Having Dinner With Abe Lincoln

My buddy Cheryl "Mags" has played tag on me. This is a pretty good meme, inasmuch as I didn't get bored with it nearly as fast as usual. Here are the things Maggie asked, and my insipid responses:

What were three of the stupidest things you have done in your life?

1. Marriage No. 1. It was okay to legalize the sex, but there ARE some other things, like compatability on finances, recreational interests, and education. I was too young for this shit.
2. Marriage No. 2. Do not buy into a two-for-one marriage. If your mate comes accompanied by a Mother Who Rules in All Things Important, do your Claude Rains invisible man trick.
3. I have never done anything stupid.

At the current moment, who has the most influence in your life?

I disrespect George W. Bush just as much as you do.

If you were given a time machine that functioned, and you were allowed to only pick up to five people to dine with, whom would you pick?

Here are my five, and the questions I would have:
Jesus: "You were a carpenter. Do you prefer mortise and tenon, or nails?"
Abraham Lincoln: "Is it true Mary was nuts?"
Clark Gable: "Did you use Wrigley's Spearmint or Topps Bubble Gum to pin back your ears?"
Leonard Da Vinci: "You invented a helicopter but missed out on the Frisbee. Does this make you sad?"
Christopher Columbus: "How much truth is there to this popular song?
.....Columbo had a cabin boy, this boy's name was Ripper.
.....He filled his ass
.....With broken glass
.....And circumcised the skipper."

If you had 3 wishes that were not supernatural, what would they be?

1. A cure for my wife's disease. You do that one, and you can have the other two.

Someone is visiting your hometown. Name two things you regret your city not having, and two things people should avoid.

Regrets: 1. I regret we don't have any glaciers. 2. I regret that somebody killed all of our oreodonts.
Avoid: 1. Avoid hotels that don't launder the wet spots. 2. Avoid hard luck stories by our local Nigerians.

Name one event that changed your life.

That would have to be my becoming buddies with Bill Gates. I have often written about this. So far, Bill has not been good about remembering my birthday.

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My favorite word today is escapism. Vb., nobody's home. Def.: Hiding in the kitchen when the Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door.

It's Always All About Me

Well, I guess I lied. I told you I looked a lot like Marilyn Monroe, but I forgot she had long hair. I also told you I looked a lot like Nefertiti, but I forgot I don't look good in profile. I also told you I am really pretty. I guess you now know that that was the biggest lie of all. Instead, I am really handsome, sort of a cross between Robert Redford and Pierce Brosnan.

My grandson saw this picture and he said, "Hey, Mom, look. It's Elephant Man." I don't know what he meant, but I guess the Elephant Man was some pretty good looker. So, ladies, I hope you didn't fall on anything sharp when you swooned.

By the way, if I should ever say something like, "Come see me if you're ever in Salem," this is not an invitation. I would just say that to make you feel wanted.

In the interest of making this post entirely one-sided, here are some more of the 11,878 things about why I am so wonderful:

82. I have a miniature bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey that was given to me in 1974 by a friend. He wrote on the label: "Save this for the good times ahead." 1974 was my last good year, so I still have it. Maybe there will be some good times next year.

83. In 1942 I had a newspaper route delivering to Camp Abbott, south of Bend, Oregon, which was training grounds for soldiers fixin' to go to war. I sold papers to the dogfaces for .05 cents each. One day on leaving camp I took the wrong road, and walked two miles looking for my ride. I got picked up by some strangers and delivered home, in tears. They didn't mug me for my nickels.

84. Oregon has some geothermal sites. A lot of people in Klamath Falls heat their homes with hot water from underground. At Lakeview there is a place called Hunter's Lodge, which has a perpetual, small, geyser. I once stayed at Hunter's Lodge so I could watch the geyser. It gets pretty boring after about 10 minutes. Fortunately they also had a bar.

85. In the 1960's I would take my chain saw and pickup truck out into the woods to cut firewood. A friend had 50 acres of oak and fir; he let me cut oak, not fir. One day in the rain my pickup slid backward into a fir tree and I couldn't get unstuck. So I cut the offending fir tree at ground level, bucked it up, loaded up all the wood and branches, covered the stump with dirt and went home. I doubt my friend reads this stuff. I burned the evidence, anyway.

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My favorite phrase today is hard cheese. N., from Wisconsin cows. Def.: What unemployed dentists slip into your Velveeta.

