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Mick and Corey are my ranch partners. They have been up in Missouri for the last two weeks scoutin’ for our new home. I thought I’d post a “blog/diary” entry Mick sent of their adventure in the Ozarks… GRIN Hope ya’ll enjoy it… Almost home…well, almost back to Don and the critters. Corey and I have been in the Ozarks for the last couple of weeks. I think that’s gonna be our new home. Parts of that area are astoundingly beautiful. The raw and primal beauty of the places we visited took our breath away, at times. I feel the need to get far from civilization and my imagination had us establishing our “off the grid” new homestead in places like Alaska or Montana… but the reality is I’m middle-aged and I have no business trotting myself off to areas that get snowed in for several months each year or where I’m likely to get my arse whooped by a grizzly bear for invading his territory. The Ozarks have only the occasional black bear who, as long as she doesn’t have cubs tagging along, is less likely to be grumpy about me stumbling through her woods. Speaking of bears…(warning: inconsequential hyperlinking of redhead brain files where one thought leads to another and another until it hits a 404 error.) Did you watch the television special on that guy who went to Alaska to be “One” with the grizzlies? Oh my good GAWD. This city fella went to a remote part of Alaska that was Main Street for grizzlies… set up his tent and went about being totally annoying to the large population of those bears. The scene that had my mouth hanging open was where he witnessed a mating ritual fight between two males for the affections of a female bear. And THEN he sat down about fifteen feet from the losing male and tried to console him with, “I’ve been there too, man” sort of dialogue. A Grown Male Magnificent Grizzly Flippin’ You Look Like Food to Me BEAR!… and right after the bear realized he wasn’t going to get LAID… The stupidity of humans never ceases to astound, does it? We invade an animal’s home and then expect them to behave as if we weren’t being total jerks or as if the bears were stray dogs in need of a home… After a while, the bears had enough of his southern California…DUDE!…attitude…and did what he seemed to be asking for…The saddest thing was he got his girl-friend killed as well. The Ozarks is Rocky Mountain Lite. Still wild enough to answer that need in me for freedom but less likely to get me in trouble, when I have an attack of “The Stupids”. And the people in those small towns…Everyone we met with one possible exception was kind, pleasant, down to earth good people. The exception wasn’t really grumpy and it was mostly Corey’s fault. He was trying to get out of the parking lot of a small shopping area and had cut-off this farmer in his pickup truck a couple of times and when Corey won the male NASCAR race to the stop sign…well,…the ‘ole farmer gave Corey the single digit salute. I thought it was hysterical. They love my southern/Texan way of speaking, too. In a restaurant, I asked: “Darlin’, could I bother ya’ll for some salt?”…and the waitress got this grin on her face and a twinkle in her eye and she brought me salt and pepper and ketchup and sugar and anything she could think of just to get me to talk again. They don’t get Texas humor, though. Corey and I had been kidding around all day and he can drive me crazy with sarcastic humor. We found a Radio Shack to buy me a headset so I could listen to my music without him complaining and by the time we got there, I was just about ready to bruise him. So, I jumped from the truck and flew into the store and raced right up to the man at the counter and said: “Sir, do ya’ll sell guns here?” Anyone from small town Texas knows that’s a joke, and they’ll play along by asking if I want a rifle or a pistol, but this was very small town Missouri… and the poor man got this startled/terrified/they don’t TEACH me how to handle this in the Radio Shack Manual for Managers…look to his face. “No, ma’am…we don’t sell guns here.” I realized how badly I’d frightened the poor guy and as Corey was entering the store I pointed to him and said: “Well how ‘bout knives then, because THIS man is driving me crazy and I think I can legally kill him for it.” The man took a deep breath and relaxed and began to play along by offering me his tiny pocketknife. Man…I felt so bad. The poor thing. I’ll have to remember that someone who comes from an area where cowboys still ride their favorite horse to the tavern on Friday night (because drunk riding is safer than drunk driving and beside, they can’t leave their best bud at home in the barn) has humor references that other parts of the country don’t understand. Anyway, it was a great trip full of adventures like racing ahead of tornadoes and floods and getting mud all over my truck, oh my. If you’ve never seen the Ozarks, do yourself a favor and go. Just don’t move there ‘cause I don’t want all you city folks mucking up the place permanent like. Menopausal Mick http://www.banderacowboycapital.com/
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