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B.S.ing around the campfire

fedup2

Well-known member
Down with the flu bug this week so I wanted some light reading. Dug out some of my old Louis L’amour books. One story reminded me of some of the characters on this forum. Seems some of the hands were sitting around the fire at round-up time b.s.ing. I’ll bet their face’s were as straight as can be & they never blinked an eye!

“Knew a cowhand one time over in the brush country,” Lawton Bean said, starting to build a smoke. “He was a reliable man. You sent him out to do something, he done it, no matter what. Well, one time the boss told him to clean up all the stock south of the ridge, and when he came in that night he had a hundred and twenty-seven head of cattle, thirty sheep, three mountain goats, seven tom turkeys, a bobcat and two bears…. And what was more, he’d branded ever last one of them.”

“I don’t believe that part about the sheep,” Jule Simm said mildly. “Seems unlikely a man would run sheep with cows.”
 

fedup2

Well-known member
My father was a big fan of his so I have every book that he ever wrote, that I am aware of. I also have my fathers original collection of old hard cover Zane Grey’s, written many years ago. Although I also like Zane Grey, he was a little romantic for me. He spent a little to much time describing the flowers etc. Nothing wrong with it but…..to much!

I read all the Louis’s books years ago and have been going through them in hopes that I have forgotten some of the stories! That man could write about ants at a picnic and I wouldn’t put the book down until it was finished! :shock: :lol:
 

Angus Cattle Shower

Well-known member
fedup2 said:
My father was a big fan of his so I have every book that he ever wrote, that I am aware of. I also have my fathers original collection of old hard cover Zane Grey’s, written many years ago. Although I also like Zane Grey, he was a little romantic for me. He spent a little to much time describing the flowers etc. Nothing wrong with it but…..to much!

I read all the Louis’s books years ago and have been going through them in hopes that I have forgotten some of the stories! That man could write about ants at a picnic and I wouldn’t put the book down until it was finished! :shock: :lol:

I know what you mean!! :shock: :lol: :)
 

fedup2

Well-known member
Got any favorites to share?

When I was a kid, I was playing on the roof of the chicken coop. I fell off and landed on my head. For two weeks I walked around thinking I was a chicken! Dad was going to take me to the doctor, but mom wouldn’t let him cause she said we needed the eggs!

It was so windy today that it took 3 of us to close the barb wire gate!

:wink:
 

Hanta Yo

Well-known member
Good Cowboy, did what he was told :wink: I also enjoy Louis L'amour books. There was a thread sometime last year about good books to read...I'll post again look up Richmond P. Hobson, Jr. "Grass Beyond The Mountains", "Nothing Too Good For A Cowboy", The Rancher Takes A Wife" and I'll tell you what, they were COWBOYS!!!! Made me give up my whimpiness and get a little "tough". These books are true stories, unlike Louis L'amour, which is fiction.
 

Jinglebob

Well-known member
Hanta Yo said:
Good Cowboy, did what he was told :wink: I also enjoy Louis L'amour books. There was a thread sometime last year about good books to read...I'll post again look up Richmond P. Hobson, Jr. "Grass Beyond The Mountains", "Nothing Too Good For A Cowboy", The Rancher Takes A Wife" and I'll tell you what, they were COWBOYS!!!! Made me give up my whimpiness and get a little "tough". These books are true stories, unlike Louis L'amour, which is fiction.

They weren't just cowboys, they was frigid cowboys! :shock:
 

Angus Cattle Shower

Well-known member
fedup2 said:
Got any favorites to share?

When I was a kid, I was playing on the roof of the chicken coop. I fell off and landed on my head. For two weeks I walked around thinking I was a chicken! Dad was going to take me to the doctor, but mom wouldn’t let him cause she said we needed the eggs!

It was so windy today that it took 3 of us to close the barb wire gate!

:wink:

My Favourites are Comstock Lode, Flint, and Galloway.

Even if they are fiction, they are good books nonetheless.
 

sw

Well-known member
In all of my idle time the last few days with 3 hour layovers and 45 minute flights, I read "The Cowboy Way" by David McCumber. I thought it would be a yawner, but actually it was pretty good. The author has been a writer for a long time, got a job on the Galt ranch at White Sulphur Springs so he could write about ranching in a truthful manner. He did well with the truth, there are people in the book that I know and he describes them as they are, not fictional, not 9 feet tall and bullet proof, real. I enjoyed it. Now I also forced myself to read "Hey Cowgirl, Want A Ride?" by Baxter Black. Save your money, he needs to stick to short stories and poems, I got near the end and saved myself any further punishment and tried to give it away. Still got it, any takers?
 