An Adventure in Fine Dying and Dining

As you know, I spend a lot of time writin' about dyin' and shit. Now then, I ain't fixated on dying. I like breathing just as much as the next horse's ass. What I mean to emphasize is my fixation on What Comes Next. And here's where it gets sticky. See, there's all kinds of guessworks about What Comes Next:

1. Heaven
2. Hell
3. Hang around on earth as a ghost
4. Merge into somebody else's body (this one is tricky, on account of some bodies are better than others; see Lindsay Lohan, Rosie O'Donnell)
5. Reincarnate
6. Dust to dust in a coffin
7. Ashes to ashes in an urn
8. Medical School cadaver
9. Organs donator
10. The Slow Rot (where you die and nobody finds you for a couple of years)
11. Go into a "disease fixit shop" after 40-50 years in a cryogenics lab

Anyway, if you're going to keep breathing you need to eat well, and this is where my latest invention comes in. (I need to keep inventing stuff so I can Make My Pile. My Last Will and Testimony specifies that I have opted for No. 5, above, in case No. 1 is closed off, which it will be.)


This invention is so inventive that I'm suprised my buddy Bill Gates didn't think of it. It is based on the "eat your vegetables" principle. Some people just don't like turnips or broccoli or rutabagas or pureed carrots or salsify or squash or spinach or collard greens or okra or black-eyed peas, which make up the 10 basic food groups, I think. Some people can't eat bread because of the gluten. And some people are allergic to bovine milk.

The solution: Ol' Hoss's One Food Fits All.

My scientists have developed a formula where all vegetables, all bread, all milk, all rice, all kumquats and mangoes will look the same but be made out of, and taste just like, Tenderloin Steak. (For people who don't like beeve, these things will be made out of abalone.) You won't ever have to threaten the kids again. They'll be rooting for vegetables in their lunch boxes. They'll want okra snacks after school, and cookies and tenderloin milk at bedtime.

I'll take my time getting this off the ground so's you have time to invest in a feedlot.

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My favorite word today is peeve. Vb., Ode to a Grecian Urn. Def.: Bitching about the loss of the word "gay" as a synonym for frolicsome, even though you never used it anyway.

Lookee What Hoss Finded

Pretty As a Welsh Town

On many occasions (8? 30? 300?) I have told you how pretty I am. It is quite a feat for a guy in an Old Folks' Home who is 74 270/365ths years of age to continue to be pretty. But there ain't much I can't do once I set my mind to it. So, the other day I compared my likeness to that of Nefertiti. Here is a picture of what somebody thinks she must have looked like. I may have made a mistake in the comparison. Actually, I look more like Marilyn Monroe (the live version, not the dead one; screw you).

I am hoping to be able to publish my picture here one of these days. Maybe I'll warn you in advance so if you're one of those people who easily swoon at the sight of superior pulchritudininity you will not want to visit me that day. Folks usually faint right and left when I do my Frank Sinatra impressions.

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My buddy TanLucyPez probably thinks that because I have been dumped in an Old Folks' Place that I am the dumping ground for arcane information. She is probably right. So she told me the name of a town in Wales, which is LLANFAIRWLLGWYNGLLGOGERYYCHWYRNDROBWILLLLANTYHSILIOGOGOGOCH. She said, "Maybe you can do something with it."

Well, unbeknownst to all of you, I happen to be an expert on things Wales. I know right where it is, which is somewhere west of London. Several kilometers, maybe. Possibly more than several. I am an expert by osmosis from my pal Chris Cope, over in Minniehaha, Minnesota. Chris can speak Welsh and HAS A WELSH BLOG, for cripe's sake.

Chris has been to this place, and says the name usually is shortened to Llanfairpwll (Thaahn-vair-puth). He adds, "The name was created in the 1850s part as a tourism gimmick and part as something to deliberately annoy the English -- who can't pronounce Welsh words to save their lives. The meaning of the name is 'The church of St. Mary's in the white hazel hollow near a rapid whirlpool and the red cave church of St. Tysilio.'"

I am glad I asked. When I read it, I wasn't sure whether it was "white hazel" or "grey hazel."

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My favorite word today is cope. vb., welsh corgie. Def.: To set out for the scene of an auto accident with a picnic basket.

Hoss Is Warming to the Task

If this works, this will be the first picture Ol' Hoss has ever put on his site from The Old Folks in the Way Home. Google/Blogger has made it so simple to steal pictures off'n the Internet that even a really smart guy like me should have no trouble. (If the picture doesn't show on your computer, that means this whole thing is a stupid plot to try to make smart people look stupid.)

