Baxter Black: Moustaches should come with a warning label

Moustaches have become de rigueur in certain lifestyle choices: mountain men, Arctic explorers, Fu Man Chu-ists, carnival acts such as the bearded lady and cowboy poets. As we know, if something becomes popular, the government soon tries to get involved.

Here’s a word about moustache safety and maintenance: HAPHAZARD! There are really no official rules, no regulations passed down by the Department of Sanitation or Landscaping or Aerodynamics. But I suppose one might encounter moustache restrictions for jobs such as wine tasting, orthodontry, or swallowing fire.

However, moustache freedom may soon be endangered. Already, well-meaning socialist potentates have passed intrusive laws in their kingdom decreeing no smoking, no soda pop, no Big Macs, no voting Republican and no spitting on the sidewalk laws. What if these little self-appointed kinglets discovered moustaches can be life-threatening?

Let’s consider the story of LeeRay, a good ol’ Nebraska farm boy. It was calving season and things were not going well. They had a lot of scouring calves and heifers not pairing up. LeeRay was the ground-man at the calving barn. He’s a big fellow, not fleet-of-foot, but strong and hard working. He was being helped by two cowboys who watched the “heavy bunch.”

One late afternoon the cowboys brought in a big Angus cow that, in spite of her calving difficulty, still was on the fight. The cowboys backed the trailer up to the loading pen and led their horses out. LeeRay walked in, opened the middle divider and quickly stepped back. Momma cow disembarked like a long-jumper in the Ungulate Olympics and put LeeRay over the fence.

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