Angus Cattle Shower

Well-known member
sw said:
I also forced myself to read "Hey Cowgirl, Want A Ride?" by Baxter Black. Save your money, he needs to stick to short stories and poems, I got near the end and saved myself any further punishment and tried to give it away. Still got it, any takers?

It works well for coasters, or to make paper planes out of. lol.
 

fedup2

Well-known member
Sorry I didn’t make myself more clear. I have some friends who are getting close to out b.s.ing me at the campfires. I was looking for new b.s. stories, not books. I remember the thread on the books and appreciated it. I recommended reading ‘Jordan’ about the life of Arthur J Jordan. Although based on facts, it read like a western novel.

Angus, you are correct. Although the characters and stories are fiction, the locations and everything about them is fact. He says that when he describes a desert, he has crossed that desert. When one of his characters drinks from a water hole, Louis himself has drank from that hole. He has traveled all over the world to visit the sites he uses in his stories and he describes them in his books from sight.
 

sw

Well-known member
fedup2,
I can give you all kinds of stories, if that is what you want, some of them are true, some of them aren't. I tend to tell them that are true, maybe stretched a bit at times, though I doubt it :oops: :oops: :wink:
 

Angus Cattle Shower

Well-known member
fedup2 said:
Sorry I didn’t make myself more clear. I have some friends who are getting close to out b.s.ing me at the campfires. I was looking for new b.s. stories, not books. I remember the thread on the books and appreciated it. I recommended reading ‘Jordan’ about the life of Arthur J Jordan. Although based on facts, it read like a western novel.

Angus, you are correct. Although the characters and stories are fiction, the locations and everything about them is fact. He says that when he describes a desert, he has crossed that desert. When one of his characters drinks from a water hole, Louis himself has drank from that hole. He has traveled all over the world to visit the sites he uses in his stories and he describes them in his books from sight.

Make it up- but make the stories better as time goes by-at the fishing trips I go on with Dad, I have heard the stories hundreds of times, and if you twist them a little, everyone will sit and listen. lol

As far as I am correct, Aint I always? lol. J/j. lol
 

fedup2

Well-known member
I’d love to hear them sw! I’m just sitting here cleaning up my shotguns for mosquito season. We’ve got some pretty good sized ones here. Last year I watched two of them eat a horse, then they pitched the shoes to see which one got the saddle! :shock:

Like yours, mine might be stretched just a tiny bit! :D
 

Silver

Well-known member
Jinglebob said:
Hanta Yo said:
Good Cowboy, did what he was told :wink: I also enjoy Louis L'amour books. There was a thread sometime last year about good books to read...I'll post again look up Richmond P. Hobson, Jr. "Grass Beyond The Mountains", "Nothing Too Good For A Cowboy", The Rancher Takes A Wife" and I'll tell you what, they were COWBOYS!!!! Made me give up my whimpiness and get a little "tough". These books are true stories, unlike Louis L'amour, which is fiction.

They weren't just cowboys, they was frigid cowboys! :shock:

They wuz way down south were they didn't hafta be that tuff......
 

Maple Leaf Angus

Well-known member
fedup2 said:
I’d love to hear them sw! I’m just sitting here cleaning up my shotguns for mosquito season. We’ve got some pretty good sized ones here. Last year I watched two of them eat a horse, then they pitched the shoes to see which one got the saddle! :shock:

Like yours, mine might be stretched just a tiny bit! :D


Sounds like your skeeters are almost as big as ours. Was out camping one time and they got so bad at night when I was trying to sleep that I crawled under a big cast iron kettle for protection from them.

Well dad-gummit if one didn't bore a hole right through the kettle and try to skewer me for a sip of my blood.

I thought I'll fix you, you sucker, and took a rock and clinched it's ole needle over on the inside of the kettle so it couldn't pull it back out.

Next thing you know, it takes off and takes my big cast iron kettle wif it. There I was, out in the open, and all those thirsty skeeters lining up to takes turns at tapping my veins.

