Lee Pitts: Snaffle Bit Futility

 

As you all know, I own the perfect cowhorse. He can stop on a dime, spin like a top, and has got an eye like an eagle. The only reason that my cowhorse hasn’t won the cutting horse championship is because my cow-horse is a bull.

“Bud” is a big red bull with a strong herding instinct. He is also a male chauvinist pig. You see, Bud has his own band of cows and he is constantly riding herd over them, holding them all where he can keep an eye on them. I suspect he doesn’t want them messing around with his brother, Spud. If a cow tries to break away from Bud’s group he spins on his heels and herds her back where he wants her. It is really amusing to watch. Occasionally there will be a female that refuses to be controlled by any male. Some of you guys probably know how that is. But generally, Bud keeps a pretty tight rein on his band.

The problem is that Gentleman is no match for Bud. When I rode Gentleman out to bring in the cows Bud thought Gentleman had designs on HIS cows and came out to meet us. Bud is an imposing figure with his snarling face and long horns and he got eyeball to eyeball with Gentleman. My trusty steed gave Bud his best moves but the old bull just faked to the right, feigned to the left and spun around so fast he was throwing gravel. Gentleman just stood there with his legs and his eyes crossed. Bud, the cow-horse, put on a cutting clinic for Gentleman and I that day. After Bud had Gentleman tied up in knots, he gored him for good measure and then he gathered up his cows and headed for the farthest corner of the ranch. That is why when we worked our calves two months later; Gentleman and I decided just to wait for Bud to bring his personal herd into the corral on his schedule.

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Lee Pitts: Cowboy Church

 The last auction market in our county shut down a few years ago and it was like having our collective heart ripped out. Just this year the auction market that handled the most cattle of any sale barn in California for decades closed its doors too. When we bought a livestock newspaper that served the livestock auction industry 35 years ago there were some 1,500 auction markets in America. Today it’s half that.

The auction market was the heart and soul of the cattle business in my area. I hope I’m not being sacrilegious when I say it was like a church. Once a week we’d gather to see our friends who sat in the exact same seats they always sat in. If one of those seats was unoccupied we’d all ask, Is Jim okay? is Dick sick, or, where’s G.B.? I’ve been in some sale barns that go so far as to paint the buyer’s name on the back of the seat and no one else ever had the nerve to sit there.

Now without an auction barn we have no place to visit, to catch up on the gossip or to see for ourselves how much our cattle are worth and why some are worth more than others. We’d eat at the coffee shop and solve all the world’s ills. Our county cattlemen’s group met there once month and many of us attended educational seminars before a sale to learn how, where and with what to properly vaccinate our animals with. There was an annual bull sale where you could buy better bulls to improve your herd and a replacement female sale that had a wide reputation for selling quality females. We knew that we always had a place to sell an old cow or two, and if we had some extra grass, buy a few stockers. And we could pick up a check the same day we sold them!

It’s ads from auction barns that kept many livestock newspapers afloat and the money that ranchers spend in town one day a week is important to barber shops, the feed mill, the local farm supply, western wear shop and, if the check for the animals you sold was a big one, fancy restaurants.

If the sale barn was a church it’s religion was price discovery. The big debate going on in the cattle business right now is how to force the packer to competitively bid on our fat cattle as the bulk of fat cattle these days are sold in secret marketing agreements with captive feedlots where we never know the price. No wonder the packers are making upwards of a thousand bucks per head for owning a beast for one week. The only reason the beef industry hasn’t gone down the same road as the pork and poultry producers is because we still have competitive bidding at auction markets and their offshoots, video livestock sales. The chicken pluckers never had auctions and when the pork producers lost theirs they also lost 90% of their producers.

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Lee Pitts: It’s Genetic

 

I’ve researched why people drive the brand of pickup they do and I’ve reached the conclusion that it’s genetic. If both your father and your mother drove Fords you will too. This is called “being homozygous” for the Ford gene. If both your parents drove a Chevy or a GMC so will you. If one parent drove a Chevy and the other a Ford you probably drive a RAM. Having two parents with different truck genes means you are “heterozygous” or “trans”, which has nothing to do with the transmission. If somehow you drive a Toyota pickup yet both parents were homozygous for the Chevy gene, this is called a “mutation” or “mutant”. No offense.

