Hoot and the Boys

Words … Just Words (Please)

BS

Hoot and the Boys

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

             After approving a bill that didn’t exist last week much less debated, Foghorn, Shades and their crew of tepid constitutionalists in the Senate came in under the wire to produce a continuing resolution (CR) to fund this nation. When it was passed to the House team of oath breakers, the (newest) Breck Girl pounded his gavel with approval and acted like he was an American rock star. His action cast doubt on the band of bad cognomens that Franklin argued should be the true chamber of moral judgment in the American experiment. Together, they assured our nation will build debt on the basis of $.80 for every $1.00 of tax collected.

What geniuses they are to defile the ever diminishing trust they have with their subjects out here in the hinterland. Such leadership should make sticking your finger down your throat a preferred method of self amusement.

Hoot and the Boys

Speaking of hinterland, the American West has produced some of the most interesting monikers in history. They don’t necessarily equate to words of onomatopoeia like Hoot as is Hoot Gibson, but those entries certainly can be filed within their membership. Hoot wasn’t born Hoot, but he filled the role when some buddies started calling him Hoot Owl apparently from his hoot and holler vocal inflections. Hoot Owl became Hoot and Hoot went on to not only be a champion rodeo cowboy, but a pioneer cowboy film actor, a tanker in World War I, a screen director, and a producer.

Without a doubt, Hoot could arguably be the best cowboy name in history, but there were others that could compete.

Dink comes to mind.

Little Dink Chappell was the only official Dink I ever knew personally, but the name fit him to a T. He was a cowboy deluxe and his stature was diminutive even if his hats weren’t. I don’t know that Dink was a rodeo hand, but his era necessarily created bronc riders by the legions because of the horses they had to ride. I can only surmise his stature when he rode one of those outlaws to a standstill. Dink became a man of much greater respect when he finally stepped down with that big sun bonnet still firmly in place.

Tex Goodwin was from, you guessed it, Nevada.

Tex wasn’t diminutive by any stretch because his feet had to be size 18s if they weren’t bigger. He was a strapping fellow. After I got to know him, I asked him why his name was Tex if he was from Nevada.  He responded that “Tex just sounded better than Nev”.

Sound logic can’t be argued.

Tootles was the father of Bobo, and both have threads back to our ranching operation by chain of ownership. Bobo and I started to school together and he tried to teach me how to play poker between our kindergarten and first grade years. That lasted until I had the better hand and Bobo threw his cards in my face, upended the card table, and taught me how poker players in the Wild West got out of paying their bets.

Buster was as fiery or more so.

He was a left handed Peter Shelley descendent who grew up in straight up and down rocks. I can remember his high pitched voice that supposedly got higher the more excited he got. He and his siblings were working cattle in the mountains, by themselves, before they reached double digit birth dates.

Aunt Izzy was a four feet 10 inch bundle of lightning.

I have a pair of her shop made cowboy boots sitting in the corner of my office that have never fit our daughters or granddaughters past the age of seven! They have to be size 3s. Her A.D. Seitzler saddle sits out in the tack room with blood stains still marking the left seat jockey. She was a good gal. She died in a car accident hitting the Blacksmith Canyon bridge embankment with the speedometer stuck on her age, 87. She was coming home from California after visiting a boy friend. That is the way she lived her life.

And, of course, there was a Slim with one Dinker still extant. There were two Jiggs. There was Pancho, another Peter Shelley descendent (and cousin of Buster who could just as easily become Lefty, hence a Pancho/ Lefty duo could have arisen). Bucky was in the mix. Two LaFayettes were altered to “Fate” and “Fayette”.

Lolo Ortega was the brother of Cabbage. Cabbage was the Mexican brother of the McCauley brothers who thought more of him than they did each other!

Then, there was Skeeter, Stretch, Zoomy, Butch, Slats, Ves, Peso, Pinky, Spike, Smiley, and Loco Pete. Off the slope and down the river there arose Whip, Stirrup, another Skeeter, Swifty, Rowell, Quirt, Dally and Girls (singular).

Yes, cowboys and cowboy names that would likely not make the list of current favored baby names, but characters of our West. Good guys, fallible men and women, but Americans who knew what it took to make a hand. Among all their human tendencies they had something in common. Not one of them was able to run their lives by spending $.80 more than every dollar they earned.

BS

Where Cowboy ingenuity created monikers, bureaucrats created the atrocity of acronyms.

The reasons are various, and it isn’t just Foghorn, Shades, and the (new) Breck Girl queering the deal. Agencies are guilty of the written assault. A clear example of why we have become so cynical can be found in the USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) which is trying to hustle illegal immigrants onto the voter rolls in order to secure a continuing, communist regime.

Another example is the work of feral government agents at the UNCHSUD (Habitat III) orgy in Quito. Just reading through the synopsis of that mess makes putting salt or even Cholula on your finger when you stick it down your throat yet more appealing.

In just four pages of mumbo jumbo, the interested citizen can learn about the noted Habitat III as well as WUP (World Urban Populations). Both are well represented in the NUA (New Urban Agenda). The NUA will address the 2030 ASD (Agenda for Sustainable Development) as well as the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and the AAAA (Addis Ababa Action Agenda)!

Everybody should be cognizant that SAMOA (Small Island Developing States Accelerated Modalities of Action) betrays the strict application of acronyms form, but the scribers of all the good work must have some latitude to have a bit of fun amid all the hard work because there is so much yet to accomplish.

Yes, they will have to perform all the perfunctory duties of the upcoming RDED (Rio Declaration on Environment and Development), WSSD (the World Summit of Sustainable Development), and ICPDPA (International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action).

Apparently, it remains chic to spell program as programme in the best of British form, but addressing EDJC (Ensuring Decent Job Creation) and PSC (Promoting Sustainable Consumption) becomes too painful even for the faithful PCAGRA (People Centered, Age-and Gender-Responsive Aids).

Why? Because IPLC (Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities), SISD (Slum and Informal Settlement Dwellers), and HPWSFFR (Homeless People, Workers, Smallholder Farmers and Fishers, and Refugees) all deserve it. They must also depend heavily on American taxpayers to pay their fair share of the proceeds to right all the wrongs that continue to be wrought on the RIDP (Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons) and MRMS (Migrants, Regardless of Migration Status).

Hoot, are you still out there? Are you getting any of this?

No, Buster, you can’t suggest this is just BS because you’d have to explain it in DNR (Different National Realities)! It wouldn’t fit the SNTVSs (Specific Needs of Those in Vulnerable Situations).

No, Aunt Izzy, you can’t meet the chairman. He’s really a CD (Cross Dresser) and, no, I am not going to explain that.

Ves, would you and Smiley wipe those smiles off your faces back there against the steam radiators? And, who just peed on one of them anyway? Was that you again, Dinker?

Ah, come on you can’t blame, Loco Pete! He’s a protected class being a candidate for representing PAs (Persons of Disabilities). He’s not even here. He went to school at Cliff where such things were more acceptable.

Hey, knock it off! You’ve gotta’ understand these people are promoted as brilliant. Alright, alright, Pancho you can help Buster (AKA Lefty) explain what BS (Bull S**t) is.

Come on up here and have at it …. this ought’a be good.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Are we living in a parallel universe? The BS that is streaming out of CLs (Centers of Leadership) has become FTs (Fairy Tales) that appear to be couched in seriousness, but, for the record, Smiley can’t wipe the smile off his face … he was made that way.”

I really enjoyed the cowboy nicks folks, but the rest is JABOS to me.  And if you don't like that you can just SIUPYA you SPOS. Say, this could get to be fun, but hope the rest will take it in a different direction than the one my evil mind is on.