Funny how things sometimes turn out.
Ol’ Ugly, aka John Glawson, performed at our 2023 Medicine Hat Cowboy Poetry and Western Music Show. (See events page.)
Next thing you know, Jen Zollner announces this new story feature, Yarns by Ol’ Ugly. We’ll share a new story every month or so. Please enjoy the ‘yarns’ that Ol’ Ugly has shared with us so far:
- Ol’ Ugly Bio
- Story #1: Staggering Stan’s Pain
- Story #2: The Making of a Respectable Pair of Boots
- Story #3: Protecting His Food Source
- Story #4: An Ill Wind Blows Larry No Good
- Story #5: Snaky Seniors
- Story #6: Messing With the Mule
- Story #7: I Changed My Mind
- Story #8: Why Bother?
- Story #9: Miniberries, My Town
- Story #10 The Chamber Pot
- Story #11: Young Cowboys Can Be Boogers
- Story #12: Gummy Johnson ***New Story!***
- Story #13 Coosie ***New Story!***
Ol’ Ugly Bio
His real name is John Glawson; his hometown is Nanton and his wife’s real name is Donna, but in his stories she’s Chubb.
He grew up in a house lit by coal oil lamps and listened to stories told by his grandfather, Dad and uncles, while his grandmother and mom sat in a rocking chair crocheting doilies and darning socks. He retells and reinvents strands of what he heard into colourful characters that get into all kinds of hilarious predicaments.
He keeps folks laughing as he knits them into the yarns that he shares on stage, in his books, on Facebook (and now, on our website!)
The humour even comes through in the titles of his books (and they’re for sale): Tales from the Grub Box Cafe and More Stories for Old Boogers and Boogerettes.
Yarns by Ol’ Ugly — Story #13
Coosie
Written June 30, 2024
“Your hands are as soft as a baby’s butt,” the rider laughed pushing by the cook and grabbing a cup of coffee from the fire. The other riders had a good laugh at Coosie’s expense.
“If it twern’t for these soft hands, them bellies of yours sure as hell wouldn’t be full,” old Coosie yelled back, but the burr was under his saddle. Coosie, as a man of the land doesn’t ever want to hear he has soft hands. It means he ain’t pulling his weight; doesn’t have the ability to work hard. This was meant to put him down and insult him in front of the other men. He was mad.
He was getting tired of sixteen hour days of cooking for a bunch of ungrateful young cowboys with no manners. Twern’t like that when he rode. Back then the cowboys followed some camp rules on common decency. Him and the boys he rode with never rode into camp from up wind kicking up dust and dirt around the cooking camp. They never just walked over to the food cooking on the fire and lifted covers to see what was cooking. Hell, they never went near the food until Cookie bellered, “Chucks up!” Then they lined up, took what they needed mindful that others was hungry, too. And he never saw a man leaving food on their plate cause they took too much.
Back then there was respect around camp. The work on the trail was hard, dirty and dangerous. Men needed good solid food to keep them going, but they also needed some civility around the only homes they had on the trail in order to make for a happy camp. Dang, these boys never even got off their horses to pick up good firewood if they saw it. They was just plain disrespectful to Coosie, and by-god, he was getting twice the wages they was getting. The boss man knew a good cook was hard to come by and when you found one you paid him accordingly.
“Things has gotta change real quick or they was gonna be some hungry boys riding after cows.” Coosie fumed as he headed for his roll under the wagon. “Seems I’ve been too soft on ’em already.”
The trail boss was standing back watching. He had rode with Coosie a few years back. He had learned plenty from that old top-hand That was before Coosie was thrown and his hip twisted in the fall, making it almost impossible for him to ride a horse anymore. But Coosie loved the trail and the cowboy life.
He had some cooking experience and he learned a whole lot more on the trail. He knew how important a good meal was to a boy riding and pushing cows out of the brush and coulees all day. Now, no better cook could be found around this country. But, like all good leaders of men, the trail boss learned to read Coosie. He knew that insult was the last straw and trouble was brewing. He thought to step in, but he knew Coosie wouldn’t appreciate that. It sure wouldn’t build any respect for him from this herd of cowboys. They were going to have to learn from a hard fall and he figured that hard fall was coming right quick.
“Hitting the hay early,” he asked, walking over to where the cook was pointing the wagon tongue towards the north star so the trail boss could look at it in morning and get his directions and bearings.
“Phhhht,” Coosie said heading for his roll under the wagon.
“Set up camp on Spring Coulee tomorrow, Coose,” he went on, “and by the way, any of them biscuits left? They was good.”
Coosie just jerked his thumb towards a cold dutch oven. The boss walked over and filled his pockets with three or four, making sure to leave some for the cook.