I’ve loved trucks all my life. My old man was a long haul trucker and he never owned anything but a Kenworth, or KW as they’re known in the trade. If I were a trucker I’d drive a KW too because that’s what I learned to drive in. But I gotta admit I’ve seen a lot of Peterbilts and Mack trucks that made my heart go pitter-patter.

I also love fire trucks because both my grandpa and my great-grandpa were Fire Chiefs for decades on our volunteer fire department. I went with grandpa once to a trade show where he was looking to buy a new fire truck for our town. We looked at Peterbilts, Macks, Sutphens and Seagraves but it was the American LaFrance that grandpa and I settled on. (It had nothing to do with France. LaFrance was the last name of the founder.) I still collect fire truck ephemera and one of my unattained goals in life was to either have a six horse hitch of Clydesdales pulling a Concord stage, or an old fire truck I could drive in local parades and blare the siren. Both, no doubt, would stampede the Paso Fino riding group and terrorize the piccolo players in the band.

Today’s pickups are fabulous but my all time favorite is the 1952 Chevy. Preferably blue with baby moon hubcaps. It’s a step-side truck which made it easier to get in and out of the bed. This is a big deal for old geezers like me who need either a ladder or a forklift to get in the bed of today’s trucks...

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Lee Pitts: Head Over Heels

 

While your average American lives by a rule book that wouldn’t fit on 28 supercomputers, the cowboy rule book fits in one back pocket. Ride for the brand. Never draw to an inside straight. Always drink upstream from the herd. Never lick a steak knife. Always get on a horse on soft ground. Never ride a bull drunk. Don’t rope something that you don’t intend to brand, doctor or eat. And always wear your spurs with the buckle on the inside.

I know some cowboys will take exception to that last rule but I feel qualified to discuss the matter because I’ve been a bit, spur and spur leather collector since I was a little boy. I have over 250 single spur leathers alone. Now you might ask, “What good is one spur leather?” I could give the old smart-aleck answer and say that if one side of the horse goes the other side will soon follow, but the truth is I collected them so I could copy the styles and tooling patterns and replicate them.

Basically there are three styles of spurs: the “Texas style” which is very much like Texans: bold, strong, very practical, often with swinging buttons and not much gaudy ornamentation. On the other end of the spectrum is the “Californio vaquero style“ that is very flashy with lots of silver and beautiful engraving. Lastly, there’s the “Plains style” which is a crossbred of the Texas and vaquero styles.

In both the Californio and Plain’s traditions the spur leathers often featured an engraved concho and beautiful tooling. You don’t pay for silver conchos and beautiful leathers and then hide them on the inside of your leg so that all your showing is a two dollar buckle. In every pair of spurs I have that came from as far back as the 1800s on those that still have their original leathers the spurs buckle on the inside. IN EVERY CASE! If you need further proof look at old photos of vaqueros and you’ll see great big conchos on the outside of their espuela grandes.

I think it was the great cowboy historian Andy Adams who said, “Any cowboy riding a stud horse who buckled his spurs on the outside would have been shot at early sunrise.”

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Lee Pitts: Trapped

Because I’m one of the great cow trappers in western folklore, I am often asked to relate my harrowing experiences as a student of the art. Cow trapping, as you may know, is very much a lost art amongst today’s macho cowboys. That is because when a few wild strays are left behind on a modern day round-up a crew of cowboys usually goes out and either ropes them or shoots them. I, on the other hand, trap them. There are several reasons why I prefer this method. Number one, I can’t rope, number two, I can’t shoot, and number three my horse, Gentleman, is too slow.

Perhaps my proudest moment as a cow trapper occurred recently when I accidentally left behind two cows and one baby calf on a recent gather. One attempt at collecting them later on horseback convinced me it was time to strap on my Daniel Boone cap and trap the runaway beasts. Every time I approached the trio with Gentleman they went on military maneuvers, divide and conquer.

