My Kingdom for a Horsemeat

I suppose you know all about my plan to be reincarnated. Howsomeever, since I ain't done this before, I wonder if they is some trick to it. Do you have to know somebody? Any palms gotta be greased? Votes bought and sold?

If all it takes is money, that will be no problem. See, what I have done is I have bought me a horsemeat franchise. Lots of money in horsemeat. I hear that's what the dark chicken is in many Chinese restaurants. Rumor is that horsemeat is the tuna that's in a lot of Thai restaurants.

And the neat thing is, you can make horsemeat out of dogs. People who would eat horsemeat aren't very discriminating, so they don't care. The beef in lots of Vietnamese restaurants is dog, but the customers are happy because they think it's horsemeat.

When I return from my slow, painful death, I will have a major choice to make. Do I want to come back as a famous person (Ozzie Nelson)? A famous fish (Flipper)? Or a famous fish (Prince Charles)?

I have borrowed from the library a book with all named professions; maybe there's something in there I can use. These professions range from Aardvark Killer to Zorroing. Zorroing is where you go around slashing Z's on doors, walls and people's chests. This has some appeal.

Maybe I should come back as Mark Twain. I'll bet he could get a laugh out of a scientist joke.

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I hear the Amish have taken over a town in Eastern Oregon, and they plan to close the zipper factory. (Close the zipper factory!! Get it??!!) Scientists have put this in the category of "too bad."

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I must share this with you from Chris:

"You know you are addicted to blogging:

"--When you have consoled yourself after a horrible day by thinking, 'At least this will make a great blog post.'

"--When you have written posts to notify people you're going to sleep now."

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My favorite word today is despair. n., from starry spangled banners. Def.: When you come to the anthem part that says "rockets' red glare," the high note is beyond you, and you have to shift octaves.

Revising Ezekiel

Yesterday I got cornered by The Home's history buff, Feelgood Haines.

"Hoss," says Mr. Haines, "knowin' you're such an irreligious nut, I thought it my bounden duty to square you away on that Ezekiel fella who had such a big role in the Old Testimony." My eyes got gauze over 'em, which Feelgood took as a sign to continue. This is the story he told:

All this business about seeing stuff took place when Ezekiel was camped out in Tornado Alley, probably in Kansas. Kansas has been flattened so often by tornados that it is the only completely flat state in the world. Their corn is bigger than their highest mountain.

One day this powerful wind and lightning storm hit right above old Zeke, and lo the behold he saw these weirdos coming out of the sky. There were four of them and they looked sorta human but they had four faces -- the faces of a man, an eagle, an ox and a lion. Hoo boy, talk about eyes in the back of your head!

Zeke says to himself, well, this makes sense: you got the face of a man representing intelligence, the face of an eagle for vision, the face of an ox for strength, and the face of a lion for....well, hell....maybe you don't need that one. I don't know what it's for.

Zeke said he also saw a wheel within a wheel, and they was both turnin'. He described this to some Japanese later on and they made a fortune on toy gyroscopes.

What were those guys up to? Zeke asked one, whose name was Chester.

"Chester," Zeke said, "what in thunder and tarnation are you cats doin'?"

"Well," Chester replied, "somebody told us to get into the wheatfields and make some crop circles, but we're all squares. Maybe we'll just do a few swastikas, sacrifice some cows, and head on in to Wichita for breakfast."

"Well," Ezekiel said, "amen to that."

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Yesterday I wrote how some people would walk into Oxygen Holes and die for lack of air. Then I said, Scientists put this in the category of "too bad."

Nobody laughed. I guess I should have said: Scientists put this in the category of "unlucky."

I don't know if that's any funnier. Maybe you people need to get the knots outta your funny bone.

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My favorite word today is evidence. n., from Old Greek word for "play." Def.: The abrasions on knees and elbows formed from the compulsion to make love on cheap sheets.

Doing What Comes Naturally: Dying

The Administrator of this here Home for Old Soiled People was kind to point out a website that "predicts" when you're going to die. She knows how morbidly curious we are about gettin' on The Last Roundup.

According to this site, I am already dead, which is good news because I have avoided a lot of pain. I clicked on Death Clock, entered my birthdate, height, weight, etc., and The Clock said I will die March 26, 2001. If there was an obituary on me in the local rag, I missed it.

So I'm wonderin' if I died a natural death. Then I wondered, "What IS a natural death?" I'm pretty sure it's not the kind you get from cancer or heart attack or halitosis. It is probably more like:

Shutdown. This is where all your vitals go belly up all simultaneous-like. God or the Devil or somebody gets in there and turns off the key, and your mufflers quit rumbling. Of course, your hair will continue to grow for several days, but I don't know if hair is a vital. Maybe.

Heartbreak. This is when your left and right ventricles part ways. If they split up, you probably will not feel too good. Causes of Heartbreak can be getting dumped for the fourth time, finding out the Cubs lost the World Series, or discovering that Elvis really is dead. Most often this kind of death will occur in a Heartbreak Hotel.

Braindead. This occurs from trying to decipher Bushisms. To stay out of danger you might kinda want to avert your eyes when you read this example: "Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric because it's a product that we can find in our neighborhoods."

Flensing. Flensing means, in part, cutting the skin off a carcass. Lots of people take off their skin every few years to check their back for moles. Unfortunately, not everybody is good with knives.

Oxygen Holes. These are kind of like the ozone hole over the Antarctic -- there's nothing there. Occasionally a human being will walk into an Oxygen Hole and not be able to catch his breath because there's no air there. Scientists put this in the category of "Too bad."

The Orlando Bloom Body to Die For. This death is reserved for women and gay men. It results from reading in People Magazine that Orlando Bloom (or a similarly well-endowed Hollywood hunk) "has a body to die for." These deaths are characterized by finding sex toys in the "On" position.

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Here's a succinct description of my new business plan:

"Home Repo. We can do it to you. You can yelp."

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My favorite word today is do-over. n., from assemblyrequired. Def.: The small, seemingly insignificant thing that remains after assembling anything, which means you have to undo everything and start over.

Orcas Will Do Their All for Hoss

I didn't make any money yesterday. Sybil Ungentine held on until 9:55 p.m. and Lester Jammies won the pool. There's always a silver lining though: Tonight we got a Death Watch on Lester.

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If I can Make My Pile real soon, I might be able to live in a ritzier joint than The Old Folks' Home where I am presently tucked. See, when the menu here says "steak," it is really ground round, which the low lifes around here call hamburger, which it is. When it says crab, it means the imitation variety known as "krab." When it says pecan pie, you know they will be fresh out.

I want to get in some place that serves abalone twice a week, and filet mignon or New York steak all the rest of the time. Except for breakfast, when we would have chicken fried steak or T-bones, basted brown eggs and some of Angie's grits.

So what I'm thinking of doing is settin' up a business that sells Orca testicles. I imagine, given the rarity of this item, that it would command a premium price, which is what I'm always after. It's easier to Make My Pile in a seller's market.

What brought this to mind is the popularity, in Wyoming, of "Rocky Mountain oysters," which are sheep nuts. The most succulent sheep nuts are the ones that have been removed from the sheep by the teeth of their Basque shepherds. I am recruiting for Orca nut chewers, but don't have much hope for success. So I put out an advertisement for nut cutters from my spinoff company, "Orca Nut Harvesters," and some of Seven's deep sea diver buddies seem interested.

Now before you get PETA on my ass, don't worry about the Killer Whales that we will be denutting. We will only take one nut per customer Orca. Everybody knows that while it takes two to tango it only takes one to bango.

My buddy Mags in San Francisco tells me there's some Killer Whales in the San Diego Zoo, so I will get my cutters to practice down there, whenever we get clearance from the Zoo people. That shouldn't be a problem.

One thing I didn't think about: Do you fry Orca testicles, or bake 'em? Or crack 'em open like coconuts? Hoo boy. There may be some holes in my plan.

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My favorite word today is lost. n., a form of defeatism. Def.: The place you put your keys so you would remember where they are.

Eclectic = Death, Inventions, Bigfoots

Carolina Sister and I have Death Watch duty in the Home of the Ancients. We are looking after Sybil Ungentine, who seems to be breathing her last. The reason we have a Death Watch is so we know the exact time Sybil passes, as 38 of us have guesses in the pool, at $5 a pop.

See, it doesn't matter what DAY a body expires; what matters is the time of day. Sometimes we have three or four pools going at once, and everybody gets really excited.

Having not much to do, Sister and I begin discussing various ways in which I might Make My Pile. She already has all the money she needs. She's planning to have her corpse barged up the Nile River and planted in the Valley of the Kings, just to piss off a bunch of Egyptian archaeologists.

I tell Carolina that I am about to get in the inventin' mood again. I am really good at this but building a better mousetrap has not got the world beating my door down -- I guess because I have not invented a better mousetrap lately. I could if I wanted to.

What I'm thinking is this: Somebody invented tubeless tires, right? What's the obvious corollary? Tireless boobs! With a no-sag guarantee, this could be a big seller. As usual, my buddy Bill Gates will want in on this.

Carolina Sister nodded, knowingly. "You're sharp, Hoss, but you still need some honing," she says. "What do you think about backward shoes?"

I don't have a clue what she's on about. But I have a reputation of being all-knowing, so I purse my lips, put the tips of my fingers together, pause to stroke my mullet and say, "Yes, you may have something there. Let's see where it leads under closer purview." (Make myself a note to grow a mullet.)

Sister says, "These would keep people safe from Bigfoots. Which is getting more and more important as there seems to be a population implosion out around Falls City." Falls City is where everybody is related to everybody else, so it doesn't surprise me to learn they are interbreeding with the Bigfoots.

