COWBOY LINGO FOR A SATURDAY MORNING
....OK, cowpokes. It’s pretty clear that Tom Fuentes was raised on prunes and proverbs. Meanwhile, Don Wagner tends to be all horns and rattles. Still, I’ve gotta say that, at this here ranch, Raghu Mathur has been clouding the trail and generally making it a town with hair on it, and somebody just had to put a stop to it.
....Well, yipeekiyay! –That Gooey varmint will soon leave Cheyenne and that’s ‘cuz the Gooster got all swollen like a drowned horse and so Dandy Don took out his cutter full o' beans. But Goo was too slow to live, and it’s been hair in the butter ever since. The sooner he decorates a cottonwood (chancellorwise), the sooner every bull around these parts can take his tail off the dashboard and go back to carryin’ the dang thing. Then, finally, we can go back to the tall grass, cuz this gang of waddies has been narrow at the equator for a coon’s age.....(–Still, when Goo finally cuts his suspenders, it'll be as hot as a whorehouse on nickel night around these parts! Yippee!)
.....It’s a great day here in Orange County. We had a little breeze for a while, but that’s settled down. The air is cool, the sky is bright. Chirp, chirp.
.....Living out in the country, you hear lots of sounds, and after a while you don’t pay attention to them anymore, but, this morning, just below my bedroom window, something was rustling, and it seemed to be big.
.....Even that wasn’t enough to get me up to have a look. I was reading the news on my laptop. I couldn’t be bothered. (My sister has often claimed to see UFOs at night—right there below my window. I pay no mind to that either.)
.....But the sounds continued. Sounded like a very large creature walking around. And then the sound got more complicated, as if there were several creatures, all large. So, finally, I got up and checked out these noisemakers.
.....Cows. Three of ‘em. Big cows. I see cattle all the time along El Toro Road, and sometimes along Live Oak Canyon, but you get the wrong idea about their size unless you get up close. They’re huge. Each cow had its own colony of flies. I could see ‘em buzzin’.
.....One of them varmints was especially large. Maybe he was a bull. Dunno. He seemed to be in charge.
.....I said hello to the cows from my balcony, and they didn’t like that much, so they started to wander down the dirt road behind my place down to the rock bridge and the canyon entry. It's not far from old Hamilton Trail.
.....Then the cowboys showed up.
.....“You seen some cows?”
.....“Yep. Three of ‘em. They’re headed down the canyon, toward the road.”
.....“Good! That’s what we want.”
.....I nodded.
That got me interested in cowboy lingo. I found an old article from the Corpus Christi Caller Times (There was nothing like cowboy lingo) that offered some examples, including these (here is a fuller lexicon):
• On a trail drive, every man had to do his own job or, as a cowboy would put it, every bull had to carry his own tail.
• A man in a fit of temper was all horns and rattles.
• Someone who was confusing the situation, or getting in the way, was clouding the trail.
• A farmer was someone who turned the grass upside-down.
• A man with a big ego was swollen up like a drowned horse.
• Someone overly pious was raised on prunes and proverbs.
• A depressed cowhand was down in his boots or had his tail over the dashboard.
• A hungry waddy [cowboy] was narrow at the equator.
• A delicate situation was hair in the butter.
• A wild cowtown was a town with hair on it.
• A loaded gun was a cutter full of beans.
• Someone killed in a gunfight was too slow to live.
• To be hanged was to decorate a cottonwood….
• Someone departing for other places was leaving Cheyenne.