The first prerequisite in being a good cow trapper is to be able to think like a cow. This is no problem for me. As I informed my wife, “If we just park the feed truck in the corral they will see it and come running into the corral hoping to be fed and then you can just shut the gate on them.” All through the day my wife waited patiently as the confident cows stood on the hill laughing at her. “Some cows are trap smart,” I told my doubtful wife as we plotted our next strategy.

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Lee Pitts: One Good Year

 

It was a harbinger of things to come that my wife and I started our beef herd in 1974 which was one of the worst years in the modern history of the cow business. Thanks to two seven year drouths, a year where we had a 74% breed up thanks to a neighbor’s Trichomoniases education program (he taught us all about Trich), and another year in which we decided to feed our calves and sell them to a packer, allowing us to treble our losses, I think all together we’ve had exactly one good year in the cow/calf business. And when I say it was a “good year” I mean that we maybe had a 5% return on our investment and got paid about $1.25 per hour for our hard labor.

Because my wife and I never got trapped into being prosperous we didn’t know how to act when we were finally able to open a savings account. When we had to pay income tax on our cattle operation for the first time I explained to the wife, “You do know that we’re going to have to conceal our good fortune? We don’t want our landlord thinking that we’ve become members of the leisure class or he’ll raise our already outrageous rent.”

“Does that mean we have to keep being suboptimal spenders,” asked my wife.

“I’m afraid so. We can’t all of a sudden start going out to expensive dinners and tip 5%.”

“Not even Taco Bell once in awhile?” she pleaded.

“Only if you’re careful about it. I know how much you like nachos but don’t splurge and buy that huge nacho pack they’re advertising on TV or friends and neighbors might see you and get the idea you’re acting uppity. You can’t change your spending habits at the grocery store either. You now how checkers talk. If all of a sudden they see you buying lobster and filet mignons and Knotts Berry Farm jellies and jams instead of the no-name brand they might get the idea this cow business is a great way to get rich. And we don’t need any more competition.”

“You don’t have to tell me how grocery checkers spread rumors. I was one for 30 years, remember? If I hadn’t worked in the grocery store you couldn’t have played cowboy all this time.”

“I know, all I’m saying is it’s imperative that we not change our standard of living. Of course, we’ll continue to serve hamburgers from cancer-eyed cows and potato chips at our branding, we’ll still grow our own vegetables and we can’t hire a housekeeper or gardener for the first time in the 47 years we’ve been married. We can’t start to wear fake rolexes or costume jewelry, we’ll continue to straighten and reuse deformed paper clips, write on both sides of paper and collect our toilet paper hanging from trees the day after Halloween.

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Lee Pitts: My Most Memorable Mutt

 

Dogs have always been my favorite people. I don’t like crowds and I’ve always had “hermit” tendencies, being quite happy alone with myself, my wife or my dog. If a friend or stranger approaches while walking their dog I’ll immediately take a knee and start petting and talking to the dog which, based upon the wagging of their tails, invariably think I’m the best thing to come along since rawhide chew toys. I prefer talking to dogs because they are better listeners, don’t interrupt, are apolitical and don’t tell stupid jokes. It’s no coincidence that man’s best friend can’t talk or ask to borrow money.

There have been many dogs in my life but by far the best was Cindy, named after my brother’s girlfriend. (Believe me, canine Cindy was much better looking.) She was a black and white German Shorthair who walked on three legs. We lived on one acre of ground on the edge of our small town and shortly after we got her Cindy came limping to the house on three legs. Evidently she got hit by one of Henry Ford’s dog-killing machines. We were fixing to take her to the vet when my mean alcoholic father got home from the bar and said, “Absolutely not. We’re not going to waste good money on a dog.” I said I’d pay for the vet because at the time I had a higher net worth than my parents did, but that just threw him into a drunken rage. So I sat under a lemon tree where Cindy had made a nest, put her head in my lap and cried my eyeballs out. I never forgave my mean old man.