"With your backward shoes, when you're out tracking Bigfoots, you'll be going one way and it will look like you're going the other way," Carolina says. "What it means is that the Bigfoots won't be able to track YOU. This is damn important. If a Bigfoot catches you in the woods it'll be like a Boss Con playin' footsy with his pansy cellmate. You'll get reamed out so bad you'll be able to hold a bowling ball in there, no hands."

(Intermission)

"Well, lookee there," I say to Carolina Sister. "It's 9:40 p.m. I have 9:47 p.m. in the pool. Let's go pull Sybil's tubes and I'll cut you in for half."

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My favorite word today is blooming. Adj., from rosy cheeks. Def.: The situation in which a lady has gone to the restroom, done her business, then tucked the hem of the back of her dress into her waistband and returned to the restaurant dining room, blissfully unaware.

To Keep On Keepin' On

I have to be down for computer maintain today. So a quick story that is making the rounds of The Oldsters' Home where I am incarcerated:

A guy walks into a hash house carrying a shotgun and bucket of cow plop. He orders coffee, drinks it down, raises the shotgun and shoots the bucket of manure, then disappears into thin air.

"What was that all about?" asks the cook.

A patron responds: "He's in training for senior management. He comes in, drinks coffee, shoots the shit, then disappears for the rest of the day."

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My favorite word today is henmark. n., from old eggbeaters. Def.: The dried yellow substance found between the tines of forks in restaurants.

Good Grief! Hoss Had a Childhood?

I just got "tagged" by one of my best buddies. (No, not Bill Gates, the other one, Judy.) She said I am instructed to tell "five things you miss from your childhood."

Hoo boy, I seldom get invited to write sappy stuff. Not that I am bad at it. I can rival anybody when it comes to sappiness. (I am also good at cliches. "Snatching jaws from the defeat of victory" is one of my best. So is, "Frankly, madam, I don't give a darn.")

Okay, prepare to get all cloyed up over these tear-jerkers:

I miss killing a swallow with my slingshot. This is really sad. When I was about 10 I spent several weeks at the home of my grandparents. He was pastor of the church next door. A lot of violet-green swallows hung around the church, and I would try to wing them with stones from my homemade slingshot. One day I got a church window. I never got a swallow. Don't cry for me yet; there's worse to come.

I miss two feet of snow. I remember wading through about two feet of snow in Drake Park in Bend when I was about 10. I hated it. Now I live in a much milder climate. What I really miss is not having any snow to hate.

I miss gun fights. The 1930's were really good for people who liked to blast away at bank tellers and the like. "Pretty Boy" Floyd, "Baby Face" Nelson, John Dillinger, and Bonnie and Clyde were all shot to death in 1934. None of these people worked the Bend area, but that doesn't mean they're not missable.

I miss Fudgesicles. Well, that's not exactly true. I actually DON'T miss Fudgesicles. You can still get some at the supermarket. I guess what I miss is the nickel Mom would give me once a week to buy a Fudgesicle. Nobody gives me nickels anymore, which often gives me cause to go all weepy-eyed.

I miss Curtis Tank. The "tank" is what was a privately owned swimming pool in Bend. Mr. Curtis put tarpaper around the edges and when you got out of the pool and laid yourself out on that sun-heated tarpaper it was like you had gone to Heaven that felt like Mild Hell. Every afternoon Mr. Curtis would throw pennies into the pool and we could dive for 'em and buy a Walnetto or some jelly beans. Actually, I guess I miss penny candy more than I miss Mr. Curtis.

If you think of anything else in my childhood that I should be missing, please let me know so you can be roundly ignored. ("Roundly ignored" is probably my favorite cliche of all time, and that's why you are being blessed with it today.)

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My favorite word today is adversity. n., old Rhode Island Red. Def.: The part of the chicken gizzard that cannot be chewed.

Here's Your Christmas Letter

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Go Meet an Artiste

Every day I visit over 70 websites to find your good writing. I generally comment, saying "That's good," or "That's gooder'n good." Occasionally I find something that is exemplary, and so it is today.

My friend Vicki has published a Rembrandt of words, and I'd like you to read it. So today Hoss will not be writing his piece so you can use the time to visit Vicki.

Click on Vicki Bennett, scroll to June 10 and read her scintillating piece, "The Long Goodbye." You'll be thanking me.

Hoss will have a piece tomorrow. Naturally I will be praising it highly.

Bury These Guys on the Lone Prairie

Hopalong Cassidy and Ward Bond didn't shoot near enough Indians. There's still a bunch over at Grand Ronde, in Oregon, that need shooting. These are the ones that got a casino that us white-eyes visited yesterday.

Damn! If'n I was John Wayne I'd burn down their teepees (except they're all living in four-bedroom condos with maid service). I'd lead 'em to Badwater in Death Valley (except they got sweet water from the Yamhill River). I'd force-feed 'em firewater (except they don't allow that on the reservation anymore on account of they always wind up on the 12-Step).

I'd bury 'em up to their necks in anthills and slather 'em with honey. I'd run a herd of buffalo through their Wounded Knee & Barbecue Observance Picnic. I would run off their horses -- especially their 500-horsepower Lamborghinis and Ferraris.

You probably have figured out why I am so tight-up. I lost $8 at the Spirit Mountain Casino yesterday. Now for the rest of the month I'll have to shine my own damn shoes.

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I guess I forgot to tell you that Carolina Sister was on the bus that took us to
Spirit Mountain. She also lost, but she didn't care. She bought Google at $85 and it's now $300.

"You know, Hoss," she said, "gambling is a gamble. I wouldn't recommend it for poor people like you."

Boy that pissed me off. Has anybody got revenge for the Custer thing yet?

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My barber is really hard of hearing. The other day, I'm in his shop and for conversation I say, "I see Willamette University has got a rowing crew. I wonder what the kids have to weigh to make the cut." Guess what kind of trim he gave me.

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My favorite word today is internutted. n., microsoftese. Def.: The blinking at the bottom of the screen that tells you the Internet is working very hard on your problem and is not intending to connect you, but wants you to know how difficult this is.

Time Waits for No Hoss

I don't have a lot of time for writing this weekend. The Older'n Dirt Folks' Home bus is takin' some of us to the Indian gambling joint. The chief Indian said he needs us because "I've got a family to feed."

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A Brit, an Aussie and a Scot are in a tavern drinking brew. The flies are thick, and three of them kamikaze these gentlemen's beer. The Brit and the Aussie flick the flies off their suds and drink it down. The Scot carefully picks the fly out of his beer, dries if gently with his breath, and says, "There now, laddie, all safe and sound. Now SPIT IT OOOT!"

This is from my buddy, Oz, who also opines: Economics is the only class in college where the professor can reuse the exam papers year after year. This is completely safe because the answers are different every year.

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When Nixon was running for his second term, he used Vice President Spiro Agnew as his hatchetman. Agnew was as nasty of tongue as they come, and was doing a great job of dividing the country. He gave one of his typical take-no-prisoners speeches at the Republican Governors' Conference in Idaho. After it was over, my boss, Oregon Gov. Tom McCall, was asked for comments.

He said: "That was a rotten, bigoted little speech."

The next day, at the conference, Agnew asked Tom, "Did you really say that I gave a 'rotten, bigoted little speech'?"

Tom said: "I don't remember saying 'little'."

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My favorite word today is quickstep. v., bus-terminalism. Def.: The frenzied movement from one restroom stall to another, trying to find one with a lock on the door and no Lincoln logs clogging the drain.

Movies of Which I'm Partial To

Awhile back I wrote about how I was the easy goin'-est person in this whole Old Folks Labor Camp, and I guess that's why Alli Deluxe of TofReknin thinks she can unload a meme on me.

Well, this time a "tagger" has tagged the right guy, because this meme is about films and I am the sharpest cheddar in the deli when it comes to motion pictures.

Total number of films I own on DVD/Video:

Three. These are videos I made of the three grandkids from birth to 4 years of age. These rival "M*A*S*H" for comedy, "Doctor Zhivago" for pathos and "Jurassic Park" for terror. The Smithsonian wants me to gift them the films, but I am holding out for an offer from Spielberg.

The last film I bought:

You gotta be kidding. People buy this stuff? Nuts to that. Everything will be on free TV eventually. I don't spend any of my hard-earned going to movies either. I can wait 'em out.

The last film I watched:

"Soylent Green," 1973. I liked this movie because it has a Biblical theme, like, resurrection. See, what happens is that some people are put in this meat grinder gizzy and turned into something like Spam so that other people won't go hungry. Can't you just see "born again" written all over that? Sort of a pre-cursor to cloning.

Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:

"King Kong," 1933. I didn't see this until about 1939, but it stirred me somethin' fierce. There's Fay Wray in a slinky dress and you JUST KNOW what Kong the Dong has in mind. I knew right then my education was on the right track because I found "stirring of the loins" in my Collier's Encyclopeedee.

"Gunga Din," 1939. While the Thugees are trying to decimate some British troops, Victor McLagen takes an on-screen whiz. This is why films are X-rated from time to time. Gunga was an Indian lad who took one for the team (read: shot to death). Cary Grant says, "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din." But we all knew he was just sayin'. "Din" is pronounced "Dean," but James Dean was later.

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," 1939. This means a lot to me because Dopey proved not to be a loser. I also am a non-loser dope, as are such buddies of mine as Chris Cope, Lightning Bug's Butt, Legs Ho, and MuzikDude. Those people, though dopes, write some of the best pieces of anybody. So I guess Dopey means a lot to me. Snow White and the other dwarfs can fuck off.