The picture is of Mirror Pond in my hometown of Bend, Oregon. This is about 3,000 miles from Walden Pond (which is apropos of zilch). The "pond" is actually a small reservoir behind a little dam on the Deschutes River, one of the best fly-fishing rivers in the whole Newnited States and Canada.

The figure in the picture is standing on what we called "The Point," a sort-of isthmus. One day I sat there fishing with night crawlers and caught nada. The boy next to me caught two 14-inch rainbow trout using "dough babies." Dough babies is bread mixed with egg. If you try that on your next fishing trip and it works, remember I probably got a patent on it.

The mountain in the distance is the North Sister. There are several peaks visible from Bend that are over 10,000 feet high. One of the finest skiing sites in the world is at Mount Bachelor, about 20 miles west of Bend. The real name of the peak is Bachelor Butte, a volcanic cone less than 10,000 feet high. The ski place developers wanted a snazzier name, so the thing is now referred to as Mount Bachelor, even if it is too tiny to merit a big title. Of course, if it were in Florida it would look like Mt. Everest. And knowing how weird Florida is, it probably would have its own fleet of Yetis.

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I really didn't intend to post anything today, because I feel like I am spoiling you. But since I had nothing to say, I thought I would get it off my chest. And since I fished a bit there, I think I will call this No. 81 in my list of 8,000 things about me.

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My favorite word today is PMS. n., ladies-only. Def.: A synonym for road rage.

Names Were Made to Be Sold

I'm not exactly sure how I'll go about this, but somehow I'm going to gather up the Naming Rights to a whole bunch of things. I hope I won't need a lawyer, because lawyers are so shifty and personally bottom-line oriented. Squinty, too. Lawyers is like porcupines, they....Well, hold on, this ain't about lawyers; this is about Naming Rights. I'll get to lawyers some day, and I bet they ain't gonna like it much. Lawyers is like beached whales, see, because they....Okay, okay, Naming Rights.

The importance of gathering up Rights to Naming Rights is, of course, part of my Grand Plan to Make My Pile. I probably haven't told you this before, but I need to make a lot of money real soon on accounta my days is numbered (706 and counting down; my doctor says you can bet your sweet bippy on this). The money will be used to create a Doctoral Chair at the University of Oregon that is dedicated to making up jokes about lawyers.

Hah! I'm just kidding. Lawyers is natural born jokes. They don't need no help. Lawyers is like blowflies, see, because they....Naming Rights! Yessiree, I got it.

I NEED A LOT OF MONEY TO PAY FOR A GOLD-LINED CASKET! OKAY? Then in 2000 years when the archaeologists dig me up they'll say, "Hoo boy, we got us another King Tut." Bein' famous when you're dead ain't like bein' famous when you're alive, but not all of us can be Osama bin Laden. Maybe not all of us want to.

Here are just a few of the Naming Rights I think I can put together:

OLD NAME.....................NEW NAME
St. Louis Arch..................Dr. Scholls Arch Supports
Jennifer Wilbanks............Wells Fargo Wilbanks
Halfway, Oregon..............Ellen Degeneres
Carnival Lines..................Tom Cruise
Peewee Herman................Palm Sunday*
Jackson, Mississippi.........Michael Jackson, Mississippi
Intercourse, PA...............Heidi Fleiss
Grand Forks, NE..............Rogers Silverplate
Florida Keys....................Yale Locks
Grand Banks...................Jennifer Wilbanks

Doubling up on the name of the Runaway Bride is probably pretty smart cookies, since the only other news of late is about W's shrinking poll numbers. Strike while the Greyhound to Albuquerque is hot, I always say.

(Boy howdy, I just can't wait to see what other suggestions appear in the comments. I might make millions.)

* I'm just hoping somebody has to ask what this is all about. I've long wanted to exercise my knowledge of what goes on in Triple X-rated movie houses.

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My favorite word today is flupth. n., thedogdidit. Def.: The kind of fart you hope will go unnoticed.

Interesting Experiences You Can Buy

Not everybody is rich like you. Some of us have to scrape for every penny to make meat ends.

You're probably sick of hearing it, but Ol' Hoss desperate needs to Make My Pile if I'm going to be able to afford one of them Jack Kennedy-style horsetrot funeral processions down Pennsylvania Avenue. Or maybe a Gambino crime family 40 Cadillacs-style slow tour of downtown New York on the way to the St. John's Cemetery, where Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese are buried. Anything that suits my exalted but penniless station in life.

