I Think Ol' Hoss Is Getting Silly

I know some more things about me that you don't:

36. In another life I was the Grand Duke of Luxumbourg. When I tried to cash in, I was only worth half a grand. This is why I always vote against phony titles.

37. When I was a kid, one of my uncles made root beer at a family reunion. It was the best root beer ever concocted. I don't have the recipe, unfortunately. It would be an easy way to Make My Pile.

38. When I worked as a reporter in Yakima, Wash., I asked my boss if I could do a series of stories about all the gambling in the county. He asked the Big Boss, and the Big Boss said "no." Turned out he was involved in a high stakes poker game. So I quit that job and went to work in California. I didn't find any crooks there, so I just went ahead and exposed myself.

39. At Willamette University, I was elected president of a sophomore class honorary society at its first meeting. It was also our last meeting. This is why I always vote against meetings.

40. When I was in high school, I was editor of the school newspaper. One thing that caught my eye was that Phil Gillis was always taking girlfriends away from Freddie Meyers. So I write in my column, "A new nickname has been born. You may now refer to this lad as Freddie 'Is Gillis Kissing Her Now?' Meyers." Freddie kicked my ass.

41. My mother named me Lowell after a city in Massachusetts, and Eugene after a city in Oregon. I wish she had let me do it. I woulda picked cities in Iowa and Michigan: Dubuque Kalamazoo Maudlin has a nice sound to it. Or I coulda got first and middle names from just one city in Washington. I coulda been Walla Walla Maudlin. St. Augustine works good, too.

+ + + + + + + +

My favorite word today is merkin.*

+ + + + + + + +

One of my fellow piece writers is a young lad calls hisself Cananopie. On Tuesday he directed his readers to a site where some folks are planning a convention on time traveling. In a FAQ section was this:

"I'm from the present and I'd like to attend, but I can't."

"No worries. If time travel is invented in your lifetime, you can always come later."

+ + + + + + + +

Hoss has been wondering:

If I get a tatoo of a naked woman on my chest, are the silicone implants an extra?

+ + + + + + + +

*"Merkin" is George W. Bush's pronounciation of "American." It also is a pubic wig, as in the 1964 movie "Dr. Strangelove," where the President was named Merkin Muffley.