Morning comes early to a cowboy on the trail. Not as early as for the cook who gets up about three o’clock, but plenty early just the same. And a rider needs filling if he’s to put in a day’s work. But this morning all they saw was the coffee pot on the fire. No biscuits; no beans or beef; no flapjacks, just the coffee. “Come on Coosie, you old booger, get out of that bed,” yelled one of the young boys as he kicked at the roll under the wagon, but the roll was empty.
“Were the hell is breakfast?” he yelled turning to look at the trail boss. The boss just shrugged his shoulders.
“I ain’t going out riding if I ain’t got breakfast,” he said.
The bossman took his “time” book out of his pocket and said, “Drop by the ranch for your pay when you get back,” and he started adding up the cowboy’s time. “Anybody else?”
They backed off at that remark and started heading for the remuda the wrangler was just bringing in.
Grumbling and complaining they picked out their horse for the day and saddled them. The trail boss gave them their directions for the day and headed out with them. As he rode he patted his pocket to make sure he had them biscuits. It was going to to be a long, hungry day.
“I want you to move the main bunch down closer to Spring Coulee,” The trail boss told the boys about lunch time. “T’ain’t no good going back to the old camp for lunch cause Coosie ain’t there.”
“You can’t expect us to work all day on an empty belly,” one of the riders grumbled.
“I can bring out some fixings and you can fix some vitals for yourself if any of you know how to cook,” the trail boss said.
“I’ll head down and try to find Coosie. I’ll see if I can talk him into making supper. If not then you boys are going to have to start taking turns cooking for the camp. If you don’t want to do that then I’ll give you your time and you can pick up your pay when you get back.”
“Why don’t ya hire another cook?”
“Where are you going to find another cook like Coosie?” the boss said. “Hell, I can find a dozen good cowboys to gather cattle, but I ain’t going to find a good cook in a year. You boys think on that as you’re riding this afternoon. Maybe another day riding on an empty belly or eating your own cooking might make you understand why most older cowboys has some respect around that cook wagon,” and he rode off.
Supper time comes late on the trail and the boys were pretty gaunt by the time it came about. A couple of them boys was steaming and still not willing to let their bad manners go. They saw Coosie standing by the fire when they rode into camp kicking up dust and dirt. “It’s about time you did some work you lazy sob,” one of them yelled as he headed towards the fire and the pot of food on the fire.”
Coosie stepped in front of him and beside the fire. “Boy,” he said real low and mean like. “You touch that pot and your supper will be on the ground.”
This young rider was so busy looking down on others from the hill he thought he was riding he never bothered to look above him,’til now. What he saw was “cowboy mean” in Coosie’s eyes and more “cowboy mean” in the way Coosie’s hand rested on his revolver. The boy was smart enough not to mess with it.
“You don’t ever come around this fire or the food until I beller for you,” Coosie said. “Then you come fill your plate and get away from the cook fire cause there are other hungry cowboys waiting in line.” With that he laid out the other rules of the camp they had been disrespecting. “ You don’t use my cook table to eat from; you don’t never take the last piece of anything unless you know for sure there ain’t another cowboy that ain’t ate yet, and when you’re finished eating scrape your plates and put em in the bucket. If your grabbing coffee and someone yells “Man at the pot” then serve the coffee. From now on in you tie up away from the camp and walk in, and ya walk downwind of my cook area or you don’t come near it. If you see some firewood get off your horse pick it up and bring it in and throw in into the wood pile. That ain’t gonna belittle you. You wanna eat, you use your cowboy manners and follow the rules of camp. These rules are just to give a little civility to the camp and to your lives. If you practice them manners then maybe you’ll be the cowboy you think you are. If not, learn to cook!
Yarns by Ol’ Ugly — Story #12
Gummy Johnson
Written May 31, 2024
Gummy Johnson was a neighbour of mine. We called him Gummy because he never had a tooth in his mouth. His top lip was sucked in from the lack of teeth, but his bottom lip was permanently swollen from being kicked in the mouth by a goat. My older brother says that sucked in top lip and the swollen bottom lip made him look like he’d been smoking dynamite.
They took Old Gummy’s driver’s license away from him a few years ago so he rode around town on an old moped motorcycle. That motorcycle twern’t much more than a bicycle with a sewing machine motor on it.
You’d see him driving down the road with the biggest grin on his face. It twern’t that Gummy was happy, but with no teeth his cheeks was a bit loose so the wind just pushed em back.
Gummy was built like a triangle; skinny head, fat neck, and wide on the bottom. The wide bottom part of him hung dangerously low down over the banana shaped moped motorcycle seat. When I asked Gummy if he needed training wheels to help hold up that bike, he said, he didn’t think so, but sometimes when he was going around corners he wished he had a skateboard sewed to the hind end of his pants.
