HAT TIPS

Hello,

I’m not a real good fencer. You can ask my neighbors. But yesterday I was forced to build a quarter mile of four barbed-wire fence. It happened because on Saturday evening, I was rudely taken from a pinochle game to get cattle off the road. And Shirley wasn’t home to get them in.

So yesterday morning, we went to fencing. We being Shirley and I. There is nothing more attractive to me than a woman wearing Carhartt Overalls, a Scotch cap, and leather gloves, with a fencing plier in her hand. Gorgeous. I mean it’s not Victoria’s Secret, but dang, she can put those clips on those steel posts!

And fencing gives you a lot of time to think. I don’t care if it is a new fence, or repairing old fence. You can really contemplate the decisions you have made in your life, that give you the opportunity to still be fencing when your friends are retired and have gone south for the winter.

But yesterday my thoughts drifted to Ben. Ben Franklin. One of our Founding Fathers, who was a genius. He discovered electricity. He invented hundreds of wonderful things. He started the first fire department. The first public library. He was ambassador to different countries in Europe. And then, as if to make up for all the good he had done in his life, he came up with the idea of daylight savings time. To me, that is a dark blemish on a stellar life.

I will guarantee you one thing. If I am ever elected governor, or president, I will do away with the switching of time. I don’t care if we are on standard time, or daylight time. But we will stay on one time. Uncle Hugh was that way. When riding roundups, we had fast time, slow time, and Uncle Hugh time. He never changed his time. He didn’t care if you set your clock ahead or back. His stayed on course. The cows didn’t change theirs, so he didn’t change his.

Shirley hates the change to. Because I just can’t let it go. You see, I am pretty much an early morning guy. I don’t mind getting up at four or five in the morning. But, unless the cards are really running good, I am early to bed. Really early. I can honestly say that I haven’t watched the nine o’clock news more than a handful of times in my life.

So now, when Shirley says, “You can’t go to bed yet! It’s only ten to seven.” I will reply that, “Really, it is eight.”

And when I get up at four and start rattling around the kitchen and turn the TV up she will awake from her slumber and holler, “It is only four o’clock in the morning! Go back to bed.”

And I will respond with, “Actually, it is really five o’clock.”

This will go on for four months. Until I finally adjust. Then the time will change again. And once again. I enter the twilight zone. I have to quit here. This article has to be to the paper by seven, which is really eight.

Later, Dean