Hat Tips

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!

I hope yours went as well as mine. Well, I’m writing this the week before Christmas, so I’m just figuring that mine went well.

Over the years, Christmas has gotten easier. I think that year I bought Shirley the “Buttmaster” was the low point of our marriage! Suzanne Sommers made it sound like it would be the perfect gift. I guess maybe Suzanne wasn’t married to an Irish woman.

Oh, if I could just write well enough to describe the look on her face as she tore the wrapping open on that last gift under the tree…..I tell you what. I don’t know how it worked. By the time I got it unwrapped from around my neck, it was pretty well used up and I had to just toss it in the garbage. I don’t really know if it does reduce your derriere, but I do know that I lost weight. Eating through a straw for a month has a tendency to cause weight loss.

There have been other gifts. I remember when I gave Shirley “Charlie” for a birthday. He was a good-looking sorrel gelding from Hansen’s King stud. “Charlie” later became the bareback bucking horse of the year in the state of North Dakota. Really! Now that is the kind of saddle horse that keeps on giving. She still thinks I bought her a bucking horse on purpose.

The bred heifers I bought in Mobridge seemed like a nice gift for a ranch wife. I didn’t wrap them up or anything. But I did offer to pay half the trucking. They were ultra sounded and synchronized and everything. She would only have to get up at night for about two weeks. To tell the truth, she did love the heifers and they are still some of our best cows.

I’ve tried Carhart coveralls. That woman looks great in Carhart’s. When you are looking out the window of the cab of the tractor, while she is running the gates, there is nothing that looks better than a warm, comfortable wife. With the wind whipping through the yard and you are listening to Christmas carols on the radio in the tractor, you appreciate the coveralls you bought her. And the accessories that you can buy are unmatched.

I’ve bought her Handy Andy gloves, long underwear, a catch rope, and a calf puller. I’ve bought her a bottle of Jack, a case of Bud, and real buffalo jerky. I’ve brought home the used pinochle cards from the Legion and even calendars from the local beer distributor. Each year she smiles and beams and tells me how great I am and how I shouldn’t give her anything.

Hint to self. And I guess to others too. When someone says they don’t want anything, don’t believe that.

Anyway, I am going to cut this article a little short. Cause I am going to go Christmas shopping. I might stop by and play a game of cards, but I will not be gone for two or three days. Then again… You never know.

But I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! From Shirley and I to all of you… Merry Christmas!

Dean