One day Gummy was driving down the road on his moped and he come to a stop light. He was sitting there waiting for it to change when a shiny rebuilt 1965 Ford Mustang pulled up beside him. Tinted windows.
Gummy leaned over so his nose and bottom lip was right up against the tinted window on the passenger’s side. He was trying to see inside when the fella driving that Mustang rolled down the window. Gummy had to jump back before that window sucked his bottom lip right down into the window well.
Gummy looked in there and said, “Whoee! Look at that shiny new dash board, the leather seats and stick shift.”
The old fella driving it says, “This has a 289 engine, 3 speed stick shift.”
Gummy says, “How fast this thing go?”
The old fella says, “I betcha it can do 90 miles an hour.”
Just then the light turns green and to prove his point that old fella stomped on the gas. Burned rubber half a block and was hitting 70 miles an hour when he looked in his sideview mirror. Back, a long ways he could see this little tiny dot and it was getting bigger and bigger. Purty soon Gummy on his moped went roaring by the Ford Mustang like it was standing still.
A few seconds later Gummy came roaring back.
The old fella stomps on the gas but he sees Gummy in his sideview mirror come a-roaring up from behind him again. He couldn’t believe what’s happening. He slammed on his brakes. Gummy runs smack into the back of his Mustang.
The old boy jumped out and and runs over to Gummy who was staggering to his feet and says, ”I could hear that little engine on your moped roaring from inside my mustang.”
Gummy says, “That motor on the moped run outta gas back at them lights. What you heard was the wind slapping my bottom lip up against my eyebrows.”
The old guy says, “Can I do anything for you?”
Gummy says, “Yah. Reach over to your sideview mirror and unhook my suspenders!”
Yarns By Ol’ Ugly — Story #11
Young Cowboys Can be Boogers
Written May 15, 2024
A young fella came into Miniberries Coffee Shop. I didn’t know him, but Lonesome Larry Larsen did. He says, “That’s Boots. He works on the Lazy C Ranch.”
“What ya doing in town so early, Boots?” he asked the young cowboy.
Boots threw a toonie on the counter and grabbed a mug and poured himself a coffee from the coffee jug. He limped over and sat down. “The boss wants me to pick up a few things from the hardware store and I have an appointment at the doctors to look at my ankle.” He pushed his leg out so Lonesome Larry and I could see where his cowboy boot was scratched up and torn a bit.
“Looks like you got into some serious tangle with the barb wire.” Lonesome says.
“Not barbwire,” Boot says. “You may not believe this story, but I don’t care, I’m gonna tell you anyway. You remember them barn raisings?”
Lonesome says, “Yah, they had sort of one out there on the Bar Cross Ranch last week.”
“Yah, but we was putting up a shed, not a barn,” Boots said. “When we got it done the owner had a couple of fiddle players. We had a bit of a dance on the lawn. I seen this woman of about twenty or so that I never had seen before. She was sitting over in the corner all by herself so I went over and bowed and asked if she would dance with me. She sure did dance good. I asked her right quick if I could take her home afterward. She said that’d be okay with her.
‘Well, when we started out for her home, I went to turn right to take her into town, but she got me to turn left. She lives on the 015 Twp Rd. They got a couple of houses back in there. As we were driving along, she told me I was the first dance she had since her husband died. She said I was the first person to bring her home since then. I was a bit surprised because she couldn’t have been more than twenty-three or four.”
I said to her, ‘He must have died of an accident, did he?’
She says, “Yes, but he lived for a while afterwards.” She described what he looked like and she said she was a writer and wrote books so she was good at describing things and people.
Now out on the 015 there are three houses. Two new ones, but she took me to the older house. We went in and were sitting on the couch in her sitting room. She was showing me a book she was writing. And she said she would be right back as she wanted to make some coffee.
I was sitting there when the door to the outside opened and I thought it was her. When I looked up it was a man. By Gawd, it was a man that looked exactly like the description she gave of her dead husband.
I sat there open-mouthed and he stood just staring at me. Then he made a couple of threatening steps towards me and I threw the book at him. It went right through him. I dove over the couch and was trying to get out the open window when he grabbed by ankle. He was pulling on my boot and pulling on my leg.”
“He was pulling your leg?” Lonesome Larry asks.
“Yah, just like I’m pulling yours,” Boots says and he got up and limped over and got another coffee.
“Damn young cowboys spend too much time alone,” Lonesome Larry huffed.
