humans there is no doubt in my mind that they have developed a list of the things us cowboys do as calving rolls around, too. I admit to being more than a little surprised, after thinking...
There is an old saying, “You can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” Well, a recent experience I just barely lived through has proven those words to be very, very wrong! A few days ago Sue and I made the sad journey from Brush to extreme Southeastern Kansas to help her siblings clean out the home of their recently departed father. She had made reservations at a nearby hotel for our several-day stay. The first night at our home away from home, Sue asked...
I hardly ever watch baseball on TV but like millions of people around the world I plan to watch the World Series whenever it rolls around. I hardly know enough about the games to comment on them. They aren’t what entertains me most of the time. I am fascinated by the endless barrage of statistics shown on the screen during the game. “Most home runs hit with a man on third, number of times a player struck out on a Tuesday road game, etc., etc.” The numbers on the screen always seemed appropriate...
“Hello. You have reached the offices of Never There Dot Com. If you wish to order our service, once we decide what it will be, push one. If you want to know the status of a previous order press two. If you wish to register a complaint push 96307214883246917772. If you would like to speak to an operator, stay on the line. As soon as we hire one, she will answer the calls in the order they have been received. You are caller 2,943. Thank you for calling Never There Dot Com. Your business is very i...
Some folks have observed I write about cowboy type people and places. Out of respect for those whom that might offend, today I’m writing about an honest-to-goodness sailor and his adventures with ... a cowboy. Sorry, but that’s as close to not talking cowboy as I can get! Just as the world has cowboys and “wannabes,” the sailing world has both types, too. In the world of the high seas, this particular sailor’s title is questioned by no one. You see, this man, accompanied by his wife, three kid...
My vet mentioned recently that I had never written about him. That does put him in a rather exclusive group. Over the years when I have needed a break from reporting on my own embarrassing moments, I mixed in a few from folks around me. Some were not too happy about it, either. When he said that to me, there seemed to be no regret in his voice. In fact, I got the impression his observation was part of the answer to my question whether he could stop by to look at a four-legged patient needing...
A few years ago, a friend of mine retired and moved to town. He had spent his entire life to that point on a ranch. I was curious how he would handle the change in life style. After several months had passed, I asked him how it was going. “The biggest change in my life,” he responded. “Now when I get up in the morning I don’t care what the weather is going to do that day.” I’m a long way from retirement, but his answer did make me think how things can be so important to you one day and not mea...
I often say cows and horses are some of the best people I know. They’re smart and nearly always make sense. As a result, I like spending time around them some than most folks I bump into. It’s sort of a chicken and egg situation with me. I’m not sure if I spend so much time with animals because I like them or if I like bovines and equines because I’ve spent so much of my life around them. Truth of the matter is I get a little confused thinking about it. Basic to my affinity for cattle and hor...
“Thar’s gold in them thar hills!” I’m not sure who this quote should be credited to, but he sure knew his geography. In the old days, that meant you could apply shovel to hillside, add a liberal amount of sweat and you just might hit pay dirt. Today, I was to find, modern-day “prospectors” have found another, less grueling way to find the gold. Recently my family and I journeyed to the mountains of Colorado. It was partly work, visiting a few business associates and partly fun with a rodeo or...
I’ve noticed some columnists display a cartoon-like caricature of themselves at the top of their work. They jump right off the page at you, big head, little body with a goofy cartoon smile to greet you. What’s with that, anyway? First, let me offer my apologies to any fellow columnist for whom the picture is not a cartoon but what he or she really looks like. These folks have enough problems already, without me making fun of them. I can only imagine what it must be like to wear a size 9 shi...
OK, so what do you do when you can’t write about anything you think is funny because it might offend someone? It’s particularly hard to do if your goal is to entertain, not offend anyone. I must admit I haven’t been particularly fond of 2020. Oh, we had a great calf crop, just barely enough moisture to keep us in grass until fall and hit a pretty good market with our calves. That part of this past year was pretty good. The trouble is, those 46 words you just read is about all the good thing...
“Why is it there never is enough time to do it right but always time to do it over?” As a small boy my mother began drilling that thought into my brain. As do most children, I listened to the words, gave an understanding nod of my head along with a face that showed my appreciation for her imparting such valuable wisdom upon me, then immediately forgot the entire thing. This process continues to the present. Every time I rush through a project of any kind, only to watch it eventually return to...
