Mommas, don’t let your babies...

...grow up to be cowboys... They’ll never stay home and they’re always alone... even with someone they love.  Country music the way country music should be, truth set to a tune you can whistle, how could it not be a hit?  Of course it was, still is, probably always will be.  That’s pretty much what makes country music country, a truth that ain’t gonna change so you might just as well sing along and get used to livin’ with it.

Am I a cowboy?  Not really, not anymore.  Was at one time for a time, sort of.  But not so much anymore.  I’m not, but she is.  It’s soul deep in her, a barrel racer with five saddles and thirteen belt buckles and a horse she probably loves more than the last three boys she took to her bed.  She’s cowboy, the song fits her perfectly.  Don’t give me any damn libber crap about gender either, she... is a cowboy in all the ways that matter and them that love her just have to understand.  And I do, I’ve still got enough genuine cowboy in my soul to understand.  Via con dios sweetheart.

Keeping company with her was good for me.  Like I said, for a time I was cowboy, it’s my heritage: a daddy and two uncles who rode saddle bronc and roped, one crazy uncle who rode bulls, a family that at one time had give or take five thousand head of cattle on open range in southern Idaho.  She reminded me of where I come from, the things I learned there and then that built the foundations of who I am now.  Some of ‘em had been getting a little dim with the years, seeing them afresh was good for me.  Don’t think she meant to, doubt she knew she was doing it, but she brought those days back to me, let me look at what could have, would have, been my life turn north instead of south fifty years ago.  But that’s just what a good woman does for you, bottom line... her being her shows clear the you ya’ really are... good women do share a lot with good music...  truth that don’t change, you know?  Good women, real women, the kind who might only look at you once a day and you know what’s all wrong will be alright... but that ain’t Waylon, that’s Neil and a different song entirely, except... for some reason Kentucky is on my mind, has been on my mind and she put it there.  Kentucky... what do I know about Kentucky?  Not a damn thing. 

Smack... duh.

Oh gentle reader, contemplate if you will the state and fate  of the world, so very changed.... a sixteen year old punk with a smart phone really does know everything, his sacrifices to the Gods of Google give him that, and that in the end does nothing more than illuminate the lack of wisdom that only the years and the tears can truly impart.  Wisdom... there's no app for that.

A Lass and Two Mechanics –OR- It’s Just Water Dear...

To begin with let me say right up front this story is true, and most likely it’s not the first time you’ve heard something similar.  But like all stories there’s more than one side, and the point of this post isn’t the first side, nor even the second, but actually the third side of the story I’d like to bring to focus: the third side that’s actually responsible for the story in the first place even though to seldom mentioned. 

Anyway, the story goes like this.  Once upon a not very long time ago a comely young woman was having trouble with her automobile, it was overheating, not a happy machine at all.  Aghast at the price a local shop was asking to engage with the problem she took a gamble on a friends’ advice and allowed a retired industrial mechanic to take a look.  He (correctly) diagnosed and changed out a defective thermostat.  Not a big job, not at all, a common inexpensive part and most generally no more than an hours work even just goofing around. Coolant flow restored her ride went back to being a happy machine.  The veteran checked a couple of more things, just to be certain, and satisfied her car would remain a happy machine sent them on their way.  He took lunch money and a thank you as his reward, it wasn’t much of a job.  Story told?  Not quite.