Yarns By Ol’ Ugly — Story #10
The Chamber Pot
Written April 30, 2024
When doing a show, I most often stay at a hotel. I don’t like staying at people’s houses cause I figger I’m disrupting their privacy and mine. I’d rather stay in a hotel. But sometimes I ain’t got a choice. A sponsor will say I gotta stay at their house.
So after one of my shows, the richest man in the area, Mr. Schneider and his two sisters met me just off the stage. They didn’t want to hang around because Mrs. Schneider had been bedridden for the last six months and he wanted to get back home.
These were unsmiling and serious people. Long tweed dresses and jackets on the two women and he had on a three-piece suit and a little riding hat. They ushered me out to a big black limo with a chauffeur and we drove to a big stone-faced mansion with big doors. Lawdy, it looked like a mausoleum.
High ceiling and so much stone tile that even though I took off my boots at the front door, my stocking feet still echoed when I walked down the hall to my bedroom for the night.
The two women took off to their rooms and Mr. Schneider pointed out the bathroom to me, asked if I needed anything and left.
As I was undressing, I saw a stain on my wildrag; I decided to soak in water to get it out. I waited until the traffic stopped going around the bathroom. Then it became deathly quiet in that house. I sneaked to the bathroom in my underwear to soak the wildrag.
The bathroom was a big, cold, tiled room. Just the slap of my bare feet on the stone floor made it echo around the room. The bathtub was a huge affair and the sink was just a little shallow thing so I got to looking around for something to soak my kerchief.
I opened the towel cabinet and there, pushed back on the bottom shelf, was a chamber pot. A wide mouthed, metal chamber pot! A Thunder mug!! I just touched the top as I was taking it out and it rang out like the bells of Notre Dame! Even that slight touch echoed in the room.
It was heavy and smooth . . . and when I tried to put it into the bathtub to fill with water, I dropped it. Claaaaang!!! The echo of that claaaaanging bounced around the bathroom and out the door, then up and down the hall.
I dove after it, jerked the thing up in the air, but that thunder mug was slippery! It fell outta my hands onto the floor. It sounded like a thousand cowbells clanging in a funeral home.
I grabbed a towel smothered the dang thing and shoved it, towel and all, back into the cabinet. Then I opened the bathroom door just a crack to see if there was any sign of that strait laced, rich man, Mr. Schneider or his two sisters. Then I tiptoed back to my room in my underwear and closed the door.
I was standing by the door figgering any minute I was gonna be ushered out of the house and set free on the steps. Then I heard little echoes in the hall as footsteps walked by my room. Then other footsteps and groans and snorts and quick footsteps and squeaks and more snorts. I finally fell asleep around 1:00 in the morning.
I was woken up around 8:00 for breakfast.
There in the formal dining room was the two spinster sisters, Mr. Schneider, and a pale lady in a rose-coloured bed jacket.
Mr. Schneider grabbed my hand and shook it warmly. “Gad, sir,” he laughed. “This house has not heard a laugh in six months. It is the first time my wife has been down to breakfast in five months.
I looked at them two spinster sisters and they were smiling from ear to ear. “We kept
going from one room to the other in hysterical laughter.” They said, “We didn’t get to bed until 2:00 o’clock.
“Tell me, sir,” Schneider asked, “What in the name of God were you doing with that chamber pot?”
Yarns By Ol’ Ugly — Story #9
Miniberries, My Town
Written April 15, 2024
My town, Miniberries, laid out flat on the prairie, is the centre of the agricultural world in these parts. To the west is grain growing prairies; to the east is rolling hills, valleys and cattle country. That area helps nurture cattle, elk, deer and their predators.
Plenty of cattle liners haul out of them hills and plenty of grain trucks haul off the prairies and through town on their way to packing plants or elevators. It’s where them with cattle liners stop to catch up with friends with grain trucks while sorting through their mail at the post office.
It’s where the young uns send their parents to keep ‘em outta the way so they can make the decisions needed to run the ranch or farm. The older people claim they’re in town to socialize, but if you ask, they’ll tell you they’re really there because it’s time their young uns started to make their own decisions on the operation.
The old-timers are finding their place in town. They’re getting it straightened out where and when they’ll meet up. Shuffleboard in the mornings on Monday and Wednesday, Cards in the afternoon on Tuesday and Bingo on Thursday afternoon, all at the dilapidated Seniors Club. Pool at the pool room most any day. Winter curling club on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Summer golf, green fees only. Knitting club at Jennies Patterns, book club at the library, volunteers for the museum.
Now, if you’re kinda lost on where or who to see, then you can always head down to the coffee shop. It’s open from 6:00 until 4:00 every day except Sunday. The coffee crowd is there each morning from 6:00 until 10:00 or afternoons from 3:00 til near closing. My town ain’t an exciting place except at bonspiels, hockey tournaments or rodeo time. It’s a great place to live though. Plenty of older people. Hell, the average age around here is deceased. A great place to live . . . unless you’re the tooth fairy.