"The Wizard of Oz," 1939. This is important because the owner of the Salem Golf Club has an autographed picture of Ray Bolger in his "Oz" costume, and I got to see it a lot when I played golf. Other than that, this picture sucks big gas.

"Long Gone With the Wind and the Rain," 2005. This is the almost motion picture based on my screenplay, which I wrote in February. It is best remembered for the gritty performance that would have been given by Vivien Sleigh of Tara, who had lost her legs in a Texas chainsaw massacre and was waiting for replacements from Legs 'R Us. This would have had 302 Academy Award nominations if I had been able to get it filmed.

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My favorite word today is park. n., from KickedQuarans. Def.: Where you will find trees, grass and dog turds.

The Things That I Could Tell You

Carolina Sister to Ol' Hoss: "Mr. Snake, what's the difference between centipedes and millipedes?"

Hoss: "Nothin'. They taste the same."

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If I am ever going to finish telling you the 500 or 2,000 most notable things about me, I better get it on.

72. When I was about 4 (I am now 74 252/365ths), I had wild monster pigs under my bed. I know, you think every child has this "dream" about monsters under the bed. Well, I will have you know my story is TRUE. If it weren't true, why did my Dad let me get in bed with him and Mom?

73. When I was about 35 I had female problems. So I decided to commit suicide. I waded into the ocean up to my thighs. I was going to see how far I could swim toward China before I drowned. It was painfully cold, so I gave up committing suicide by ocean drowning. Then I thought about shooting myself, but that also seemed to involve a lot of pain. So here I am. I have always voted against pain.

74. I am quite a sports nut. I have participated in or played football, baseball, softball, basketball, track and field, hunting, fishing, golf, horseshoe pitching, badminton, ping pong, archery, gymnastics, boating, ice skating, roller skating, skiing, darts, billiards, snooker, slingshot, tag, king of the mountain, dodge ball, kick the can and hide-and-go-seek. All of these games have rules. There are no rules in curling, so I don't play that.

75. I used a bow and arrow up in Yakima, Wash., to bring down a 5-lb. carp. Carp are those things you clean on a cedar board, then you throw away the fish and eat the board. Did you know that Oregon Grape is not a grape?

76. When I worked for the tourist promotion wing of state government, I performed as a "model" so our staff photographers would have a warm body to show in the scenic pictures they were taking. We would use these pictures in advertisements to lure Californians to visit Oregon. Then once they got here we'd tell 'em to go home. "Don't Californicate Oregon."

77. Once while working for the touristy board I caught an 8-lb. brown trout in the Deschutes River near my hometown of Bend, Ore., while we were making an "action scene" for my photographer. The fish was too heavy for the gear I was using so the photog waded into the river and hoisted the beast up on the bank. This activity was on company time. Since I was smart for my age, I converted the fish to personal use.

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My favorite word today is Minniehaha. n., Minnesotadumbspeak. Def. 1: A titter; a giggle; a chuckle; a minor laugh. Well short of a guffaw. Def. 2: A chortle by a female mouse when Mickey slips on a banana peel.

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Never let religion get in the way of what you believe.

Speaking Up to Make My Pile

Thanks to all for the kind words about my daughter's piece on this site yesterday. We are mightily buoyed.

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My good buddy Vicki thinks I might be able to Make My Pile by giving commencement speeches. For those of you who don't know about my all-consuming need to Get Rich, I need a lot of money to pay for my lavish funeral, which entails a trip to the Andromeda Galaxy for a Storied Restoration of a Misspent Youth.

Bein's how I am such a succulent speaker, I think I WILL INDEED make myself available to give commencement or matriculars, whichever comes first. Below is my boilerplate speech to high school students. I would ask you to suggest improvements but that would be like King Midas asking for more gold. I mean, what's the point?

STUDENTS OF MANY DUMBNESS, LEND ME YOUR HARKEN

Students, today is the last day of your life. If there are any cucumbers growing under your chair, it is to remind you that you are about to harvest the crispy goodness of the multiple choice.

You now no longer need to remember that it was true/false King Arthur who wenched Excalibur from the stone. Nobody gives a shit about King Arthur anymore.

In fact, nothing of what you have learned in high school will be useful anytime, anywhere. Your memories of these years will be about sex, booze and mirthless teachers. Please note that the ability to whistle while you work is no longer in demand.

Ventricles!! You should have studied ventricles! Ventricles and aortas will always be in demand. You should have well noted the utter advantage of opposable cloven hooves, of which ventricles are not a part.

Martha Stewart pleated pink plaid tampons. Vivisection. Study war no more. These are fairly important.

You strived for greatness!! No cigar.

Many of you will be going to college. You will not learn anything there except that the books are more expensive and arcane. The beer tastes the same in college as it did in high school.

Transmit sexual disease as much as you can, then study the transmission of sexual disease for your Master's thesis. You will need at least a Master's degree to put bread and water on the table.

Many of you will instead go to The School of Hard Knocks. Load up on credit cards and get your first bankruptcy out of the way early. It is The American Way.

Stop to sniff the Mexican Hairless. Great Danes are tall enough to hump your abs.

There is a large market for elephant growers.

Global warming will arrive stealthily, like panty creep.

There are only two things certain in life: Death and composting.

Let us pray:

People who write on shithouse walls
Should roll their shit in little balls.
People who read these words of wit
Should have to eat these balls of shit.

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My favorite word today is hippocampus. N., Ivyleagueism. Def. A series of buildings erected for the education of large animals.

Warning: A Change of Pace

Yesterday was my wife's 68th birthday. There wasn't a big celebration. Some of you will recall from an earlier piece I wrote that she has Progressive Supranuclear Palsy -- she can't walk, her words are slurred and her eyesight is going. Here is what our daughter the schoolteacher wrote:

THINGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME

My mother was one of those rare women who never doubted she could do it all, even though our culture put limits on women during her younger years. With this attitude she set about doing it all and I watched her succeed.

This is what she taught me: you can do or be whatever you decide. Set your own goals and trust in your abilities.

My mother had many hobbies and interests to occupy her free time. She was always learning and perfecting her skills. She became an excellent golfer. She was a seamstress with skilled hands that could produce magnificent wedding dresses, prom dresses, finer than any boutique.

This is what she taught me: pursue your interests, devote your life to things you can learn and love.

When she retired she turned her energies toward others, volunteering her time generously. She had a new fulltime job devoted to Hospice, Salem Outreach Shelter, Meals on Wheels, mentoring and working with disadvantaged children through Operation School Bell.

This is what she taught me: serve others. You can make a difference.

Then the unthinkable happened. This woman, whose energies were unstoppable, was stopped by a hideous, indiscriminate and cruel disease. My mind ranges "I can't stand it." But I smile and stifle my anger and frustration. I push her wheelchair down the hallway of the assisted living facility where she now lives and she greets fellow residents heading to dinner in their wheelchairs and walkers. She says to me, "I'm so lucky to have you push me in my wheelchair."

This is what she taught me: You can stand it and you can find something good in any situation. Be thankful for what you have. You can face what life deals you with grace and courage.

This Is Not About a 20-Mule Team

Because I am so old, I will tell you an old story. Old people love to reminisce. It reminds us of the days when we still had prostates and teeth.

Lane County, Oregon, stretches from the Cascade Mountains to the Pacific Coast. In this county is the small community of Noti. Here is how that name came about:

A trapper and an Indian needed to get to the coast from the hinterlands, and they only had one horse. So they agreed that the trapper would ride ahead for a few miles, tie up the horse, and take off on foot. The Indian would hike to where the horse was, ride a few miles past the trapper, tie up the horse and start hiking. This way they both would get to the coast a little faster than just walking.

So the trapper took the horse, went a few miles -- and kept on going. The Indian got to the place where he expected to find the horse, and said, "Trapper, him no tie." And right there today sits the village of Noti.

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I read a story where some Internet muck-de-mucks say they are providing a new domain for pornographers. Instead of using .net or .com like you and I do, the porno people would use .xxx. That is SO cute. You know, it would be, like, X-rated? They might be doing this so children will be better able to find Internet porn. I don't know if Al Gore invented this idea.

Anyway, when I was growing up, XXX stood for poison. You didn't want to drink nuthin' that had XXX on the bottle. (Likewise, you didn't wanna mess with anybody who had 666 on his forehead.)

What they seem to be doing here is combining the .xxx with the XXX, and then we all can get a Poison Porn Pal.

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I think I could stand to be gay if I could get some women involved. Maybe that defeats the purpose. I don't know.

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TanLucyPez had a piece about childhood in which she mentioned a "brouhaha and hullabaloo."

So, my favorite word today is brouhaha. n., from Pepys Diary. Def. There's something funny about this beer.

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Matey says:

"Of course there's no reason for it; it's just our policy."

You Won't Be Here Very Long

Ol' Hoss hasn't got a lot of time this morning, as I am Hall Monitor in The Way Too Old People's Home. The monitor goes up and down the halls shoving the inmates back into their rooms when they try to take off too early for breakfast. Naturally I am very good at this because I hate old people.

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Matey tells me:

Mr. Halfbright goes into a lumber yard and says, "Gimme some 4 by 2's."
The clerk says: "You mean 2 by 4's?"
Halfbright: "Let me check." He goes out and consults with a passenger in the pickup truck, comes back and says: "Yes, 2 by 4's."
Clerk: "How long you need them?"
Halfbright: "Let me check." He goes back outside, consults, and returns. "We need 'em a long time. We're building a house."

