–John Deacon  (Lobo)

 

Get yurself in here Pard!  There’s a little chubby flyin’ imp shootin’ arrows at people.  Nah, I’m jist a-joshin’ yuh, but there’s a whole lotta nonsense goin’ on today with the foolishness of cupid.  The Greeks with all their so-called wisdom shor enough did have plenty of foolishness as well, but that’s a story for another Saturday.  Soon as I get yur coffee poured I’m goin’ be philosophizin’ with yuh some.

     Ahhh, let me take a large swaller befores I get started.  Love, what is it?  Most people have it all confused and even for us unconfused ones it is still a grand mystery.  The missus will tell yuh–“honey, I love yuh,” then go right around and say, ‘oh, I jist love these shoes.”  What does that make a person?  Tell me if’n yuh know, an ol’ worn out shoe?  I love ice cream, plain ol’ vanilla–I love the cats–I love my wife–I love God.  Hmmm, and then throw on it the idea that I jist love my coffee along with a piece of pie.  Love, love, love…

     Don’t be sittin’ thar with yur mouth open – at least be fillin’ it with that strong coffee.  I want to be tellin’ two things that I think is true of love.  Shor thar’s more, but I want to tell yuh two things I think is true.  First un, love is a mystery.  No question since yuh can’t rightly define it, it must be a mystery.  It’s sorta like a package that yur given.  Finely wrapped with pretty paper, the edges all perfectly tucked in, an’ it’s all wrapped with a pretty ribbon an’ gorgeous bow.  See, love will sometimes come at yuh as a pretty package.  It gets yur attention; yur heart goes pitter-pat, and yur gizzard thump-thump.  My, my, yuh even might start to drool an’ that’s all ‘fores yuh begin to unwrap it.  

     It’s done up so nicely yuh don’t tear it open, but yuh begin to gently unpeel it until all that’s ‘fore yuh is a box full of something.  Pard, that’s it–it’s full of all sorts of things.  Things that’ll make yuh laugh, some that’ll make yuh cry.  Some will be bringin’ yuh joy, an’ some will have sadness attached to it, but Pard, as shor as yur sittin’ there drinkin’ coffee it’s all love.  Funny thing how folks say they fall in love, an’ I ain’t a-doubtin’ them none, but what I don’t gather in my thick-skull is the fact that they can fall out of love as well.  Don’t register with my pea-brain.  If’n it’s love how do yuh fall out of it?  My ain’t it a glorious thing that the good Lord don’t fall out of love with us–He’s jist not all that fickle.

     Let me take another sip, then I be goin’ on.  Mmmm, pure delight–just like love.  Now, here’s the second thing I know ’bout love.  Not only is it a mysterious phenomenon, but in my way of thinkin’ it is also a gift.  Jist like that thar package I mentioned.  It’s a wonderful gift.  Why is it yuh can love one person an’ not another?  Now, that’s jist bein’ real.  Only the Lord loves everybody the same, an’ I realize that it don’t say nothin’ in the Good Book ’bout it bein’ a gift, but it has to be.  Thar’s some folk out there that are jist plain unlovable.  Only the Lord can give yuh the gift to love them.  Some of these folk that get up an’ spout off, “I love y’all,” jist fried my bacon.  They don’t!  They say it, they might think they mean it, but they don’t know a lick of what they’re talkin’ ’bout.  Now, true, one of them true evangelists that is called in the Church might have that special love, an’ I know we’re supposed to love, but it’s downright hard sometimes, that’s why I’m a-sayin’ that it has to be a gift from the Lord to love everyone.

     Now, I’ve done run out of space, an’ yuh’ve run out of time an’ need to be gettin’ on down the road.  But say, Pard, did yuh love my coffee this mornin’?  Did it give yur gizzard fits?  Let me tell yuh as yur a-leavin’ that Annie and I are spendin’ our fifty-sixth Valentines together.  My mercy, Pard, that’s love.  The good, the bad, along with some ugly.  She’s stuck with me through all the dust that’s been thrown up over the years of travelin’ this journey of life.  Whoooeee, and I wouldn’t trade it for nothin’.  My ol’ rundown heart still palpitates with thought of her, an’ her bein’ by my side.

     Pard, yuh take care this week.  Tell someone yuh truly love them, then act like it.  I love yuh ‘nough to be tellin’ yuh to check yur cinch.  No need to be reachin’ those pearly gates ‘fore yur called.