My father also wouldn’t allow Cindy in the house but he was drunk most of the time and was never wise to my disobedience. In the divvying up of bedrooms my older and much-preferred brother got the bedroom with a bathroom, my sister got the biggest bedroom in the house with a closet and I was delegated to the back porch. Really. The porch was tilted downwards on a 7% grade to let rain water flow outside but it did have one attribute the other bedrooms didn’t have: a door. My parents thought the door was permanently stuck in the closed position but little did they know that late at night when everyone was in their rooms I opened the door just wide enough to let Cindy on the porch where she slept beside me. Since I had to feed my animals early every morning before they started mooing, grunting or cock-a-doodleing, I secretly let Cindy out and she’d come around to the kitchen door to greet me as if we hadn’t seen each other for years. I think my mom knew but my dad never did.

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Lee Pitts: Weights And Measures

 I’m ashamed to admit that I was once an arbitrageur. Sounds likes a French doorman at Arby’s doesn’t it?

An arbitrage trader is someone who takes advantage of the difference between two markets in bonds, stocks and commodities. I was an arbitrage trader before today’s traders even knew the term, only I wasn’t a Wall Street bull, I just traded in them.

One of the few things I do well is guessing the weight of cattle. I attribute this to being on livestock judging teams and to the fact that when I started in the cattle business auction markets didn’t have ring scales, so you didn’t know the weight of an animal before you bought it. One of my idols, Pat Goggins, changed everything when he installed the first ring scale at PAYS in Billings. (Pat also had the first video sale.)

Before ring scales cow buyers had to be really good at estimating weights. As a field editor I worked ring at auctions and sometimes I had an extra day to kill between purebred sales in foreign locales, like Socorro, Salina and Sealy. As an auction junkie I usually spent this time sitting in auction markets trying to guess the weight of cattle. It was my golf game.

I started in the cattle swappin’ trade at a time when there were way more bulls than buyers and that was reflected in the prices paid. Often, the purebred auctioneer selling the cattle didn’t know the weight of an animal within 200 pounds. Of course, if the sale was at an auction market, or if it was a sale barn auctioneer, all bets were off. Because I paid close attention to slaughter prices, when a bull entered the ring and the bid was cheaper than what I could get at the nearest auction market, I’d buy it. The most bulls I ever bought at one sale was 41 head.

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Lee Pitts: Don’t Bet On It

People are betting on everything these days. If I was a bookmaker here are the odds I’d give for random events happening in the cattle business.

A trillion to one: The odds of cow farts causing hurricanes on the gulf coast, windswept fires in California, polar bears to die or crops to fail in Africa.

One Billion to One: The likelihood that the CME will voluntarily investigate shenanigans in the futures market.

 One million to 1: The probability that fake meat will replace real meat in the American diet.

500,000 to 1: The possibility that no one will ever shoot holes in your water troughs.

100,000 to 1: If you’re a public lands rancher these are the odds against the BLM or the Forest Service ever increasing your AUM’s. (The only raise you’ll ever get is in your grazing fees.)

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Lee Pitts: So, Melt Already

Did you hear that?

Neither did I. The sound you’re NOT hearing is laughter. Political correctness has turned this country into a bunch of sourpusses. We’re all wound so tight you can’t tell a Potagee, dumb blonde or Lutheran joke for fear of being shunned. Instead of being bald, I’m a victim of cranial deforestation and follicle regression. I’m sure there’s a support group somewhere I could join.

We’re taking ourselves way too seriously. If you root for the Redskins or the Braves you are a bigot, and don’t use the tern “Indian” either. They are “indigenous native Americans”. And what’s with “African or Afro Americans? Does that make me an agri-American? People who live on the African continent don’t refer to themselves as American Africans. That would be ridiculous; most haven’t even been here. So why do we call native black people African Americans? It’s the same way with Mexicans. A lot of my best friends have been Mexicans in my life but I’m confused. Are they now Latinos or Hispanics? Why can’t we all be simply Americans?

 And by the way, just because your great-great-grandparents were terribly treated as slaves doesn’t give you a get-out-of-jail-free-card, or the the right to torch stores, steal stuff and ruin the livelihood of hardworking store owners.

Political correctness is the tool used to further everyone’s agenda these days. At the same time they’re reducing your freedom. They want to take away your freedom to have your own opinion, or to NOT participate in the argument. Minority groups like gays, vegetarians, and PETA that comprise at the most three percent of our population are trying to run the country. Activists are manipulating the system to give themselves far more power than they are entitled to. Anyone who doesn’t support their opinion is blackballed. Take global warming. Oh, I forgot, it’s now climate change. People who don’t believe in it are called “denyers”. Oh, no. I hope my Facebook friends don’t find out. Oops, I just remembered, I don’t have any. 

