Every so often we find a piece of gold at our annual Book Sale. For many of you out there, you have never heard of Baxter Black. But if you’ve ever wrangled a cow or horse, or even a pig, sheep or goat, his stories often ring true to life. We found a few memorable pieces in a Baxter Black book that will make sense to those who grew up in Cowboy Time. Hopefully you can find the humor Baxter Black prescribed in his dose of best medicine with the wit of a salty sagebrush Shakespeare.
‘January, February, MUD” March comes in like a lion and goes out like a flatbed full of wet carpet. The most I can say about March is, it is a month of change. If March were a person, it would be an old man, cracked and weathered and cantankerous. Occasionally bearable but bent on maintaining his reputation for orneriness. The kid that won’t turn up his hearing aid or zip his fly.
In the Deep South, March is pleasant. Matter of fact they even look forward to it. But for most of cow country, the Deep South might as well be on the back side of the moon, The March rain up here is not a gentle, life-giving shower from Heaven to be savored and sniffed. It’s more like the angels hosing out their hog-confinement shed!
And the gentle breezes that whisper through the Houston pine trees aren’t even a distant relative to the steady, bone-chilling twenty-mile-an-hour wind that whistles across eastern Idaho.
Even the word March is harsh and conjures up a tough, unforgiving image. Not like light and airy April or comfortable, short February. If I was asked to rename March, I would call it Mud. January, February, Mud… Mud 7, 1992… the Ides of Mud. Doesn’t sound much different, does it?
Mud is a busy time of the year: feedlots are full, calvin’ has started, and the lambin’ crew is getting the jugs ready. Cowboys are still wearin’ their winter long johns and five-buckle overshoes. It’s too soon to take the mud and snows off the pickup. The days are getting’ longer but nobody knows why.
The horses still have their hairy side out. It is usually the last month you can stick a tractor up to the axle. What most people do in March is look forward to April. Well, one good thing about this miserable wind is it’ll help dry up the mud. We’ll be able to get into the field next month. The bulk of the calvin’ will be over in three or four weeks. It seems I ought to have somethin’ good to say about March. It’s good and cold, good and windy, and good and long. Is that good enough? I only knew one cowman who liked March: McQuilken. He said when it was over at least he still wouldn’t have the whole winter to go through. He was just glad it didn’t come in November!
Do you wonder what to call people or things nowadays? With all the Political Correctness these days, you never quite know what to say. We open our mouths and words we used to say are now Forbidden! All that ‘Political Correctness’ seems to be getting more and more confusing. So here is a bit of Political Correctness in the Animal Kingdom straight from Baxter Black: I have conferred with those fervent homogenizers of the once-colorful and descriptive English language to formulate the following list:
Stray Dog: Both words are unacceptable. They imply that a four-legged mongrel is subsisting as a vagrant. We have chosen the term Misdirected Wagamorph.
Mustang: “Definitely out! Associated too much with a greedy automotive corporation. We are going to protect them into extinction. They shall henceforth be called Adoptable Equine Derivatives.
Killer Whales: Need I say more? The name suggests that these beautiful creatures would rather kill and eat living things than down a kelp burger in the shape of a baby seal. We’re calling them the Masked Cetacea.
Fat Steers: Entirely out. No slur shall be made about their weight or their sexual predicament. Each cattle buyer will now deal in Ready Edibles. No, that won’t work either, can’t mention bulls. How ‘bout Ripened Ruminants?
Quarter horse: No chance. The hypersensitive could interpret that to mean he’s three-quarters something else. I’ve coined the term Dollar Horse.
Polled Hereford: Come on, now! Wouldn’t it be less discriminatory to rename them the Unhorned Himherford?
Too many of our creatures were named by that original chauvinist, Adam, with unconscious patronizing to sex, gender, race, religion, size, handicap, mental state, congenital deformity, or odd behavior.
Consider how insensitive we are to call something a nanny goat, a laying hen, a preying mantis, a peafowl, a woodpecker, a short-nosed sucker, or a turkey. I admit I’ve been called a turkey, but I thought it was a step up from a dodo.
But if we are truly worried about the Political Correctness fad, what are we gonna call a cowboy? A Two-Legged Ungulate Overperson? Why not? “Git along, little Disenfranchised Mobile Nurture Seeder.”
Hopefully Baxter Black has cleared up a few things for you and offered you a bit of humor to get through March – O! I mean MUD!!