    Vaya con Dios.

                    –Donald L. Robertson  (Stranger with a Star)

 

Pard, the stage is pullin’ up, an’ we’re nigh ready to be leavin’.  If’n yuh don’t make it in the next few minutes, the coffee’s sittin’ on the stove, yuh just need to be heatin’ it up.  I left yuh some, didn’t want yuh to go without.  Didn’t want yur feelin’s to be hurt all week goin’ without my famous brew.  Sorry I’m not around to put the coffee on, I knows yuh like to see me pourin’ a cup for yuh.

     I recall ol’ Abe sayin’ once, “If that’s coffee bring me some tea, and if that’s tea bring me some coffee.”  No wonder he became president, he knew what a good cup of coffee was.  None of that namby-pamby colored water.  As for tea, it has its place.  I don’t mind a cup now and then, but like one ol’ boy has written, “Tea is also brown and thin, and lacking in character.  It goes well with crumpets and doilies.  Tea is for lightweights.  Coffee is for the earnest, the committed.”  If my memory serves me right Ernestine Linck wrote that.  Listen, I’ve never heard anyone say that “tea is too strong.”  Or that “tea is strong enough to float a horseshoe.”  Tea is fine, in its place, but Pard, I’m a-knowin’ that yuh like yur coffee strong, bold, and black in the mornin’.

     The missus made up some tortillas, an’ I’m recallin’ my Grandma always pronouncin’ them Tor-till-las (and if’n yuh read my early books about Elias Butler, that’s what he calls them).  Some sausage and onions scrambled in with the eggs, and we’re ready to go.  Granddaughter’s birthday is this weekend an’ we’re headin’ up to see her in college.

     So as yuh head out into the week, don’t be settlin’ for no colored water professin’ to be coffee, nor for any of them cinos that mix in all sorts of silly stuff where’s yuh can’t even taste the coffee.  Why not just order fruit juice or a spinach smoothie?  In other words, don’t be playin’ with my coffee, an’ I knows yuh feel the same ’bout yurs.  Pard, so many in the church are that way ’bout what they’re wantin’ to hear.  I think they’ve got themselves a cino-Christianity.  Watered-down, flavored, not robust, not the real thing in other words.  Don’t be waterin’ down God’s Word, treat it like good and honest coffee–strong for the soul and gizzard.

     Stage is ready to be pullin’ out.  Yuh have yurself a good week in the Lord.  Be ridin’ straight an’ stittin’ tall in the saddle.  No cinos, be wary, carry yur Bible and gun so they’re ready to be used, for Pard, even though I didn’t see yuh this mornin’, don’t forget to be a-checkin’ yur cinch.  I want yuh around next week to be jawin’ with yuh.

     Vaya con Dios.

                    –Chris Bennett  (Insurrection)

 

Pard, git yurself in here; don’t yuh know it’s cold outside?  My mercy, shut the door!  I’ll be gettin’ the coffee poured in a second.  Made it shor enough strong this mornin’, figured yuh’d need it after ridin’ over in the cold.  Whew, we made it through one cold snap now it looks like we’re facin’ another couple of days.  Poor folk in some areas have been without power for quite a spell.  One can bundle up, but with our high-falutin’ lifestyles now it’s hard to be without electricity.  Folks with gas have it some better.  An’ to think I used to work out in that stuff…brrr, makes me shiver to think ’bout it.  Cold toes I can do without.

     That makes me think of those fools in Minneysota out in the cold doin’ their so-called peaceful protests.  An’ Pard, while I’m at it I don’t recall readin’ anywhere in our Constitution where folk have the right to protest or riot.  It states that they have the right to peaceful assembly.  I hear them politicians and the media huffin’ and puffin’ about the right to protest and all I can do is shake my head and their ignorance and stupidity.  Yuh know to be out in that cold makes me wonder if they not bein’ paid to do so.  I shor do like the new term for the media–they are “full-diaper media morons.”  Shor does fit, and if’n it fit wear it.