Yarns by Ol’ Ugly — Story #8:
Why Bother?
Written March 31, 2024
Doc Orin was going out of town for two weeks. He let his patients know he would be away and a substitute doctor would be filling in for him.
Lonesome Larry Larson, an old retired cowboy who lives at Sister Sarahs, made an appointment because he had a pain in his arm. When he got home from the doctor’s office, he was bewildered to say the least.
“What’s the problem, Larry? You got some serious health problems?” Sister Sarah asked.
“Nah,” he said. “I got down to the doctor’s office and the nurse put me in the examination room telling me the doctor would be in, in a minute.
After a while a knock came on the door. I yelled, “Come in.” A woman walked in saying, ‘I am Doctor Carol, Doc Orin’s substitute until he comes back. Take off all of your clothes.”
I asked her if she meant every stitch of my clothes.
She said, “Every stitch.”
I got undressed down to my birthday suit. She checked me over from head to toe. When she finished, she told me I had a pinched nerve in my arm and said, “Get dressed.”
Sarah said, “A pinched nerve Is not good but not a crisis.”
Larry said, “That ain’t what’s bothering me. If she was gonna ask me to take off all my clothes and then when she comes in, look me all over from top to bottom, why did she even bother to knock?”
Yarns by Ol’ Ugly — Story #7
I Changed My Mind
Written March 15, 2024
Zeke was taking a mid-morning break at the coffee shop. “I don’t need a fella I have to get after every few minutes of the day to get anything done.” Zeke said when he told the boys he was looking for some part time help and given a few names he recognized as slackers. “The missus wants the root cellar cleaned up and a few other things done. She is getting excited for spring.”
“We still have a few months of wintery weather around here,” Jenkins, a handyman in around Miniberries, said, “Tell her not to get too excited about that.”
“Ha!” Charlie, a transplanted city boy in the area, laughed, “I remember getting a warm day around this time of the year when we were younger. We had spring fever to no end. Not a girl within a mile was safe from us,”
“Some of the people you suggested to me to come work don’t need no girls to get spring fever,” Zeke said. “All they need is a place to hide and show up to get their pay cheque.”
Charlie says, “It is best you hire a married man for your job.”
“Why do you say that?” Zeke asked.
“From my experience as an employer I found married men do not get as upset when you yell at them.”
Sister Sarah piped up, “Charlie, when I was married many years ago, I left him because he yelled at me. Another reason is that he kept saying, “I’ve changed my mind,” just as we were going to go out. The last time he said he changed his mind I asked him if this new mind he had worked any better than the other one.”
She looked at Zeke, “You have two men right here, Jenkins and Charlie who do handyman work for a living. You know they are great workers, Pick one.”
“Well Jenkins is working building a wall for the school and Charlie is putting plumbing into a new house near the highway. They ain’t available.”
“I’ll be finished that wall about 11:00,” Jenkins said. “I’ll be able to help this afternoon.”
“Good, I’ll get it for free,” Zeke said. “I’ve changed my mind,” said Jenkins
Yarns by Ol’ Ugly — Story #6
Messing With the Mule
Written February 29th, 2024
Outside of Miniberries is a small corn farm run by Pal, a younger man of seventy-five, but owned by his older sister, Sister Sarah. One day Pal walked into his house with his hat in his hand and scratches on his bald head. I was visiting and Sister Sarah had told me they had a banty rooster that was hell on wheels. “Cantankerous, bad-tempered and twern’t afraid of nothing.” The only reason it was still alive is because Pal couldn’t catch it.
One of its favorite tricks was to wait around the barn until Pal walked in and then fly at him. It’d scare Pal near to death until he realized it was the rooster. By that time, the rooster had run off into the field.
Sister Sarah was so scared of it she took to carrying a broom when she went to collect eggs. The rooster must have thought it was protecting the hens. It never bothered me when I visited so I had no concerns.
Then the rooster started to harass the horses. It seemed to know if Pal was either riding or leading one then he’d run at the horse’s hind legs. The horse would get all riled up and start bucking and kicking. They almost dumped Pal a time or two, and one time almost run him over. Sister Sara said, “I’d hear Pal cussing and swearing and could see where he was just from the steam rising.”
Now, Pal had bought an old light-coloured mule for the petting zoo he was planning on building. He would ride it every once in a while, to keep it in shape. He wasn’t paying a lot of attention one time when he climbed on its back to ride it out to forage in the field. I was visiting and could see the old banty by the barn. It was almost like it was waiting, timing it just right to make the biggest impact on the mule and Pal.