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I can just picture this, something written by Average Mom Tammy about her young son:

"Boy Terror will do that wonderful back arching thing when I try to strap him into the car seat."

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My favorite word today is defrock. n., pastoralism. Def.: The second lowest grade you can get when you frock. If you get an F, you are a frocking failure.

I Am So Relaxed

Of all the people in The Old Folks at Home where I live, I am probably the most easy goin'. In fact, I am probably the most easy goin' person in the whole City of Salem. I MIGHT be the most easy goin' person in Oregon, the Western United States, Kalamazoo, Oshkosh and Blue Ball, Pa.

I am loose. I kid you not: There has never been a bowel as loose as I am. I am so loose I would put a slip-knot to shame. Problems roll off my back like persimmons off a Pinto. This is because I am so easy-goin'. I am sure that I have put myself in a position to claim the title of "Easy Goin'-est of All Time."

I also am sure that if you say "easy goin'" real fast about 10 or 12 times you will wonder what the hell you're doing.

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Yesterday I wrote about Ol' Hoss's "Musical Manhole Cover," which converts farts into such tunes as "Classical Gas." I got criticized by some people for sayin' this item is for men, as if women don't ever "let one."

Look, if I had said the Manhole Cover would also be for Womenholes, there would have been hell to pay. About two-thirds of my readers are women, and I didn't wanna piss them off by insinuating that they occasionally fart. All of these women are really pretty and I am trying to get next to them. I may be dumb, but I am not stupid.

But, just in passing, I want it known that the "Manhole Cover" comes in a "One Size Fits All."

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Many of you may not have seen this. It's the description Darrel gives of himself on his "Other Brother" template:

"What a wise old Navajo Chief might say of me: 'Like the squirrel does store the fine pinion nuts, so does Other Brother hit softballs many many tree lengths, and then drink mightily and strong from the blood of grain.'"

Ernest Hemingway couldn't have said it purtier.

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My favorite word today is Uh-oh. n., Old English word meaning "uh-oh". Def.: The shame of being caught picking nose hairs.

Is This Idea Any Stinking Good?

Thinking is probably the most popular activity in The Old Folks' Home. You can only play dominoes, bingo and cards for so long, and then the fights break out. I do my best thinking at any time that I want, which is why I am so versatile. Not everybody can think all the time.

What I think about most is How to Get Rich, as I've explained past-wise. See, if I Make My Pile, when I go belly up in the fish tank I can have my body shot into space for preservation and enhancement. On the other hand, if I decide to go the reincarnation route, I will have a lot of money stashed away in Switzerland to make my comeback as a Internet writer.

I still haven't decided what to reincarnate as. Some people think it would be fun to get reborn as Bill Clinton. I don't know about that. I don't think I'd be good at giving blow jobs. But I haven't given it a lot of thought 'cause there ain't any money in it.

Whate I HAVE thought up is my latest money-making schemeroo, an invention I have named "Hoss's Musical Manhole Cover." Here's the description I gave to the Patent Leather Office:

A "Manhole Cover" is sort of a diaper that covers up a guy's shithole. Naturally, like any diaper it will keep little crumblets of crap from going into a guy's pants and then falling on the floor, so that's a plus. But this brand new item is much, much more. See, I am building in a little musical device that will come into play in case the wearer "lets one go."

The way farts are today, they just come out all seepily or noisily, with odor. Fart, though, into a Hoss Musical Manhole Cover and the fart gas is converted into music. So far I have successfully tested sounds of kazoo and music box (I imagine there will be a lot of variations, like maybe for trombone in D minor). The Manhole Cover will be lined with charcoal to assimilate the odor.

This will be of massive benefit to society. Men will be able to fart all they want. No more holding it in during church services. You could accompany the choir with your own personal flute music. Just let 'er fly, and some of the finest sounds this side of a Swiss yodel will come oozing out of your jeans.

Better sell your Beano and Pepcid stock. In the future Hoss envisions, gas will be a good thing.

Be the first on your block to own one. $9.95 at Target, $8.97 at Walmart.

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My favorite word today is screwed. n., old reo-ism. The wistful watching of your ride circling the block once again.

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I ask you:

If a ventriloquist throws his voice out, is he eligible for worker's comp?

That's Interesting, Hoss. Not.

Here in The Home for the Wizened and Otherwise Wrinkled, Harold Halfnuts is on oxygen. Like me. Harold Halfnuts, NOT like me, continues to smoke.

I wonder what the explosion is going to be like. Will it be a big one, or just a little "poof"? How far will the body parts fly? These are important questions. I think I'll get the Administrator to put up a closed circuit TV out in the smoking area. Might be a hit on "America's Funniest Home Videos" when Harold blows.

Maybe we can get one of them TV cops, sayin', "Keep moving people, nothing to see."

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I can't get enough of me:

68. The night I graduated from high school, I drank a half pint of whiskey en route to a senior class party at Suttle Lake, 30 miles west of Bend. The next thing I know, I am back in Bend, in Drake Park, propped up against a Ponderosa pine, wearing somebody else's shoes. Other than getting drunk about 1,000 other times, it was the second worse thing I ever did. But I am done voting for Jim Beam.

69. This is the worse thing I ever did as a child: One Halloween, in about 1939, the "gang" I ran around with went out and tipped over two outhouses. Not everybody had flush toidies. I guess it would have been okay if the owners of those things had been pedophiles. Hell, maybe they were. I feel better already.

70. Two Halloweens later, the "gang" stole a horse and let it loose in the high school for an overnight stay. It has just now dawned on me that I can add "rustler" to my resume.

71. In 1948, in the summer between finishing high school and going on to college, four of us found a 1916 Model T sitting in the front yard of a Bend, Or., residence. We bought it for $25. Our fathers refurbished the sucker. We drove it over a 4,800-foot pass from Bend to Salem, and gloried in our treasure all year. Then the father of one of us "owners" repossessed it because we never paid for the tires. So it goes.

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My favorite word today is insouciance. n. hossism. Def.: The glassy-eyed look of the owner of a dog who is shitting on your lawn.

Food for Thought & Explaining Hoss

Poor Fred Schmidlapp, guy on the second floor of The Home Where Our Roaming Days Are Over, gets teased a little. He's got a harelip, which means he talks funny. But Fred is a fun guy.

The other day Fred and I are at the neighborhood confectionery, where Fred asks the counterman, "How much are your cathews?" Counterman says, "$8.95 a pound." Fred says, "Whoa, thath pretty high. How much are your pitathios?" Counterman replies, "$9.95 a pound." Fred says, "Boy, thath really high. How much are your peanuth?" "They are $1.95 a pound," Counterman says. "Thath pretty high, but give me a pound of peanuth."

And then Fred says, "Thay, mithter, thankth for not makin' fun of my harelip." The counterman says, "I'm very sensitive to people making fun of handicaps. You see, I've got quite a large nose."

Fred: "Nose! NOSE! Your nuth are tho high I thought that wath your prick!"

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Your day would not be complete unless I told you some more things about Ol' Hoss the Mossback:

65. When I was growing up, I joined a kids' rifle club to learn how to shoot deer. I never got to shoot at any deer until about 50 years later. But one of the guys in the club did. He told me all about it: "I stalked that sucker for half a mile, then I got close. So I slipped a cartilage into my gun..." This is why I always vote for the close study of English as a first language.

66. I was about this age (66) when my brother-in-law talked me into going deer hunting over to Spanish Peak, about 180 miles to the east. On the second day there I shot a deer. On days 14-30 I ate deer. And then I had nothing to show for it. I guess it was a waste of time.

67. During World War II, it was a big thing for communities to organize scrap metal drives to get together stuff that could be melted down and used to make airplanes and guns and bullets and stuff. When I was 12, I scoured my neighborhood and collected 1,000 pounds of steel and iron. Got my name in the newspaper, the Bend Bulletin. Front page. I always vote for notoriety for Hoss.

The "worst" part of that drive was that the City of Bend donated a cannon that had been given to the city as a First World War memorial. I always wondered if it got made into another cannon.

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My favorite word today is augment. v., adj. beerspeak. The phrase you use to clarify the remarks of Augie Busch.

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Most panic attacks result from having to go to the bathroom and being unable to make up your mind what book or magazine to take with you.

Flowering Plants Find a Hero

It appears as if I am the sole surviving member of the Inventions Committee of my Older'n Dirt Old Folks' Home. All the other members said Bingo was more fun. But it turns out Ol' Hoss don't need help because -- hot damn! -- I got me another world-beater idea for makin' money:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Flowering Plants. Wait, hear me out...

There is this organization called PETA -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They's the ones go around saying "Don't eat Bambi," or "Make space in your bedroom for Elsie the Cow." If you get mice in your house you're supposed to trap 'em live and let 'em go in your neighbor's yard. Take a baby seal to lunch. That sort of thing. They raise a lot of money so's they can spread the word.

Well, listen up; flowers got feelings, too. So here's the new plan for Hoss to Make My Pile. I have registered as the executive director and chief fund raiser for 70,000 divisions of People for the Ethical Treatment of Flowering Plants (PETFP). We got PETFP - Pansies, PETFP - Dahlias, PETFP - Skunk Cabbage, and so on.

People are suckers for flowers. You don't believe me, go over and visit Sugarfused. She put up a picture of a marigold and got 14 comments!! Real flower freaks.

Let me tell you, flowers do NOT like to be picked. You ain't heard nothin' till you heard the primordial scream of a cotton boll when it's plucked. (It's kind of hard to hear, so just take my word for it.) PETFP - Cotton Boll is incorporated to put a stop to cotton pickers.