     Ahhh, that coffee is like gettin’ kicked by a mule, or should I say horse.  Yep, it’s kickin’ horse coffee.  It gives yuh a real jolt, guess that’s why it’s called “kickin'”.  Back to those “full-diaper media morons” I recall the words of the ol’ Apostle to Timothy, “But mark this:  There will be terrible times in the last days.”  He gives a whole list among it is, “lovers of themselves, proud, abusive, ungrateful, unholy, without self-control.”  Get the picture?  Now look at those doin’ all that “peaceful” protestin’ — my mercy, they would fit in with a Halloween party, but the shame of it is that’s the way they look an’ they are proud of it.  See, many of them are not only cold because of the weather, their innards are cold as well.  Nah, Pard, not their liver or gizzard, but their hearts.  They have a cold, cold, hard, bitter, evil, and hateful heart.  One that has been given over to their sinful desires.  Pard, yuh be watchin’ out for them.

     See, Pard, that’s one of the reasons why we get together for coffee.  Not only for the pleasurable atmosphere of my company, ha–but for the buildin’ up and exhortin’ of one another.  Yuh see, there’s a real purpose for me to be tellin’ yuh to check yur cinch an’ keep yur gun handy, an’ ride tall in the saddle.  Someone has to tow the line, uphold decency and honor, an’ yur one of the hombres to do it.

     Well, Pard, we did it.  We done emptied another pot.  Time for yuh to be gettin’ on down the trail.  Think I’ll do some readin’, prop my feet up in front of the stove, and contemplate the goodness of the Lord whilst the fools go at it.  Yuh take care, now yuh hear?

     Vaya con Dios.

                    –Richard P. Hobson, Jr.  (Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy)

 

“It’s a fact that you’re gettin’ older, man don’t it seem like the winter’s are colder?”  Come in, Pard, yur cup’s on the table, an’ the coffee’s on the stove.  I was just thinkin’ of that song by that buckaroo Dan Roberts.  Not shor but think it was wrote by G.C. Galvin.  Gettin’ older, that’s a pure fact.  The winters are colder, I reckon not, but the old bones might be thinkin’ they are.  No ten below zero here, but it don’t take much to knock out the electricity.  Don’t be frettin’ ’bout us Pard, the Missus and I are ready.  The campstove is ready to warm up some beans and keep the coffee goin’.

     Guess there’s just too many people, much of them don’t have no common sense, an’ the grid can’t keep up.  Course yuh never know, those weathermen are paid to lie.  Don’t take too much stock in them, but on the other hand it’s better to be safe than sorry.  In fact, Annie made a pie today so we can be ready for the icy weekend.  Problem is it won’t last until Sunday.  When I lived up in the northern lands I kept a sleepin’ bag in the ol’ steel mount, along with a sterno stove, a pan, coffee and tea.  Most of the time there was a pack of bouillon needed.  Usually a shovel, and a few other odds an’ ends.  Better to be prepared than frozen.  Knew an ol’ boy who got caught in a blizzard in eastern Colorado.  He had to pull off the road, but he was prepared.  When he woke the next mornin’ the snow had covered his car.  Course now’days they close the roads.  

     Pard, as yuh guzzle that hot coffee, I’m a-thinkin’ of those up in the cold.  It’s one thing to sit by the fire and listen to that cold norther blow, and entirely another to have to be out in it.  Those chilly fingers of freezing temperatures slowly strangle the warmth from the body.  Then ol’ Jack London’s story, “To Build a Fire” comes to mind.  Folks if’n yur not prepared, an’ then like in that story even sometime if’n yuh are things happen an’ the results can be catastrophic.

     “Nother cup?  Shor ‘nough, an’ if’n we finish this pot, I can jist make another one.  That’s part of preparin’ for the cold.  Go ‘head drink all yuh want.  The cold outside, and folk bustlin’ ’round in a frantic makes me think of the words that people will pray for the rocks to fall on them.  They are frantic, the world is in complete chaos an’ the judgment of the Lord is upon it.  Too late to get prepared, and they don’t know what to do, and Pard, think of it–they pray to an idol, the rocks.  I’m glad that the inner soul is warmed by the Holy Spirit.  He is like a fire that brings soothin’ warmth to a cold spirit, similar to a warm fire and a cup of coffee to the body that has been out too long in the cold.  Pard, if’n yuh know someone who’s out in the freezin’ wasteland, tell them to not wait too long to come in to the “fire” and warm the body and soul.

     Yuh better get on yur way.  Double check to make shor that yur set for the winter cold blast.  Then I guess if the electricity goes out, we’ll jist hunker down under some quilts.  Yuh be safe, an’ be careful.  At least I know yuh won’t be out ridin’ so I won’t be worryin’ ’bout yuh checkin’ yur cinch.

      Vaya con Dios.