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Lee Pitts: Don’t Bet On It

People are betting on everything these days. If I was a bookmaker here are the odds I’d give for random events happening in the cattle business.

A trillion to one: The odds of cow farts causing hurricanes on the gulf coast, windswept fires in California, polar bears to die or crops to fail in Africa.

One Billion to One: The likelihood that the CME will voluntarily investigate shenanigans in the futures market.

One million to 1: The probability that fake meat will replace real meat in the American diet.

500,000 to 1: The possibility that no one will ever shoot holes in your water troughs.

100,000 to 1: If you’re a public lands rancher these are the odds against the BLM or the Forest Service ever increasing your AUM’s. (The only raise you’ll ever get is in your grazing fees.)

10,000 to 1: The odds your wife will understand that you need a break from the ranch and grant you permission to go on a week-long, drunken trail drive with your buddies.

1,000 to 1: The chances that your new pickup will go a year without getting a huge dent.

1,000 to 1: The probability that you’ll get lots of rain and a good calf market in the same year. (I’ve heard this can actually happen but I don’t believe it.)

800 to 1: The odds that the two heifers that will require C-sections this year will happen at the same time so it it will only require one visit by your veterinarian.

800 to 1: The possibility that a range bull you bought will turn out to be an EPD trait leader and you get one half of all semen sales.

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Lee Pitts: Tuckered Out

 Do your suffer from iron-poor blood? Do you start your whiskey-drinking with your morning coffee? Are you spurring your horse more and using a hot shot on your cattle instead of a paddle? In other words, are you taking out your depression on your livestock? Does nothing excite you any more, like a romantic evening with your wife or a fishing or hunting trip to the High Sierras? Do you often consider moving into town where you could pamper your better-half with an automatic dishwasher, indoor plumbing and a stove you don’t have to light with a match every time you want to use it? If so, then you could be suffering from “ranch burn out”.

If you think you’re suffering burn out symptoms take my simple Burn Out Test and if you find yourself answering “yes” more than “no”, you probably have this much-dreaded and incurable malady.

1) When you’re sitting on the can and catching up on your reading do you reach for the AARP Magazine more often than your favorite livestock weekly or monthly cow magazine?

2) Instead of jumping out of bed at two in the morning to check the heifers and to look at any new calves that are the result of your all new powerful bull battery, do you tell your wife it’s her turn and roll over because you need your beauty sleep? Or even worse, do you just say to heck with it and let Mother Nature cull any hard calvers?

3) Instead of weaning your calves 60 days before selling them as everyone in the industry says you should, do you load them up right off the cow and send them to the auction market and let them put up with all the balling and any sickness?

4) Do you and your wife brand your calves on a table so you don’t have to feed half the county a free meal and then spend two weeks fixing all the damage your friends, neighbors and an assortment of hangers-on created?

5) Instead of cementing in some new railroad ties and building a new loading chute and lead-up alley do you just brace up the old posts because you calculate that you’ll be called to “the great roundup in the sky” before the termites completely destroy your working facilities?

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Lee Pitts: Nuts And Bolts

 I love nuts, bolts and hardware so much that we came real close 40 years ago to opening a hardware store in our small town. Instead we opened a stationery store and someone else opened the hardware store. We made a little money but the hardware store owner struck a gold mine and is now living on his 200 foot yacht off the coast of Greece.

I love hardware stores and by that I don’t mean Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menards or Tractor Supply, all great stores, one and all. But we live 30 minutes away from the nearest Home Depot, which means it’s a one hour trip to buy one carriage bolt or a bar of Lava Soap. (Can you believe our local grocery store doesn’t sell Lava? They must figure no one works hard enough to get their hands dirty any more. And they may be right!)

When I say hardware store I’m talking about the ones that serve small rural communities. In many respects ours is very much like the general store of yesteryear where you can buy pet food, rhododendrons, Carhartt hoodies, soda pop, 5 hour energy drinks, candy bars and deck screws all in one place. Ours even has an all new frozen food section for recently divorced men who want to buy their dinner in the same store they buy their chainsaws.