What if some yahoo goes through Florida picking off all the orange blossoms? Orange blossoms might not like this, and the farmers sure as hell wouldn't. So those guys will want help from PETFP - Florida Oranges. I don't know if people are plucking orange blossoms, so it shouldn't cost a lot to get it stopped.

I will be accepting contributions startin' tomorrow to launch the much-needed PETFP divisions in the areas of Roses, Peonies, Chrysanthemums and Corpse Plant. These are the ones most likely to be subjected to picking over the next few months.

I haven't yet decided what would be a fair rake-off on the contributions for the Ol' Hoss Fund. Anything less than 50% would be pretty demeaning, seein's how I thought this up all by myself. (Hoo boy, this tickles me. I have once again beat my buddy Bill Gates out of a money-makin' proposition. Wow, will he be sore.)

Since all 70,000 of these corporations will be non-profit, maybe I can get free ads on the teevee networks. Naturally, I will be out front-and-center, Jerry Falwell-wise, pleadin' for contributions for the work of the Lord and me.

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My favorite word today is groper. n. loislaneism. Def.: A small dog trained to sniff your private parts.

Hoss, the Unmatched Matchmaker

Lots of people commiserate with Ol' Hoss the Ancient in his single-minded pursuit of The Almighty Dollar, of which I need plenty to finance my Hoss-carryin' rocket ship to the Saggitarius Galaxy, where I will be brought back to life, Ted Williams-style. (Naturally, if I don't die I will probably donate all my money to a worthy cause, like maybe a porn site that doesn't get a lot of hits.)

The latest commiserator is my good buddy Vicki, who writes snazzy Internet pieces on accounta she's so talented. What brought Hoss's needs to mind was Vicki's experience at an airport. There, a very elderly woman in a wheelchair needed to go to the bathroom, but her son didn't wanna take her to the ladies convenience. So Vicki did the duty. The lady got all teary-eyed that someone who didn't work at the airport would help her out, and Vicki says no problem, because time might come when she would need similar assistance. The wheelchair lady said, "Oh, you'll get help when you need it."

Well, maybe so, maybe not. But Hoss wants to make it so. Therefore, my latest investment opportunity is now open for business. Welcome to the ground floor of, Ta-da!..."Dialing for Dildos and Other Help."

This is a matchmaking scheme the likes of which ain't never been seen. For openers, I will post unemployed Irish potato-eaters in all the airports in the land to help people go pee for a fee. I probably will dress 'em in white sheets so they don't stand out too much.

Or say that whacky Aunt Sarah wants to get across the country in her 2005 Bentley but can't drive. Well, I hook her up with some ne'er-do-well from the ghetto and pay him $4 an hour to drive Sarah to Oshkosh. Sarah pays ME $8 an hour. Everybody wins: Sarah gets to Oshkosh, Hoss gets rich for doing nothin', and the City of Salem rids itself of a gang-banger. (I can see a Citizen of the Year Award in this.)

There are all kinds of possibilities. I could hook up horny college professors with students willing to be abused for a price. I could get a cop a promotion by feeding him a bunch of easy arrests of purse-snatchers who are tired of sleeping in the rain. I could provide high school students with shifty-eyed characters willing to buy the kids some booze. I could hook up some of the lecherous old goats here in The Old Folks Home with some hot young surfer babes.

I'm not sure my new company will be selling any dildos. I just like a catchy name.

I'm kind of anxious to get this started. So if all you hot young surfer babes will email me about your availability and proposed hours of work, *wink wink*, I will much appreciate it.

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My favorite word today is happystance. n. sophomorism. Def.: The position of one who discovers the previous occupant of a pay phone booth has left a quarter in the coin return slot.

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I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here. --Stephen Bishop.

Things Are Always Slow on Sunday

Some people on the Internet are funnier than others. I'm always on the lookout for fun people, like:

Carmi Levy, who asked people for examples of words they wish they could take back. One woman told him: I walked into a hair salon with my husband and three little kids in tow and asked loudly, "How much do you charge for a shampoo and a blow job?"

Steve wrote this: The chorizo was silt in swirls like sand grit, scraping loose the ancient wads of chewing gum and stray embedded cartilage flakes that snuck in as unidentified ingredients in the relish dog you bought at the convenient market two years ago.

Steve also gave us this: I'm so relaxed my shit is sky-diving out in small little recreational clusters, enjoying the novelty of getting out without being pushed or squeezed.

The inestimable Latigo Flint, wrote: My shin collided with one of those tall propane heaters so hard that I tasted marrow.

Nobody ought to be able to avoid reading gems like this.

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Ol' Hoss is the No. 1 hit on a Google search for "tatoo design snake London." However, I do not do tatoo designs for snakes, whangs or dicks, in London or anywheres else. They can take me off the list.

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My favorite word today is laudanum (laud-'n-'em). n., v. old soccermomism. Def.: Praise for the other team.

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The Belmont horse race, the third leg in the Triple Crown, is coming up. I've got two predictions from Racetrack Lenny. Unless I'm mistaken, I think he's saying it will be Banana by a bunch, or Cauliflower by a head.

Boy Howdy, This Is Strange Stuff

What with Memorial Day coming on, I think it would be okay for me to get depressed. The trouble is I never got the hang of it. (Note to maker of Prozac: If you're countin' on me, better start looking into Chapter 11.)

My piece is going to be a little unweildy today because I don't have a beginning, a middle or an end in mind. I shall just bumbledick along.

Some more things about my favorite person (me):

62. My Dad took up bowling at the age of 67. Within months he was on a team, averaging 187. I said, "What's the secret?" He said, "I think my average would be higher if I tithed." I have always voted for my Dad.

63. 35-10-30-499. That was the draft card number I was given in 1948. Why I can remember that but none of the addresses of my former homes is beyond understanding. I got called up but deferred because I was in college (that was in the good old days when we could discriminate against poor people). Then I got deferments for being married, having a child, and getting to be overage. I always vote for beating the system.

64. I love Mexican food. So I really looked forward to getting together with an honorary niece down on the California-Mexico border. Her husband, a Mexican, drove us into Mexico to a Chinese food joint! He said Mexicans make lousy food. I love to get educated.

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Yesterday I wrote about an aborted effort to Make My Pile by packaging "the sweet smell of a baby." Commenters had a field day:

Muzik Dude said: "I've been trying to reproduce scents like wet dog and low tide." (Dude is not interested in making money.)

Dave Morris said: "Imagine making your pile off of babies making theirs."

I have given it up. Instead, I am going to copywilburwright the word "package." Royalties will be immense.

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Each week, my buddy Shane, the immensely clever Briton, provides astrological advice. You might like to know:

"Virgo. Enquire at your local grocery store about the range of pornography they'd stock for you.

"Aquarius. "Oil an actor's bicycle tyres and invite them to break a leg."

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My favorite word today is nostrum. (no-strum) n. v. Southern Folk. When the banjo player declines to play.

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Matey says:

The Lord loveth a cheerful giver. He also accepteth from a grouch.

Paying for the Milky Way Trip

Yesterday I reported how the world was going to end in 5 billion years (give or take a year). Which reminded me I still haven't Made My Pile. For anybody who hasn't been here before, you need to know that Ol' Hoss is mighty innerested in money. I want lots of it. Money is worth its weight in money.

As I have previously penned, I need a bunch of money to pay to have my carcass shipped to the outer fringes when I pass on, which could be any time now, as I am pushing 75. I might maybe aim myself somewhere around Orion or Deneb. See, there might be people there who are really advanced and who could grab hold of me and revive my sorry ass. That would save a lot of reincarnatin' on my part. I think you're only allowed to reincarnate 9 times. (Maybe that's the rule for cats. I don't know, but I don't want to risk it.)

This shipping thing is contingent, of course, on my dying, which -- now that I think of it -- may never happen. Is it so impossible to think that maybe I got the secret of internal life? That I might be the blood and flesh equivalent of the Energizer Bunny?

Well, anyway, on the off-chance that I might actually die and need some dough to pay for carcass shipment, I convened the Inventions Committee of the Old Folks in the Way Home. As usual, we are met to think up some world-beater idea to finance Hoss's trip into the Wild Blue Yonder and Beyonder.

We are discussing a concept thrown my way by my buddy over at Judy's Brag, who suggested I might package and sell "the sweet scent of a new baby." I like the idea, maybe some plug-in gizzy you could foist off on the grandparents so's they'd be so kind as to remember Junior in their will. So the committee convened:

Carolina Sister: "Anybody here remember how new babies smell?"

Fortitude Footloose: "That's an engineering problem. What I wanna know is why baby shit stinks. How do you get rid of athlete's foot? If you cut a corn off, will it grow back? Have you seen these spots on my back? Do you know that Hazel Nutt is sleeping around? Why are all of you sitting around with your mouths open? Flies just love that. And another thing..."

Safely back in my room, I began to curse that damn Judy. Her ears can burn off, for all I care.

How did I get mixed up in this? Hoo boy. I have always voted against baby shit.

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My favorite word today is Damnitall. N., Adj. Biblical. Def.: The disturbing discovery, on awakening, that you are George W. Bush.

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Matey says:

"Even moderation ought not to be practiced to excess."

Look Out Folks; She's Gonna Blow

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?

I have added several of my best pals to my Geriatric Ward over there on the left. If you're one of my best buddies and you're not listed, let me know. I love everybody.

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Since I'm in an Old Folks' Home, I may be thought of as too old to be around for the end of the world celebration. I hope I can hang on, because that will really be something to see -- regardless of which scenario proves to be the one we gotta use.

