"Steve gets the Red Carpet Treatment"

 

   “I think it’s disgusting and weird and unnatural and it should be outlawed!” the tall cowboy said, coming to rest at the philosophy counter of the Mule Barn truck stop.

  “Aw Steve,” said Doc, “the coffee isn’t that bad.”

  “Coffee? Nay, I say unto you, Doc. It ain’t the coffee … it’s them award shows on the television. You see them? All them good-looking women Scotch-taping themselves into those dresses so they almost stay on? Those weird guys they’re with who only shave on Tuesdays?”

  “And this makes you angry?”

  “Sure does, Doc. Those folks make a lot more money than I do and all they have to do is dress up and talk to those red carpet camera guys.”

  “Well, Steve,” said Dud, “we can do just as good as they can. Stand up.”

  Steve looked around and then stood slowly.  Dud picked up a bottle of Tabasco sauce and, using it as a microphone, turned to the breakfast crowd in the Mule Barn.

  “Good morning, folks, and we’re so happy you could join us here on KRUD this morning to welcome our list of celebrities. Oh, look, it’s Steve, the pride of farrier life and heavy anvils. Steve, wherever did you get that outfit?”

  “Well,” said Steve, grinning, “it’s a creation of Levi Strauss, and please note the genuine brass rivets.”

  “Give us a twirl there, cowboy.” And he did, to great applause.

  “And your headwear today, Steve, that would be what … Stetson?”

  “Yessir. A genuine John B. Stetson original. Five ex beaver fur felt.”

  “The sweat stains?”

  “Those were added later, actually, Dudley. A genuine cow pen fillip to offset the otherwise stunning look of my entire ensemble.”

  “So as not to overwhelm the onlookers, I suppose?”

  “Precisely. We don’t want ordinary people to think they’ll never achieve this look, you see.”

  “An admirable pursuit,” Dud said.

  “Noblesse oblige, I believe,” said Steve.

  “Not until lunch,” said Loretta, topping off the coffee mugs. “Breakfast special is bacon and a short stack.”

Everything else is just killing fish.”                                                           

 

Newspaper columnist Slim Randles, who writes the weekly Home Country column, took home two New Mexico Book Awards in 2011. His advice book for young people, “A Cowboy’s Guide to Growing Up Right,” took first place in the self-help category, and “Sweetgrass Mornings” won in the biography/memoirs category. Randles lives and works in Albuquerque. Home Country reaches 3 million hometown newspaper readers each week

Slim Randles learned mule packing from Gene Burkhart and Slim Nivens. He learned mustanging and wild burro catching from Hap Pierce. He learned horse shoeing from Rocky Earick. He learned horse training from Dick Johnson and Joe Cabral. He learned humility from the mules of the eastern High Sierra. Randles lives in Albuquerque.

Randles has written newspaper stories, magazine articles and book, both fiction and nonfiction. His column appeared in New Mexico Magazine for many years and was a popular columnist for the Anchorage Daily News and the Albuquerque Journal, and now writes a nationally syndicated column, “Home Country,” which appears in several hundred newspapers across the country.

 

  Huntington Beach News