Our local hardware store is bulging at the seams so every morning they move out plants, barbecue pits, patio furniture and even dinosaurs for the garden, so the sidewalk out front looks like a Tijuana swap meet! Our local hardware store doesn’t sell beer and wine yet but they do give away free popcorn on the weekend which draws customers like donuts do cops. There’s just something about the smell of popcorn drenched in butter that makes you want to buy a $300 leaf blower.

Over the years I’ve collected my own hardware store of sorts with a giant collection of nuts, bolts, hinges, washers, refrigerator lightbulbs, bearings, padlocks, bug spray, metric sockets, O rings, and WD 40. (You can never have enough WD 40!) I’m so well stocked that on rare occasions when the hardware store doesn’t have something they send the customer to my house.

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Lee Pitts: Merry Covid Christmas

When the COVID pandemic first hit I didn’t think it would last long, after all, it was made in China. But here it is almost Christmas and I’m still living like a dog… all day long I wander around the house looking for food, my wife has to keep telling me, “Down boy,” and I get all excited about going for a ride in the truck. This Christmas I don’t want another stimulus check from our bankrupt government or another lecture by Dr. Fauci about washing my hands. Here is a list of what I DO WANT this COVD Christmas:

• In my stocking I want to find a lifetime supply of N95 masks and little bottles of Purell®.

• I’d like to go outside again.

• I desperately need a year’s supply of toilet paper, the good stuff not the paper that’s so thin you can see through it.

• If it’s not too much to ask I’d like a haircut by a real barber.

• For once I’d like to be able to cough in public without being treated as if I’m a leper.

• I want all the kids to go back to school so they can suffer like I had to.

• I’d like permission to be able to touch my face again.

• I’d like to be able to shop in real stores without having to buy everything from Amazon thus making Jeff Bezos the world’s first trillionaire.

• I’m wishing I never have to hear the following words ever again: quarantine, PPE, Wuhan, pandemic, and most of all, “We’re all in this together.” The only time I want to hear the words self i-so-late is if I’m running a few minutes behind schedule.

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Lee Pitts: Married To The Ranch

Whitey and Nan hadn’t been on a vacation together since they were married. Perhaps that’s why they just celebrated their 45th Anniversary.

“Why don’t you just get away for a couple days,” I urged them both. “Go someplace where they never heard of calf scours or alfalfa hay.”

“Because the minute we leave bad things will start happening around this ranch,” replied Nan. She is the undisputed family spokesperson by the way.

“What can go wrong?” I asked.

“Are you kidding, the minute we leave the water lines will break, the cows will be out of water, and a bull will get on the road. It’s just easier to stay home,” said Nan.

“I’ll tell you what,” I pleaded with Nan, “I’ll take care of everything while you are gone. Why don’t you take one of those exotic cruises.”

“But who will feed my chickens?” Nan knew my great dislike for anything fowl or feathered.

Biting my tongue, I replied, “I’ll even feed your chickens for you.”

Much to my surprise Whitey and Nan decided to take a cruise. Well, it was kind of a cruise. They went lake fishing for a whole Saturday and Sunday! Surprisingly, they accepted my offer to feed the chickens and look after their place.

Bright and early on the Saturday morning of their vacation I drove over to their place, opened the truck door and let Aussie out to run. I proceeded to do the chores, leaving the chicken chores for last. After checking to make sure that everybody had water and snooping through Whitey’s barn I finally got up enough nerve to take care of the chickens.

You can imagine my surprise when on my approach to the chicken coop I spotted Aussie gnawing on a drumstick that belonged to one of Nan’s cherished chickens. When they had asked me to clean out the hen house I doubt if this was what they had in mind. 

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Lee Pitts: Mark Your Calendar

 

Have you ever wondered about all these holidays that shouldn’t be, like National Situational Awareness Day, National Ball Point Pen Day or National Cupcake Day? When I heard about National Bubble Wrap Day, National Play-Doh Day and National Talk Like A Pirate Day I just had to find out what a person has to do to get a day. It turns out that a person like me can’t get a National Lee Pitts Day, that would have to be done by an act of Congress and I haven’t paid off any politicians so I doubt that’s going to happen. But an organization or a business can register a day, week or month with The National Day Calendar.