See, one imaginative theory is that we're gonna get us an Armageddon war thing and everybody will be divided up into the "saved" and the "lost." Various religions have different takes on who's gonna be salvaged and who's going in the dumpster. This World Ender could occur any time, so I may be around for that one, though it doesn't sound like much fun. I have always voted against Armageddon.

Another theory, which don't rely so much on Dead Sea Scrolls and Guesswork, is that in about 5 billion years we will be in for some serious sunburn when the sun starts getting bigger. The comeback book of the year will be "Black Like Me." No. 1 on the song charts will be The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun."

What's gonna happen is the sun is going to swell up into a Red Giant and burn up the Earth, and everything else it can get its hands on. Everything will be crisper than a fresh Pringle's. Naturally, any people who are around will be turned into greasebags. That would be pretty good for the birdlife, to have 6 or so billion people turned into suet, but I guess the birds are headed for the crisper as well.

This will be recorded as a Mass Extinction of Distinction. Saddam Hussein will get the blame for using the ultimate WMD. But look on the bright side. We will finally get rid of all the mosquitoes, spiders, snakes and blowflies that cause so much trouble. We will get rid of summer colds and some other bad stuff. So Hosanna to that. I have always voted against blowflies.

Casey Outlooker, my down-the-hall neighbor, was asking me the other day how we ought to plan for this Great Ball of Fire Catastrophe Thing: "Since we ain't been boxed up yet," he said, "we might last till then. Who knows?" Yes indeed.

I think it is pretty clear that some scientist types will have figured out some other place we can move to and desecrate. And some engineer types will have some spaceships ready to take us "saved" people there (non-tithers will be left behind). But there's more to do. You know how it was with Noah, where he got to take two of everything? I showed Mr. Outlooker my short list of what mankind will need to survive in the New World That We're About to Ruin:

Two cows. We will need milk for the little ones born on the way out.
Two pigs. Farmers on our spaceships would be lost without being able to slop the hogs. Mental health is a plus on long trips.
Two succotash plants. No use taking separate corn, carrot, pea and bean plants.
Two pelicans. No sense workin' outselves to death in the New Order of Things. They can do all the fishin'.
Two books. "How to Make Salt," and "How Flush Toilets Work."

If we need anything else, we can scrounge for it.

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My least favorite word today is knob-rot. n. Slang. Def.: Masculine venereal disease.

In Re: Hoss, Who Loves State Songs

Since I'm so damn old, I better get after tellin' you the 100 or 300 special things that go into making up an Ol' Hoss. It always amazes me there ain't more call for this. People here in The Ancients' Abode love to hear me talk about myself. Well, I'm pretty sure they do. The ones who can't walk.

58. When I was growing up I loved reading the Sunday comics. One of my favorites was Smokey Stover, a firefighter, whose favorite word was "foo." The word would appear hit-or-miss throughout the strip. His 2-wheeled fire truck was named Foo. He told us, "Where there's foo there's fire." And: "Many smoke, but foo men chew." I love me some Smokey Stover.

59. Most people will marvel upon seeing a rising moon. My wife has gotten used to it. I show her a rising moon every morning when I get out of bed.

60. I have a stepdaughter who has been certified "crazy" by two different psychiatrists. She didn't get it from me, because I've got an Ouija Board. This is why I always vote for swamis, gazers and prestidigitators.

61. I have a brother who's got his name tatooed on his whang: "Dick."

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When I was lookin' up state mottos I couldn't help but discovere the state songs, some of which are pretty sappy (California: "I Love You, California"). Some are pretty snappy (Connecticut: "Yankee Doodle Dandy").

Some states go overboard. Tennessee has FOUR official state songs, including, of course, "The Tennessee Waltz" and "Rocky Top." Missouri, of course, has "The Missouri Waltz." (I was pretty sure Missouri's song was "You Show Me Yours and I'll Show You Mine." But I guess not.)

You'll recall that I suggested, a couple of days ago, that Virginia should update its state motto. But to show that Virginians are hep to modern times they HAVE updated the state song. It is: "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia." When I was in grade school, all the song books listed this one as "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny." The title has been politically corrected.

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My favorite word today is carbuncle. n. Def.: The locking mechanism of an automobile seat belt. (People who bought this also bought carbunco. n. Def.: Transportation to a dice game.)

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Ol' Hoss says:

Why did nobody correct him when my preacher grandfather preachified to "My brethren and cistern"?

Hoss Gets Hit With Another Meme

How many times do I have to say it? I am 74 and 236/365 years old and I should get some respect! But no, because I happen to be a famous internet writer people keep dumping their work on me. It does not pay to be an intellectual; people will try to take advantage of your superior talent. Hell, just because I owned a little Enron stock people think I will gullible-up to anything.

The latest little schemer is Mike. According to a picture on his site, he is a reincarnation of Ernest Hemingway. What Ernie has done is assign me to write "10 Things I've Never Done." I have did just about everything, but these:

1. I was never kissed by a presidential candidate when I was a baby. I DID shake the hand of Dwight Eisenhower and Tricky Dick. Pat Nixon kissed me on the cheek (one of the ones on my face).

2. I have never been to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. So have everybody else.

3. I have never eaten octopus. "Live and let live" is my motto.

4. I have never had a heart transplant. My heart has always been in the right place -- not once did I let it out of my chest. "I 'heart' you" is just a figure of speech. It isn't like you're giving up anything, which is why I always vote against figures of speech.

5. I have never slid in with the winning run in a baseball game. "Many are called..." but most are called out.

6. I have never made so little money that I could avoid income taxes. All my employers paid me money, but it was little.

7. I have never watched a "Star Wars" movie. What is wrong with people, that they would pay money for this tripe? Don't you know "It's a Wonderful Life" will be on free teevee in just a few months?

8. I have never been high on marijuana, cocaine, LSD, morphine, heroin, steroids or ecstasy. I did once sing Bali Ha'i, but not on key. This is why I always vote against foreign islands.

9. I have never been shot to death. This is good, because I don't handle pain well.

10. I have never read the output of 8,927,000 people who write pieces and put them on the internet. I read the output of the other 73 every day, and you all are Master Card priceless.

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My campaign to stamp out the "B" word (the one that has a B, an L, an O, and a G in it) is not going all that well. Yesterday, Poopie used it 5 times!. Please go over and spank her.

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Matey says:

According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person never dies.

I Tell You About My Music, Not

There's this sharpie named Vicki who has saddled the Ol' Hoss with some work. It's one of them damned me-me-me-me things. She has rode me hard and put me away wet, because this one is about music, and I ain't into music. I am more of a medulla oblongata type. I think music is in some other part of the brain stem, maybe the cerebellum:

"Indicate the route to my abode,
"I'm fatigued and I want to retire.
"I drank a small intoxicant
"Some sixty minutes ago,
"And it went right to my cerebellum."

As you can see, this is how us Mensas sing "Show Me the Way to Go Home." My publishing this is just proof that smart people can learn about music if we want to. Well, anyway, here's what the Vickster posed:

"What is the total volume of musical files on your computer?"

Zip, nada, ought, zilch, zero, nicht verstehen, no comprehende.

"What song are you listening to right now?"

Well, see, I got a problem. My wife is watchin' the teevee, and we ain't got no any earphones, so I can't listen to nothin' now. But if I could, I'd probably be zonked out on my all-time favorite by Little Jimmy Dickens, "Take an Old Cold Tater and Wait.":

"When I was a little boy,
"Around the table at home,
"I remember very well when company would come.
"I would have to be right still
"Until the whole crowd ate.
"My Momma always said to me, Jim take a tater and wait."

And so on.

"What was the last CD you bought?"

"Backroom Songs and Bawdy Ballads." This is really good because it's dirty-mouth suggestive and it's got swear words in it. I love me some swear words.

"List five songs you listen to a lot and which mean something to you."

1. "When the Caissons Go Rolling Along." I like this one because it reminds me of war, which by my way of thinking is the epitome of a good time for all.

2. "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth." This is the onliest prayer of all the ones that I have sent upstairs that Big Ernie ever answered.

3. "Yes, We Have No Bananas." I enjoy this song because I'm one of the few people who think it makes sense.

4. "California Here I Come." I liked this song when I was living in Washington State. Then I got to California and it was too damn hot. Maybe this is a formerly favorite song.

5. "Whatever Song the Fat Lady Sings." This one has special meaning to me. Every time I hear this song I know the Opera is about over and I can get out of there and go get a beer. This song is rife with meaning.

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Latigo Flint wrote: "I'm picturing you naked missy, and there's not a dern thing you can do about it."

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My favorite word today is codgertate. v. slang. Def.: When old people think about spuds.

Hoss Brings You More Mate Stottos

In the realm of favorite words, today I plan to commit a numbing hebetation.*

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57. In high school I discovered Colonel Stoopnagle, who made his fame switching the initial letter or letters of words in a form called "Spoonerisms," such as "sisty uglers" for "ugly sisters." His fame was based on a real-life person, William Archibald Spooner, a teacher at Oxford who died in 1930. Stoopnagle brought us such things as the fairy tale "The Pea Little Thrigs," and a homily: "A mool and his funny are poon sarted."

Those were all invented. It wasn't so with Dean Spooner, who had a habit of actually fouling the English language, once complaining that a student had "hissed my mystery lecture." He also told his students: "In the sermon I have just preached, whenever I said Aristotle I meant St. Paul."

But I best remember his all-time classic, a toast of Queen Victoria: "Three cheers for our queer old dean."

