Getting back to the forum

[Caneyscud]

The Start of it all!
Why, hello there.  Yes, my name is Caneyscud.  Busy guy usually, but right now you can find me on my deck.  Relaxing sort of, pondering life's imponderables, the last number in pi, the end of infinity, lost in thought, daydreaming................


I'm a joker
I'm a broker
I'm a midnight smoker

Why can't I have cowboy duds and guns like Quigley?

Whatever happened to Marshal Dillon and Miss Kitty?  Did they get married?  Did they have kids?  Did any of the kids look like Festus?  Did Festus ever shave?


I'm a poor lonesome cowboy a long way from home
Rank horses, stubborn cows, roaming like a gnome.

Deep in my heart is a song, down on the range I belong
Dawn till dusk, I keep riding until Chuckie clangs the dinner gong
I
Bucking broncs and mean ole thorny Brahma bulls
Calf ropin', hog tying, and chuck wagon pulls

This cowboy life ain't all that bad I say
Fact is, I might be here even without the pay

Cowboys are just good ole boys wearin' cowboy hats and spurs
Livin' the simple life, always lookin' for that a purdy girl that purrs.

Here's to all the buckaroos that came before, may they live forever in our minds.
They're the best that ever were; good cowboys are mighty hard finds.

Groggy and stupified, here I am just sitting (you could more correctly say molded) in my Adirondack.  You know the ones – but these are special.  My grandfather made these from his own design – they have these huge wide arms.  You could play shuffleboard on one of them and still had space to play croquet on the other.  If you are too young to know what any of that means, call me sometimes, we'll sit a spell, share some tea and discuss the old days! 

My mason jar of iced tea sits on the chair arm.  Have room for so many more - anybody want to join me.  It is a lazy coolish, crispy clear starry fall night!  The kind of night you look up and exclaim WOW, I really am but only a speck in the big picture.  The sorta night that you are tempted to make the effort to lift your arm off the chair and reach out with an open hand to the sky.  Just stretch and reach up as far as you can and grab a handful of them stars.   Bring your arm back down, stare with amazement at what it contains, and thank God before you put that handful of stars into your pocket.  You are saving them to show your wife – just as soon as you get tired of playing lazy! 

Sitting there, mindlessly idle, playing with my moustache, only punctuated by the occasional swatting of a mosquito.  Which reminds me.  Someday, when I get a chance I am going to ask God – Why mosquitoes?

Tonight, my mind is wandering all over the universe – photos I'd just taken, hot peppers, the trout I want to catch.    When all of a sudden I zoomed in on and settled on the Hill Country.  Thinking about roadrunners, horny toads, rangers, cowboys, then the Pedernales and Frio Rivers when all of a sudden there was the Medina River in all of her wonderful crystal clear cypress banked beauty!  What happy bucolic thoughts of a young and adventurous Caney romping around the banks and reveling in her marvelous sancrosanct waters.  Thoughts unbounded by a light carefree heart.  Thoughts of those brisk sharp gasps of air rushing out of you as you surfaced after jumping from 100+ degree air into the seemingly frigid 32 degree (more close to 60 degrees probably) water.  Remembrances of the resulting tightness. 

Thoughts of family and family reunions.  Yes, family reunions!  What memories.  Many of the family owned huge ranches.  Halves of beef, whole goats, wild turkeys, deer (notice – no pork), ribs (ribs ain't pork according to Texans), oak wood coals, staying up all night, links and links of spicy homemade sausage produced from old family recipes (some going all the way back to the old country), and the seemingly endless cooking pits – the place the magic happened.  The tables covered in red checked cloth, the barrels of tea, the longnecks and all those sides and desserts.  An unimaginable spread of beans all sorts of ways, fresh baked breads, potato salad countless ways, thick slices of red ripe dripping tomatoes and onion, homemade pickles, slaw, and corn bread.  Nope no pastas – that was for sissies and this is Central Texas.  And yep – there is also no barbecue sauce or ketchup to be found.  This is Texas after all.  Desserts – oh mama!  They would make your tongue tickle the roof of your mouth.  There'd be tables of pies, pecan pies (the best), cakes, cobblers, peach cobbler (the best), homemade ice cream (the best - did you notice there were lots of bests), and even some desserts you could barely pronounce much less spell – enough sugar, butter, and lard for a high that would get you to the moon and back.