I bet you’re wondering how much it costs to have a National No-Beard Day, a National Do A Grouch A Favor Day or National Make Up Your Mind Day? (All holidays mentioned in this column are for real!) A corporate package costs an initial $25,000 and to keep National Pop Goes The Weasel Day or National Static Electricity Day on the calendar costs an additional $2,500 yearly.

National Day Calendar says it’s very picky in accepting new dates and they only add 30 new ones yearly out of the 20,000 nominated. But if they’re so picky how have we ended up with National Get Over It Day, National Lost Sock Day, National Rat Catcher’s Day, National Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friends Day and National Kiss And Make Up Day? As for me, I celebrate National Hermit Day 365 days a year.

Some of the crazy national holidays are for good causes like National White Cane Safety Day and National No Bullying Day but you really have to wonder who approved National Beheading Day. It’s on September 2nd and I’d say its a good day to stay close to home, as is National Lazy Day, a day everyone ought to get off work. We celebrate National Absurdity Day on November 20th but aren’t they all? And I really wonder who paid the fee to celebrate Upsy Daisy Day, National No Bra Day (October 13th for you lecherous old men out there), which is followed five days later by Bra Day USA.

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Lee Pitts: Stay Put

Let the record show that I’m in favor of impenetrable borders and unscalable walls patrolled by border guards armed with AR-15’s… between states, that is.

I used to be a proud fifth generation Californian but people are currently pouring out of my state because it has become a liberal insane asylum and (tongue twister alert) folks are fleeing like fleas falling from a feline with a new flea collar. Idaho and Texas seem to be the two most popular safe havens but there are a whole bunch of “reverse Okies” too who are moving back home to Oklahoma where so many prunies can trace their roots. (Full disclosure: My father was an Okie exactly like the ones Steinbeck described in The Grapes of Wrath.)

No state, it seems, is safe from the California virus. Recently a caller to the Rush Limbaugh show asked what happens when the California liberals move to her state of Texas in such swarms that it is enough to turn her state blue. (Pun intended.) I’ll tell you what will happen, the ex-California libs will then try to turn her great state into the mess they just left. It won’t be long before you’ll have 11% state income tax and if you want to even build a deck on to the back of your house it will take one year for approval and cost you $30,000 in fees. Even then, if the bureaucrats find an endangered snot-nosed, silver-bellied snail on your property you’ll never be allowed to do anything with it. But you’ll still have to pay excessive property taxes on land that has been rendered useless.

That’s why I don’t believe states should have open borders. If a Californian wants out bad enough they ought to have to at least dig a tunnel to escape like they do in Mexico! It’s a bio-containment issue and we shouldn’t make it so easy for them. There ought to be a billboard on every freeway and road at every state’s border saying “Don’t Californicate Our State.” If a Californian wants to even visit the Alamo they ought to have to apply for a visa and go through an extensive vetting process and take a written test. If they can’t identify what meat is found in chicken fried steak, or they can’t drink their share of sweet tea they should be denied entrance. Especially if they’re driving a 24 foot U-haul and look like they intend to stay for awhile. 

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Lee Pitts: The Vegan Church

I saw a classified ad in our local weekly newspaper inviting newcomers to a VIP potluck, VIP standing for Vegetarian Inclined People. At great personal sacrifice I attended in an undercover capacity. As a disguise I figured I could either go as an old hippie, or a millennial but since I really didn’t fit the millennial demographic, aging hippie it was.

I used an old cap someone had given me as a gag gift eons ago that had a white ponytail sticking out the back. I wore a pair of beat up, old second-hand Birkenstocks I got at the Nifty Thrifty, crumpled cargo shorts exposing my white legs with varicose veins, and a faded Hawaiian shirt. Then I “inserted” myself into the combat zone wearing a wire.