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I need a new map. BooHunch points out that I forgot Maine in my list of state mottos. So that's where we shall begin:

Maine: "I Direct." Hoss: "What does the back seat driver say?"
Pennsylvania: "Virtue, Liberty and Independence." Hoss: "People are quite virtuous in the Missouri cities of Liberty and Independence."
Rhode Island: "Hope." Hoss: "Faith and Charity."
South Carolina: "Prepared in Mind and Resources." Hoss: "If you run across a Girl Scout who is similarly inclined, Be Prepared."
South Dakota: "Under God the People Rule." Hoss: "All the Good Stuff Comes From Heaven."
Tennessee: :Agriculture and Commerce." Hoss: "Sour Mash Goes by UPS."
Texas: "Friendship." Hoss: "Pucker up, y'all."
Utah: "Industry." Hoss: "Polygamy on an Assembly Line."
Vermont: "Freedom and Unity." Hoss: "Just another word for nuthin' left to lose."
Virginia: "Thus always to tyrants." (Uh, Virginia, I think it's time you update. How about: "Home of Chewbacca"?
Washington: "Bye and Bye." Hoss: "Later, gator."
West Virginia: "Mountaineers are always free." Hoss: "You people in the cities are fucked."
Wisconsin: "Forward." Hoss: "Guard and Center."
Wyoming: "Equal Rights." Hoss: "It is also right to use sugar."
American Samoa: "In Samoa, God Is First." Hoss: "Who's on Second?"
Puerto Rico: "John Is His Name." Hoss: "In the Navy, Head Is Its Name."

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Karen says:

Most of the stuff people worry about isn't going to happen.

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*"The state of being dull." --archaic

Good Lines and Motto Lines

Somebody ought to be in charge of surfing the pieces good writers are putting on the Internet and reporting the great lines that one can discover. Almost every day I find somebody has produced a pearl. Recent examples:

Jessica Rabbit, planning for a children's birthday party: "I must be ready, vigilant and well-rested, because they outnumber me and they have the evil power of cuteness."

Lois Lane, speaking of another writer: "I didn't want to lose him to the death of a computer virus. Thankfully, he and I had never had unprotected text."

Bugs Butt: "The bad thing about being a gynecologist is, you can never think outside the box."

Legs Ho: "...beanless coffee from a Dasani bottle."

Esther Packard: "I just saw a spider run across my floor. I am firmly opposed to this sort of thing, this spider running."

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More state mottos, as perverted by a famous prevert:

Mississippi: "By Valor and Arms." Hoss's version: "There ain't no quit in us."
Missouri: "The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law." Hoss: "Everybody here is on welfare."
Montana: "Gold and Silver." Hoss: "The 1991 Derby winner meets the Lone Ranger's horse."
Nebraska: "Equality Before Law." Snoop Dogg: "50-50 Shiznit da Law, 'n Shit."
Nevada: "All For Our Country." Hoss: "Except for the House Rake-off."
New Hampshire: "Live Free or Die." Hoss: "Free Love Is to Die For."
New Jersey: "Liberty and Prosperity." Hoss: "I love these small towns in South Carolina."
New Mexico: Answer: "It grows as it goes." Hoss: "Question: What is kudzu?"
New York: "Ever Upward." Hoss: "How to Describe the Tax Rate."
North Carolina: "To be rather than to seem." Hoss: "To be rather than not to be."
North Dakota: "Liberty and Union Now and Forever, One and Inseparable." Hoss: "Don't stop now; you're on a roll."
Ohio: "With God, All Things Are Possible." Hoss: "So ask Him for a million bucks."
Oklahoma: "Labor conquers all things." Hoss: "Except the mother's pain."
Oregon: "She flies with her own wings." Hoss: "Horsetail Snake has flies on his thing."

One I forgot yesterday (thanks, Vickie):
Georgia: "Agriculture and Commerce." Hoss: "Peaches, Pecans, Pine, Peanuts, Poultry and Poopdecks."

Everybody else gets a new motto tomorrow.

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My favorite word today is catacomb, as in: "Don King's hair is so nappy; give that catacomb."

You Want Mottos? We Got Mottos

Maxine Knowsall, my candidate for President, dropped in to see The Old Folks Down Home yesterday. Very brief visit. She came to collect some needlework done by Claudia Tat that depicts what the campaign is all about: This work showed that Maxine's campaign symbol is a baby chick, and her motto is "Of, By and For the Peeps."

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Continuing with the revisionist State mottos, as perverted by your buddy Ol' Hoss:

Hawaii: "The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness." Hoss: "The hell you say!"
Idaho: "It Is Forever." Hoss: "Diamonds Are Forever."
Illinois: "State Sovereignty-National Union." Hoss: "See, You CAN Have It Both Ways."
Indiana: "The Crossroads of America." Hoss: "A Train Wreck in the Making."
Iowa: "Our Liberties We Prize, & Our Rights We Will Maintain." Hoss: "Jimmy cracked corn."
Kansas: "To the stars through difficulties." Hoss: "Touring Hollywood in a broken-down school bus."
Kentucky: "United We Stand, Divided We Fall." Hoss: "Go forth and Multiply, Add and Subtract."
Louisiana: "Union, Justice and Confidence." Hoss: "Union, Justice and Confidence Men."
Maryland: "Manly Deeds" and "With Favor Wilt Thou Compass Us As With a Shield." Hoss: "A Stud Shows Us the Way to Go Home."
Massachusetts: "By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty." Hoss: "Excalibur looks for the Goddess of Peace, and finds her under Liberty Valance."
Michigan: "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you." Hoss: "Is that a peasant's penis I see before me?"
Minnesota: "The North Star." Hoss: "What's a good name for a hockey team?"

That's enough preversion for today. This is hard work.

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Go get your lunch, sit it down by your computer, and read this passage from Archaeology Magazine about Egyptian King Shehonq: "...Derry was able to determine that the king had been mummified in the traditional manner, with the organs having been removed and the brain extracted through the nasal passages."

Enjoy your lunch.

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My favorite word today is verbose, which I think means "sweet verb," as in bananaed. I.E., "Jack was bananaed on Jill," which may be translated as: "Jack bananaed Jill." (This only works if your doctorate is in nursery rhyming.)

Maxine Solves an Economic Conundrum

We oldsters living in Oldster Peoples' Homes have Maxine Knowsall as our candidate for President. The campaign has been a little slow to get off the ground; in fact, if you Google Maxine Knowsall you get taken right to the site of Old Horsetail Snake the First, famous internet writer. I thought Maxine would have her own site by now. But funds have been hard to come by.

Maxine was counting on support from the Catholic Church, knowin' how much they like to see women in leadership positions. But the Catholics are busy goin' bankrupt, so that's out.

Here's Maxine's latest position paper:

"Outsourcing: The United States can prosper by continuing to send jobs to India and The Philippines. All foreigners accepting U.S. jobs will automatically become U.S. citizens so they can pay Income, Social Security and Unemployment taxes. This will allow us to keep unemployed Americans on the dole, to which so many aspire."

Democrats and Republicans will be mimicking this, but the dice has been cast, and those do-nothings has rolled snake eyes.

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Somebody once said that since Ol' Hoss was not elected as a state symbol by the Oregon Legislature, he should be named the State Motto. Ol' Hoss says to hisself: "Hoss, there's gold in that there vein." So I have not only rewritten the Oregon State Motto to suit mineself, but all the other states' mottos as well. Just a little payback for treatin' Hoss ill.

Alabama: "We dare defend our rights." Hoss says: "We share Depends and tights."
Alaska: "North to the Future." Hoss: "But Bring the Oil South."
Arizona: "God enriches." Hoss: "How come so many people are poor?"
Arkansas: "The people rule." Hoss: "The people rue the day that this place became a state."
California: "I have found it." Hoss: "Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep."
Colorado: "Nothing Without Providence." Hoss: "The NCAA Tournament isn't worth watching unless a Rhode Island school gets into the Final Four."
Connecticut: "He Who Transplanted Still Sustains." Hoss: "Except Christian Barnaard is dead."
Delaware: "Liberty and Independence." Hoss: "Two Cities in Missouri."
District of Colombia: "Justice for All." Hoss: "No person is safe when Congress is in session."
Florida: "In God We Trust." Hoss: But We Hope Alan Greenspan Doesn't Die Soon."

We will get to Oregon eventually.

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According to the English Oxford Dictionary, cockamamie is not a word. It is, too. Here's the definition: "What Dwight did to Mrs. Eisenhower."

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Satchel Paige said:

Avoid fried meats. They angry up the blood. Jangle gently while you move. And don't look back; something might be gaining on you.

A Bunch of Piss-Poor Writin'

The Invention Committee in my Old Folks' Home has met again. And, hoo boy, is it ever struggling.

Lisa Lapsitter: "How about nose warmers? You soak some Q-tips in lighter fluid, and when your nose gets cold you torch a couple of the Q-tips and shove them up your nostrils."

The committee voted this one down, 3-2, on grounds that we probably couldn't get a patent leather.

Gorgeous Alfred: "What this country needs is an Automatic Toilet Bowl Handle Jiggler. Half the time when I flush, the toilet keeps runnin', wasting gallons and gallons of water. Ain't probably nobody couldn't use one of these fixins'."

The committee voted to develop this one, pending a decision on whether to turn the project over to a computer expert or a porcelain manufacturer.

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Have you ever noticed that it takes a lot longer to travel north than it goes to travel south? That's because every map ever made shows north is uphill.

