Hat Tips

Hello,

You know, I am not a real big radio person. Oh, I listen to the markets, maybe listen to the news once a day, catch part of a ball game once in awhile, but mostly I just drive and think. Don’t ask me what I think about. I can’t recall most of the time.

When I was a hotshot driver I could go to Houston and back and maybe listen to the radio an hour a day. Get the morning news, catch the game scores, and listen to a song or two. Sometimes I can get public radio and let classical music play while my mind drifts, but that’s about it. And I often listen to audiobooks if it is, or was, a long drive. I do remember driving to Houston and back listening to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. Had to sit in the yard when I got home for one half hour to hear the end.

So, when I tell you I don’t know who sings the song, or what the title to the song is, you will believe me. It has a line in it, “I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was”. I tell you what, truer words were never spoken.

I’m starting to gather cattle on the reservation. I had a friend who was trail riding in the Black Hills this weekend. He commented that he had just ridden Hell’s Canyon or something like that. A two-hour ride. I posted that if I rode two hours; I had better be following a bunch of cows. And that is the truth.

Forty or fifty years ago, I would feed horses at three in the morning, be loaded up before daylight, and be horseback as soon as you could see your horses ears in front of you. You would ride all day, and most likely unsaddle in the dark that night, and start all over the next morning on a fresh horse.

Now I still get up about three. I have to go to the bathroom. Make coffee at four. Check the news and my bank account. Make a couple of phone calls, have breakfast, make more coffee, feed the horses, go to the bathroom, load up, drive for an hour, ride for an hour, and try to be back home for happy hour. Isn’t this a wonderful country?

Yesterday Shirley and I started fall roundup. We set the corrals up, drove around and found a few cows that looked like they would be easy to gather. Although she was on a four-wheeler and not a horse because of a bad knee (hers, not the horse), she is still pretty dang good at being at the right place at the right time!

She says I have to get someone else to help me. No way, not until I find someone else that can be there at the right time. I’m not as good as I used to be.

Later, Dean