I was greeted warmly by all seven of the VIP’s and I think it was because I was the first “new blood” they’d seen in quite some time. We met in the basement of a church which was most appropriate. I’d always been taught there were three primary religions in the world, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, well, I think it’s safe to say we can add a fourth: Vegetarianism. Granted, the veg-heads don’t sing hymns, pray, or even play bingo but from what I could tell they do believe a very hot Hell is reserved for anyone who eats meat. They believe when good Vegetarians die they go to the big Vegetarian restaurant in the sky and if they don’t backpedal and eat a Big Mac or a Whopper now and then, they could come back as an organic Brussel Sprout… if they’re lucky.

The Vegetarians believe soy is the answer to all the world’s ills and that only through Vegetarianism will the human race become benign and lovely. They are ferocious in these beliefs and send out their missionaries hither and yon to convert everyone to their religion. They especially prey on teenage girls who seem to be especially vulnerable to their wily ways. 

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Lee Pitts: The New Normal

We’re living through the strangest year I’ve ever experienced. Just as World War II, The Depression and 911 changed our world forever, so too will the Covid pandemic. What will be left over from the Covid crises? Will people still wear face masks, will they eat out less often, will they social distance, will PPE remain in our vocabulary, will people still fill concert venues, arenas and stadiums after a vaccine is produced? Here are a few predictions.

1) People will make greater use of mail-in-ballots and eventually voting by phone which will make it possible for my dearly departed grandparents to vote again. And again.

2) With everyone wearing face masks I haven’t recognized anyone since March. As a result of mask wearing the number of flu and cold cases is radically lower and so many will continue the practice. The first company that produces a face mask that prints on their face masks the old, “Hello, my name is,” tag for people to write in their own name will become a billionaire.

3) Zoom, Facetime and e mail will replace meetings and committees.

4) Anyone who coughs or sneezes in public will be treated like a leper.

5) We’ll never forget who gave us the China flu and we’ll purchase less of anything that says, “Made in China.” This will cripple dollar stores. Craftsmen and hobbyists will bury their tools “Made in China” so that in a couple hundred thousand years they’ll make inferior coal.

6) Elon Musk will invent a temperature gauge to be hung over the entrance of every home and business that will unleash an alarm when someone tries to enter with a body temperature in excess of 98.8 degrees.

7) More people will keep a six-month supply of dehydrated meals in their basement. People will buy BIG freezers and buy halves of beef and go whole hog on pork. They’ll stockpile food, liquor and toilet paper and grocers will rethink the strategy of “just-in-time deliveries.”

8) People will relearn the joy of cooking and eat at home more often as a third of the restaurants in America will not reopen if we don’t find a vaccine soon.

9) Ranchers will buy more of their bulls online so no one will show up at sales causing purebred producers to have strokes starting their annual bull sale with only four people on the seats including the extension agent, a banker and a retired couple who came for the free lunch.

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Lee Pitts: Beautiful Babes

 

“A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.” Carl Sandburg

My wife and I couldn’t have kids so we had thousands of them… baby lambs, calves, piglets, you name it, we’ve had them. Although I know a lot about baby lambs and calves, my knowledge of Homo sapien babies is woefully lacking. I’ll never forget the time I was looking at baby diapers in the grocery store and I saw the diapers arranged in order, such as 4-6 pounds, 6-8 pounds etc. I told my wife, “I had no idea that human babies pooped so much!”

I love holding human babies but I still don’t really know how and I think all babies at birth should be tattooed with humorist Dave Berry’s warning: “Gently lift baby to your shoulder. If you are holding the baby correctly there should now be vomit on your shoulder. If there is poop you’re holding the baby upside down.”

I’ll never forget the time I was engaging in one of my favorite activities while stuck in the hospital. I don’t think they do it anymore but years ago after a mother gave birth to her baby, when she wasn’t feeding it, they’d put the new baby on display and you could look through a window and see all the beautiful babes in pink and blue either sleeping or crying their baby brains out. One time at the window a proud father joined me and asked, “Which one is yours?”

“Oh, no,” I said, “I’m just window shopping. All my babies are at home.”

“How many do you have?” the father asked while raising an eyebrow and moving away.

“At the moment I think we have 340,” I replied proudly.

The next thing I know the father was pleading with a nurse to get his baby out of there, as if I was going to kidnap it.

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