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I called the Oregon School for the Deaf the other day, and got put on hold. The on-hold music was "Do You Hear What I Hear?".

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George Bush got a tour of the White House before he became President. On leaving, he told Laura, "I can't wait to get in there. The Clintons have got a solid-gold urinal."

Hillary to Bill: "I think I know who pissed in your saxophone."

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There is no reward for honesty. This is why I am so poor.

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My favorite word for today is conundrum. I think I can slip it by the right-wing religious nuts in my kindergarten sex education class.

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Matey says:

Most general statements are false, including this one. --Alexander Dumas.

Hoss Is SO Interesting

One of the ladies here in the Home for the Varicosed has an elevator that runs to the top. She is Maude Frickert. I asked Maude the other day why women wear brassieres and men don't. That's because in my time I have seen some men who could overflow a C-cup.

Maude said most women don't need a brassiere but they wear one out of tribute to the sweat shops that manufacture bras. "The existence of women's breasts has provided quite a bit of employment," Maude said. "Yes," I said, "titties have been fairly useful."

That statement of mine was so deep philosophically that Maude and I parted on the best of terms.

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I may soon be vacationing in the Virgin Islands. There is a house there that I can get for somewhere between $7,000 and $11,350 per week. I will have the money just as soon as my buddy Bill Gates answers my last email. That was the one where I said he should hire me to not write code for Microsoft. There is so much intrinsic value in my not screwing up his company that I might stay in the islands for two weeks.

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I am so enamored of me:

53. In high school, my buddy Don and I occasionally would walk downtown to a bakery on our lunch hour and buy a 20-cent loaf of french bread, hot out of the oven. The inside of the loaf was warm and yeasty. One day a teacher grabbed us and accused us of drinking beer. Until then, neither Don nor I knew beer had yeast in it. I would never vote against yeast.

54. There were two of us working on a road crew one summer for a logging company outside my hometown. The other guy was an anthropology major at the University of Oregon. I said, "What good is an anthropology degree?" He said, "You can use it to teach anthropology." That's when I first realized the meaning of "non-productive."

55. I actually did play "doctor" when I was 6 years old. Little Gloria from across the street and I did it on the bed of a trailer in the garage. Clever me, I was able to determine that Gloria had no crabs (and also no clams). She was able to determine that I couldn't get it up. This is why I always vote for sex education in kindergarten.

56. When I was writing speeches for Gov. Tom McCall was the last time we had an "energy crisis." There was a lot of talk about alternatives to oil, such as using methane that could be generated from cow shit. So I wrote, and Tom said, "Methane from cow manure is definitely a possibility. I would love to be able to drive into a service station and say, 'Shovel 'er up!'" This is why I always vote for me to be the speechwriter.

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My favorite word today is horsepucky. It's an epithet you can use in mixed company.

(Well, I don't know. You can also say Bush is full of horse doo-doo or horse apples, and still get your point across. Maybe horsepucky isn't very useful.)

There Is Nothing Here About Anything

Carolina Sister to Administrator of The Home: "There's a pervert at our table."

Administrator, seeing no pervert nowhere: "I'll take care of it."

Hazel Nutt to Administrator: "There's STILL a pervert at our table."

Administrator investigates, discovers Lugnut Crabb under the table.

Administrator: "Lugnut, explain yourself."

Lugnut: "I lost my toupee. I thought I had it twice, but mine is parted on the side."

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More goodies about good Ol' Hoss:

51. My lucky number is 5. I have never had any luck associated with the number 5, or 55, or 555, or any other permutations, such as five, four fingers and a thumb, one-fourth of all digits with phalanges, etc. But everybody needs a lucky number, so I'm lucky to have one. Lots of people don't, and they haven't won the lottery.

52. I was always enamored of words. As an eighth grader I decided to read the entire dictionary. I got through all the A's, but then basketball season started. But I still remember what abstruse means. (Later on, I became enamored of the E's, because I discovered "ergo" and "ecdysiast.") This is why I always voted for Funk and Wagnall's.

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My favorite word today is zymurgy. It was the last entry in a set of encyclopedias I bought off a smooth-talking door-to-door salesman. Zymurgy has to do with something or other. I could look it up but I don't care anymore. I got to be 74 1/2 years old without knowing what zymurgy is, so I guess not knowing is not fatal. In fact, that may be what's keeping me alive. This is why I always vote "none of the above."

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My scheme to Get Rich the Easy Way is sort of foundering. We had a meeting of the Inventions Committee in my Home for the Ancients and all we came up with was a couple of ideas for hybridizing. Well, actually, I came up with these ideas. The rest of the committee members were busy taking the raisins out of their Raisin Bran.

Here's what I got so far:

Hybridize owls to make howls. These could tell one-line jokes on the David Letterman show. Letterman would have to pay me rent.

Hybridize dandelions so that the flower was purple instead of yellow. I mean, as long as everybody is going to have dandelions, they might as well get 'em in popular shades. I know I could sell some to J & J's Mom because she loves purple. She's got a purple house, her interior walls are purple, her bruises from her fights with the butcher are purple...everything.

Today, J & J's Mom, who is Wendy, wrote a poem. It could be about the color purple. But it's not.

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Karen says:

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

Back in the Saddle Again

I had a nice day yesterday. Went up to the second floor of the Old Folks' Home and played a little pool with some of the inmates. The table has a bad slant to the left, and I told the other guys that it must have been built by Democrats. Heh heh. Nobody else laughed. We need a pencil sharpener.

What we got today is More About Me:

47. When I was in high school I had to write a 1,500-word essay. I asked my teacher for a topic. He said, "Write about youth in Asia." That sounded like an awful big topic to me, there bein' so many different kinds of kids over there -- Russkies, Wild Turkeys, Burma Roads, Mandarin Oranges. So I wrote about the Great Depression. I think I was in college before I found out about "euthenasia."

48. Now I live in the only state where a form of euthenasia is practiced. It's called Death With Dignity. If you have a lot of pain and you're within 6 months of going tits up, you can get a prescription that will have you holding a lily on your chest within 30 minutes. Over 200 people have opted out of this vale of tears via barbiturate in 7 years. I think it's a good plan. Why the hell not? I plan to reincarnate anyway.

49. I have learned to be very tolerant of other people. My daughter reads Tarot cards on the Internet. It's phony baloney but I can't help it if people wanna be believers. I might have been crazy once myself -- I have this vague feeling that I was once reincarnated as Charles Manson. This is why I always vote against graffiti written in blood.

50. I also knew some gypsy boys who had crystal balls. Hoo boy, they hated to get kicked in the nuts.

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My favorite word today is two words in one: ransack. Those are hard to come by.

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My good buddy Shane is an Englisher, for which he has apologized over and over so we've gotten quite close. He occasionally gives advice based on your Zodiac. Here's the latest for me, a Libra:

"Convince someone with good self-esteem there's nothing wrong with them."

All of his advisories are fun like that. Go get yours.

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Bret says:

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

Take a Minute to Vote for Alli

Ol' Hoss is taking a day off. With the time you save, please note and act:

Alli Deluxe is the author of 63 Days, an on-going story about her time as a 15-year-old who was kidnapped and tucked into an abusive camp for troubled kids. This story has been nominated for "The Blogette Award," which is a $1,000 prize for the best "female-oriented weblog/website/diary."

Alli's story is really impressive. Do her, and Ol' Hoss, a favor by going to this place and casting a vote for "63 Days."

Thank you. And forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.

Symbols of Oregon

Here I am cooped up in a Domicile for the Elderly and Otherwise Used Up People, and I'm happy as a fruitcake (fruitcakes are happy because they never die). I think I'm in a good mood because I've discovered I'm just about a perfect specimen of homo sapiens. But I confess I'm a little hacked off that the Oregon Legislature has not recognized this.

Being mad doesn't make me any less perfect. In fact, I guess it shows my sensitive side. And I get pretty damn sensitive when the Legislature fails to recognize my contributions to taking this state to pretty near the bottom in unemployment statistics. See, my theory is that the more people you got unemployed the cheaper you can hire 'em to do drudge work, like swamping out sewer lines. So that's been my contribution -- making sure we have few people employed.

What has got me pissing up a rope is that I was not named State Fossil by the Legislature. I also was not named State Mammal, State Rock, State Nut or State Flip the Bird. This is a shame, because we got some really shitty symbols, if you ask me, which I think you did. Just take a gander at what we got in this state:

Mammal: Beaver, the live version of a merkin.
Fish: Whatever is one of those things that is born every minute.
Flower: Skunk cabbage.
Dance: What you do when the hombre aims his six-shooter at yer feet.
Fruit: Pear (not the fruit, but the body shape of the present Governor).
Gemstone: A chip off the old block; formerly a chip on a shoulder.
Insect: Oregon rain beetle.
Mushroom: Peyote.
Nut: Henny Youngman.
Rock: Gibralter. (Rock of Ages was considered, but legislators decided that it could be too easily cleft.)
Song: "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (I Got Love in My Tummy)," by Julie London.
Tree: Japanese kudzu.
Fossil: McDonalds french fry.
Beverage: Bathtub gin (Western Oregon); bathtub beer (Eastern Oregon).
Bird: Lesser Dodo.
Shell: 8 With Coxswain. (The resolution requires the team to observe the Rules of the Rowed.)
State Mother: Fucker.

Nowhere in that list do I see the name of Old Horsetail Snake. Bastards. I think I'll form my own state. Elect myself State Flower Child.

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Because the State Legislature is doing such a crappy job, my favorite word today is miffed.

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There are two great secrets to success in life. The first is to not tell everything you know.