Made for a long night, but I eventually shot enough of them to build a bit of a wall around and over me and I did manage to get a bit of shuteye.
 

fedup2

Well-known member
Must have been a fearful evening MLA!
I done pondered your situation a spell & I figure if a man was to wait until they opened their mouths wide open, then you drew back your fist & rammed it down their mouths as far as you could reach, grabbed them by the inside of their poop chute, turned them inside out, they’d be facing off the other direction & couldn‘t bite ya! Might save you a kettle or two! :wink:
 

Been There

Well-known member
I read the first book Baxter wrote, can't remember the title, and thought the same about it. He should stick to his columns and poetry.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
I don't know if any of you know of Dean Meyer's book, but it is full of good short stories and all of them hilarous!!!

It is called "Hat Tips" probably because that is the name of his newspaper columns.

My favorite is "Black Hills Bike Rally". I will attempt to retype it here.
Now bear in mind, Dean Meyer is a rancher, a stock contractor, a rodeo announcer and a horse trader. And not necessarily in that order.

Hello.

It's over. It's all over. And I missed it. the Black Hills Bike Rally.

My motorcycle mama and I had looked foreward to attending again this year. You remember when we went last year and Shirley was the big hit down there? We were the only couple that wore welding helments and batwing chaps.

Actually I think 'mama' wore Carhartts last year.

This year was going to be our last year anyway. Our Honda Super 90 is getting pretty old. And as I have mentioned on more than one occasion, Motorcycle Mama and I are a pretty healthy couple.
Last Thursday we srapped our bedrolls on the back of the 90 and took
off for Sturgis. Shirley had on her pink sweats and I was wearing my welding goggles. I had new Handy Andy gloves. Put one of those fake tatoos on my arm. Motorcycle guys like tatoos.
Well, as I started to tell you, the Super 90 is getting old. We had to push it up the hill out of the yard. Then I got it rolling a little and told Shirley to jump on. She trotted alongside and made a mighty leap.She is quite an athlete, you know. Champion ping pong player at Killdeer High School 30 years ago. Well, anyway, she made it on.
We could only get the hog (that's what us biker guys call our motorcycles) up to about 28 mph. But we were bucking about a 6 mph
wind. When we got to the top of the breaks, I told Mama to hang on. I was going to put that hog in Georgia overdrive (that's what us truckers call neutral).
When we started off that hill, that hog began picking up speed. I touched on the brake pedal, but it had kind of froze up with rust and I couldn't wiggle it. That 90 was picking up more speed and starting to shimmy just a little. The grasshoppers were starting to sting a little when they hit my face.
Shirley screamed in my ear to slow down. Like that was an original idea. Well, we must have been getting up to 50 or 60 by now. That Super 90 wasn't designed for these high speeds.
The mirror started vibrating and shook off. Well, it wasn't actually a mirror. A cow had scratched her butt on it and the mirror was gone. It was just a mirror holder. I had one of those little horns with that kind of rubber deal on the end, and it gave one last, futile bleat, as it juggled loose and the hind tire went over it.
I knew we were about to become airborne and I turned to tell Shirley to hang on tight. She thought I said to lean to the right. When she leaned to the right, I had to lean hard to the left to keep the hog on the highway. We must have been up to 65.
I thought I could gently apply the front brake. That's the one on the handlebar. I squeezed gently. Didn't matter. The cable was broke. We were going to have to ride her out.
Well, we only had one more curve to manuever through and we would have a straight shot for the bridge. I handled that hog like a champion and we shot around the curve.
The land kind of flattens out after that last curve and I could see we had the 90 under control.Well, Shirley's pink sweats got to flapping in the breeze a little and kind of got caught in the chain. Actually, it did help to slow the bike a lot, but it kind of tore her pink sweats off. No, not all of them, just one leg. Then it kind of wrapped around stuff and stopped the bike pretty good.
You know, it's funny how things can upset a woman. And I've treated her like a queen all these years. She didn't hardly say a word. Just pushed my Super 90 over the bridge and into the river. SPLASH! No bike rally! No Black Hills! No keg party at the Trout Haven.
But wait. I just read about the Horse Fest in Taylor. I think we can break a team and build a wagon. I mean, Shirley really likes horses. Anybody got a harness I can borrow?
 
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