So here's my current thinking on How to Get Rich. I will soon be selling Mail Order Near Death and Other Bad Experiences. (Once again, I have beat my buddy Bill Gates to the finish line. Turn the other cheek, Bill.)

You might wonder why you would want to buy a Bad Experience. Well, let's face it. You have about run out of things to tell people like my buddy Susie, who is a therapist. So to brighten her day you need some weird stuff that has got you in turmoil, even if it's somebody else's turmoil. You do not want to disappoint a therapist; she is counting on you to have bad things to report.

Here is a description of a For Instance that you can buy and call your own:

"I was walking down a long hallway when, in the distance, I saw someone I vaguely knew. We pretended we didn't know each other, in a vain effort to avoid recognition over the whole length of the corridor. The distance between us didn't slacken fast enough, so the half-smiles on our faces took on a glacier-like quality. To break the tension, we each examine the ceiling and walls of the hallway. A sign on the wall says 'Fallout Shelter.' I break out my Blackberry and make a note. Then I randomly punch in other codes hoping this might transport me to a friendlier place where there is beer instead of a long hallway containing two semi-acquaintances who, somehow, must get over the queer feeling that we both should be embarrassed. The other person, a woman, suddenly recognizes me and calls out, 'Oh, it's you! Good grief!' The worst is over. We pass each other, doffing sick grins."

Now then, chances are that two or more of you are going to be visiting my Susie, so you will need different stories. Here are some other titles:

"While near death, I hovered over my doctor's shoulder as he removed my uterus and slyly implanted a tracking device as required under the Patriot Act."

"I awoke to find myself in a strange bedroom where the gay lifeguard was giving me lip service."

"I dreamed I was in Thailand ministering to conjoined felines, the first Siamese twin cats."

These are strictly cash and carry. If you cannot find a Pay Pal button on my site, it means I am sold out.

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My favorite word today is invisible. adj., from Claude Rains. Def.: How the best piece you have ever written appears on Blogger when you click "Publish."

Hoss May Have a Girlish Figure

I been thinking about all the female talents I got, and wondering if I wouldn't have been a damn good woman (a.k.a. person without package). Just check out my feminine side:

I am really pretty. I don't know how to put pictures on here, so you'll just have to take my word for it. It would be safe to say I look a lot like Nefertiti, because nobody knows what she looked like, and that's good enough for me.

I am artsy-craftsy. I have braided a 4x6-foot rug, needlepointed a 9x13-inch picture, and hooked a 3x5-foot wool rug. Some crazed ex-wives got away with the braided rug and the needlepoint, but I still have the fruits from my experience as a hooker. More mundanely, I have ironed clothes, darned socks, scrapbooked, and coveted spike heels.

I wrote a cookbook. I am an excellent cook. Everybody says I am the only one they know who can make horsemeat taste like tuna, beef, pork or chicken.

I am not afraid to be pregnant. To prove it, on a cousin's dare I swallowed a watermelon seed when I was 11.

I am not too proud to say that nobody would be envious of me, despite my prettiness, because my breasts are pretty small. I don't want your husband anyway, even if he is too good for you.

I can only think of two disadvantages to being a woman. One, you spend most of the time on the bottom, and, two, you are perpetually underpaid.

Oh, I suppose there are other disadvantages. Serious disadvantages. I mean, if you can believe it, somebody has to be Mrs. Donald Trump.

I think this should count as No. 78 in my list of 2,000-5,000 things I plan to tell you about myself. Yes, let's do that.

79. My mother always claimed that the Maudlin family was related to Bill Mauldin, the famous Stars and Stripes cartoonist of World War II fame. She said his family changed their name from Maudlin to Mauldin because maudlin means "drunk, sentimentally silly." I can't prove this name change thing, so it doesn't mean anything. But if I COULD prove it, it still wouldn't mean anything.

80. In college, our fraternity borrowed some steel tables for our annual sweetheart dance. We moved them from the Capitol to the dance site on a flatbed truck. Three of us steadied the tables while Brother Bob drove the truck. Bob drove it over a curb, dumped me and one of the tables -- on top of me. I didn't tell my folks back in Bend that I spent time in the Emergency Room but they read about it in The Oregonian newspaper. Thereafter, I always voted for 'fessing up.

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My favorite word today is parse. vb., from long division. Def.: In any distribution of food equally among several people, to give yourself the extra slice.

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.