Just as the mule and Pal went by the edge of the barn, that banty ran at the mule’s hind legs. The rooster misjudged though, the mule didn’t. It booted the rooster against the barn wall.
Sister Sarah said she had that rooster in the slow cooker for near eight hours and it was still tough as leather.
Yarns by Ol’ Ugly — Story #5:
Snaky Seniors
Written February 15th, 2024
It ain’t no secret that land around Medicine Hat has the odd rattlesnake. Pison Bill hunts them for a laboratory. Seems they use them for their venom. He loves to talk about his job, especially if he has had a snort or two. As a matter of fact, he loves his snort or more of his hooch more than anything.
The Seniors Club in Miniberries was having a show at their hall and had set out about fifty chairs facing the stage because a fella from the big city was coming out to do a comedy show for the seniors. Sister Sarah, Lonesome Larry Larson, Preacher Kirkman and Mable was all there with about fifty other seniors. They was all anticipatin’ a good night, but the comedian never did show up.
Pison Bil did though. He had just enough sips from his hidden bottle to think he was funny. He got up in front of the audience to tell a funny story about his work. “A few of you folks know I drink,” he said. “Well, one time I got drunk and they threw me out of the bar. That made me mad. So I went out to the back of my truck where I had a burlap sack of rattlesnakes I had caught for the laboratory. Some of those snakes were four feet long,” he said. “Big poison filled fangs almost hanging off their wide-open mouths. They were writhing and squirming and making that big old sack jump around in my hand as I dragged it along behind me.”
The eyes of the seniors were getting bigger and bigger at Pison Bill’s description of those rattlers. There was a shiver on a few.
“I took them into the bar and before the bartender could throw me out again,” he laughed, “I opened the sack and flung the rattlesnakes all over the floor.” When he said that he made the motion of flinging them rattlesnakes out into the audience.
The first row of seniors jumped back, chairs and all, some tipping backwards. The second row saw the chairs coming and tried to jump back. The domino effect was something to behold from the stage.
The tangled mass of older people squirming and kicking and cussing and swearing, trying to untangle themselves from the pile of other seniors was made even funnier when Mable finally struggled out from underneath a couple of old men. She climbed to her feet with her flowery old hat hanging down over one eye and yelled, “Lordy, Sister Sarah. that was the closest I’ve been to a man in twenty-five years!!” That pretty well shut down the show and got Pison Bill banned from the Seniors Club.
Yarns by Ol’ Ugly — Story #4
An Ill Wind Blows Larry No Good
After me and Lonesome Larry Larson battled the winds and the logs while cutting firewood this morning, the porch light came on at Sister Sarah’s to tell us breakfast was on.
I ain’t very tall, but I got some weight on me. The wind only rocked me a bit. It was different for Lonesome Larry who ain’t nothing but skin, bone and mouth. He was staggering around and having a heck of a time. Any time he opened his mouth to say sumthin’, that wind would get in there and make the sound of a moaning tuba. He shut up.
We all sat down to Sister Sarah’s breakfast table. By now Lonesome Larry has got a worse need to talk. He twern’t able to say nothing outside so he was bound to make it up when we got in outta the wind.
Sister Sarah says to Larry, “You say Grace.”
Larry looked at me and at her. Then he closed his eyes and says, “Lawdy, I thank you for this wonderful meal Sarah has made for us this morning, but I ain’t thanking you for that damn wind outside.”
Sister Sarah glared at him across the table. I hunkered down, waiting for the explosion. None came. Sarah has been trying to get Lonesome Larry into church and I guess she figgered she wouldn’t succeed by getting’ mad. All she suggested was, “You should really start attending church, Larry,”
Lonesome Larry, “I don’t gotta go to church. I get enough sleep at home.”
Sarah says, “Well, Preacher Kirkman would like to see you in church.”
Larry says, “Well that’s about the only place that Abernathy would like to see me. He sure don’t like seeing me in some of the places I seen him.”
I was starting to get a kick outta Larry’s smart alec comment knowing full well Sister Sarah was gonna get him. But she twern’t in the fightin’ mood this morning. “Larry, it is about time you started taking the straight and narrow. It isn’t long before you will be called home. Which He do you want calling you?”
“The worst thing about taking the straight and narrow path you’re talking about,” Larry says, “is that I’d never meet nobody I know.”
“Well, the path you have worn, Old Friend,” Sister Sarah snapped, “is pretty deep and narrow. The only place that path is going to lead you is to hell in a down escalator.” With that she stomped outta that kitchen door leaving me and Lonesome Larry sitting alone at the table. She was thinkin’, “Too much mouth and not enough wind to blow it away!”