But best of all there was that ethereal sopping sauce.  Made up lovingly and carefully by one of the grand old men of barbecue from a consummate recipe handed down through the ages.   It kept the meat moist and all that great tasty bark forming while the meat was undergoing the magic of low and slow barbecuing.  Reverantly applied by the pit boss masters.  When you asked how they knew when and how much to apply the sop, they would bend down to little Caney and whisper.  Shhhh --- listen carefully and hard - the meat will tell you.  It was the start of young Caney's barbecue "career".  Yes, both my dad and grandfather barbecued, most often in a Texas Hibachi, but there is something enchanting and life transforming about seeing large masses of red meat undergoing transformation into something so sublime.  Something about the camaraderie, the stories regaled and the pure thrill of the testosterone of men that knew hard work and living good.  The were masters of the earth, the sky and the beef.  Something about seeing the first breaking rays of the new dawn piercing the magical smoke, a signal that pure protein oblivion was not far off. 

COME AND GET IT! Food overload!! It was an obsession to eat a little (sometimes a lot) of everything.  All you could do was groan.  If a wasp landed on your arm – who cared!  If a tick was crawling up your leg – who cared!  If a rattler slithered over your foot – who cared!  For a growing boy with two hollow legs, this was heaven.  No need for – eewwww – girls and their cooties ever (well I was young)!  Just give me BARBECUE     and plenty of it!!

(back to dreamland – back to the chair, the tea, the stars)

From the beautiful people, a first glance, is all I have ever received
I am nothing to really take a second look at
In my life, the best I ever received was "You're cute – from a distance"
Time and time again, it bothered me through my youth
But as I grew older, it doesn't much cross my mind.
I learned just by my dealing with others
That those that had that outwardly popular beauty
Only had it for just a brief moment in time
As time marches on, the playing field is leveled
Scientists cannot totally explain gravity
But wisdom tells me – it really exists
All you have to do is look at those that used to be beautiful
As I've gotten older and more cantankerous
I am happy with how I turned out
Because I'm secure in the knowledge that
If I'm so ugly, that's okay 'cuz so are you!

[classicrockgriller]

CANEY"S BACK!

Good to see ya.

Was just in Nashville last week.

[SiFumar]

Welcome back!  Enjoyed your story.

[FLBentRider]

Welcome back Caney!

[Ka Honu]

Welcome home, Caney!

PS - Not that familiar with your other quotes but the Steve Miller lyric is "I'm a joker; I'm a smoker; I'm a midnight toker."  But what the Hell; it's your arrangement.

[devo]

Welcome back
Man that would have taken me all night to type  :o

[squirtthecat]

The Prodigal Son has returned!

[Caneyscud]

Yeah, I sorta borrowed that one!  But the way it was didn't make sense to the bbq logic in me.  The first poem is a take off on Lucky Luke, and the last was inspired by a line from a Nirvana song.

Welcome home, Caney!

PS - Not that familiar with your other quotes but the Steve Miller lyric is "I'm a joker; I'm a smoker; I'm a midnight toker."  But what the Hell; it's your arrangement.

[Caneyscud]

Wish I'd had known that, but maybe not able to get together anyways - my parents were in town.  And they brought me 30 links of Kreuz's sausage.

CANEY"S BACK!

Good to see ya.

Was just in Nashville last week.

[Tenpoint5]

Welcome back Brother Caney!! Been mising your Wit and Wisdom my Friemd

[Sailor]

Happy to see you back.  Missed your stories!

[TestRocket]

Always a novel and never the Readers Digest!

I always read, sometimes scratching my head.

Most of the time right before I go to bed.

I tease you Caney, only in jest!

Because you're a word poet and one of the best!

Welcome back, I hope all is well!  ;D

[Keymaster]

Hi CaneyScud, Glad tour Back!!!!

[NePaSmoKer]

Do i know you  :o

WB

[ArnieM]

Hi Caney and welcome back!