Lonesome Larry points at Sister Sarah’s plate and says, “Is she gonna eat her bacon?”
Sister Sarah was close enough by and cross enough inside to hear that. Back in she marched, took his breakfast plate and dumped it in his lap. Then she yelled, “After you clean up that mess, go home!” She glared at me for snickering at Larry’s smart talk.
Real quick me and Larry No-Good stepped onto that straight and narrow path she was talking about.
Yarns by Ol’ Ugly — Story #3
Protecting His Food Source
Outside Miniberries is a small corn farm run by Pal, a younger man of seventy-five, but owned by his maiden aunt Sister Sarah. Now Sister Sarah is a cook of wonder. Her meals are fit for the saints. She has a long, long, long time boyfriend, Lost Larry Larsen, so called because he is lost in thought most days. The only time he doesn’t seem to be lost is at meal time. He knows the whereabouts of Sister Sarah’s kitchen table.
Preacher Kirkman, another old timer in the community seems to have been given the same sort of smeller as old Lost Larry Larsen. They can both smell a chicken and dumpling stew even if they’re standing in a feed lot. The Preacher seems to have been sauntering by about suppertime more times than Lost Larry figgered he should.
Sister Sarah is from the old school as far as unexpected guests are concerned. Mix up a batch of hand squished biscuits, throw on a couple more potatoes, order her nephew, Pal, to say the good word so Grace is kept short and then serve the stew plenty hot.
Now Lost Larry ain’t a very religious man. Don’t get me wrong, he’s as Christian as anybody is who works with big animals. He’ll tell you, though, he ain’t gone to church since the deacon told him he was cheap around the collection plate. Lost Larry often says, “I am what the Good Lord made me. He may not be happy with his makings, but I’m damn happy to be living with His mistakes.”
The Preacher, on the other hand, is very pious when in polite company. But, having been a bachelor all his life, he does know a raunchy tale for the boys. Lost Larry knows this, but the Preacher was putting on his most pious veneer in order to look good for Sister Sarah. After all the Preacher ain’t a young man and Sister Sarah’s housekeeping and cooking can look purty dang good to a lonely, always hungry, man.
There was talk around the table about a scam going around in town. The undertaker seemed to have been involved and the Preacher sure was making his objections known on it. “No man should ever profit on the grave of another.”
Lost Larry, being a bit leery of the Preacher’s competition to Sister Sarah’s free meals and occasional hugs, was looking for a way to make the Preacher look a little less lofty in Sister Sarah’s eyes. He says to Preacher Kirkman, “So you don’ think a fella should profit from another man’s mistakes?”
Preacher Kirkman scooped up another hot dipping biscuit, slathered it with butter, chewed around it for a second and says, “I certainly do not.”
Lost Larry says, “Well do you mind giving me back that $15 I gave you twenty years ago for marrying me and my third wife?”
The preacher looks at Larry and frowns. “Or,” Larry went on a bit louder to make sure Sister Sarah heard, “How about that $5 that you cheated me outta in that game of poker?” He laughed at the startled look on Preacher Kirkman’s face.
Sister Sarah just ignored the foolish talk, but the Preacher glanced her way and saw she was within hearing distance by the stove. He leaned closer so just Lost Larry could hear. “My friend if you die before me, you will never have to worry about the grass on your grave being watered. You best hope I do not eat too much salt.”
Yarns by Ol’ Ugly — Story #2
The Making of a Respectable Pair of Boots
Staggering Stan saw a brand-new pair of snake-skinned cowboy’s boots in the New-to- You Store. They was light yellow, high heeled, pointy toed and near knee high. He sure always wanted a pair like that so he bought ‘em. Wore them into the Pakowki Brewery and Pool Hall to show ’em off to the cowboys who often stopped in for a pint or six and a game of pool. Clomped right in wearing them stove-tops so the boys would admire ‘em.
When the boys saw Staggering Stan’s big ole boots, they started wondering full out loud what drugstore he just came out of. “Did they give you a cherry for your Shirley Temple ice cream float where you bought them boots, Stan?” they laughed. “How about a whistle and string for your cowboy hat?” They near laughed themselves sick pointing at his fancy boots.
Staggering Stan was put out. Went stomping off in his shiny new boots and was walking down by Pakowki Lake. But he got a little too close to the water and sunk into the mud. The more he struggled the deeper into the mud he sank. Soon he was up to his knees.
It is a terrible thing when a feller gets stuck in the mud and can’t move. The worst thing about it was that Stan was facing the alkali water and could see nothing but the lake. Nothing and nobody was around him. He tried to get out but all that done was make him sink farther into that wet mud.
He started to holler for some help. The Pakowki district has got a population of seventeen including horses, pigs and a cross-eyes goose who thinks it is flying south when really it is flying in circles.
It so happened that Fulsome Tankard was heading home from the Etzikom International Roping Championship. It has become world famous because it is the only beer roping contest that has a buckle and a keg of beer for a prize.
The contest consists of the Etzikom Brewery setting up a glass of beer and the contestants swinging their lariats and try to settle their loop around the beer mug without touching it. It is judged very scientifically because cameras and vidoes are placed all around and over the table to make sure nobody touches the mug with their loop. The first mug attempt whittles out the pikers that shouldn’t be there in their first place. The next contestants try to settle their loop over two mugs and then three and so forth until one contestant remains. The record throw has been forty-three mugs won back in 1986 by Cockeyed Willie Gunderton from South Dakota who used the famous Gunderton side throw.
Willie later on confessed to trying to throw the loop over the bar maid who had been setting up the mugs of beer and now standing on the other side of the brewery. He hadn’t known he won until they pushed a beer barrel buckle into his hands and a keg of beer into the back of his truck.
Anyway, that was where Fulsome was coming home from after missing his first throw at the brewery. He heard Staggering Stan yelling and saw him stuck in the mud.
Well, Fulsome had been practicing as he rode along and figgered to just give it a try again. He flicked his lariat out and, by gol, he snagged Stan as slick as calf slobber. “Holt on”, he had yelled and dallied his rope on his saddle horn and his horse pulled Stan bootless out of the mud.
Fulsome hauled in his rope and carried on home before Staggering Stan could get his breath back and turn to see who had saved him. He never did find out.
Now the story goes that months later at that very same spot, the ground heaved a bit there and those boots wiggled their way to the surface. Staggering Stan came riding along and saw two mounds at the very spot he had sunk the Fall before. He investigated and there, right there, where the alkali lake had tried to swallow him up stood his two cowboy boots. His boots no longer looked fancy store bought, but well-used like a real cowboy had wore them.
The next time he went into the Pakowki Brewery and Pool Hall the boys was again in there with their pints and pool cues in hand. Stan never had his stove-topped boots outside this time, but covered with his old jeans. As he stood at the bar watching the game of pool, one of the boys came over and nudged him. “Where’d you get them boots, Stan? They look like they sure took a beating and come back to do a day’s work.” He reached down and lifted Stan’s pant leg to view them boots. “High enough to make ’em snake proof, too. I need to get me a pair. Hey boys look at the boots Stan got. “
Now, that is the way to make cowboy boots respectable.
Yarns by Ol’ Ugly — Story #1
Staggering Stan’s Pain
Staggering Stan was having an even more terrible time walking than usual. It pained him to no end. If he turned, it pained and if he stepped out, it pained. It became so bad he hitched a ride to Medicine Hat to see Doc Foster.
Now Staggering Stan from Pakowki Lake never got his name because he drank. He got it because he did drink in his younger days. Homemade hard liquor was his beast of burden until he mixed some with the waters of the lake and gulped it down. It twern’t until the last swaller that he realized that it had that horrible taste of alkali. It was potent though. Stan was drunk for a week. From that day on he had a slight stagger.
Doctor Seemore in Medicine Hat saw Stan limping sideways and then hobble slowly up the three stairs to his office. He came in, dropped down on a chair in the waiting room, and grunted.
“You had better come right on into my office,” Doc Seemore said to Staggering Stan. Doc was the town’s eye doctor, but Stan never noticed it because he never had his glasses on.
Doc said, “Just stand here. I have to get a second opinion from the doctor next door..”
A few minutes later Doc Foster came in and the two doctors looked over Stan and both had a smile on their face.
“What seems to be your problem?” Doc Seeman asked.
Stan grunted, “Doc, I got the worstest pain in my lower body you ain’t never seen.”
“Speaking of seeing,” Doc Foster asked, “Where are your glasses?”
“I left them on the night stand when I got up. I usually put them on after I get my teeth in ’cause I can’t stand to see a man with his gums hanging out.”
Doc Seeman said, “Stan, turn towards my desk and bend over and touch my desk.”
Staggering Stan got about half bent and was grunting and owwing pretty loud.
Doc Foster said, “You had best stand straight up, Stan.”
Stan did but he was groaning something terrible.
Doc Seeman walked up behind Stan, unbuttoned the back of his suspenders and let them drop to the floor.
Stan moaned, “Oh, that feels so much better. What did you do?”
Doc Foster said, “Stan, it might help if you wore the glasses Doc Seeman gave you before you put your trousers on in the morning. You had your suspenders twisted up between your legs!”
