Buffalo Hunters casting bullets? Fact or fiction.

[TCLouis]

That's a first for me. I've never been accused of knowing anything before. In fact I've been told quite specifically that I don't know.....dung.

Is that Jack or his cousin beetle

[floodgate]

Felix:

PUHLEEZEE!! Stop using the term "global" warming! I don't care about the warming part - it may even be true - but that "global" just promotes the "Round Earth" myth!!!

floodgate

"IT ISN'T ROUND; IT'S FLAT!"

[C A Plater]

Junior, interesting. Anyone know how ice was made in 1810? sundog

It wasn't made as much as harvested from lakes and rivers. Stored for later use in ice houses insulated with sawdust and straw.

[felix]

Yeah, you're right. It's gotta' be flat so ice can grow on rivers and lakes. Sorry, my error! ... felix

[carpetman]

TCLouis---All that stuff in your lifetime----does that mean you are getting old? NO. You have already arrived. Recently my son in law and daughter and I were in a country type cafe. On the wall was a pair of ice hooks. Neither one of them knew what they were.

[carpetman]

Floodgate Doug---You are correct--all that stuff about the earth being round was promoted by a guy that takes credit for discovering an inhabited place. Have you ever known one person that takes credit for discovering an inhabited place that could be trusted?

[wills]

TCLouis---All that stuff in your lifetime----does that mean you are getting old? NO. You have already arrived. Recently my son in law and daughter and I were in a country type cafe. On the wall was a pair of ice hooks. Neither one of them knew what they were.

Probably neither of them ever lived far enough north to go ice fishing.

[carpetman]

Wills--Ice fishing??? I was speaking of the hooks used to carry a block of ice.

[Txredraider]

Txredraider---What town would that be South of scenic Lubbock? Perhaps Tahoka? BTW which part of Lubbock is the scenic part---I missed it?

Not quite Tahoka, but close. We live in bustling Wilson, TX. We're moving soon because the population density is getting too high. The last I heard Lynn County (6500 people total) was up to 7.2 people per square mile, although that's skewed a bit by the big cities like Tahoka with its 2300 souls.

All of Lubbock is the scenic part, and you can scenic every bit of it without doing anything other than turning 360 degrees. If someone sneaks up on you out here, it is your own fault. I often wonder how many frontier suicides were written off as indian attacks instead of their true cause: wind insanity.

[carpetman]

Txredraider---Moving from Wilson--where to? Are you involved with the feeding or erradication of bo weevils?

[Txredraider]

I'm changing jobs and we're moving back to our home town in east Texas, about 70 miles southeast of Dallas. The only interaction I have ever had with the boll weevil is hoping that they would make a comeback and run the sodbusters out of business so that we could have grass back on the south plains again. I even considered raising them for a time in a crop rotation with tumble weeds and goat heads!

Txredraider---Moving from Wilson--where to? Are you involved with the feeding or erradication of bo weevils?

[Freightman]

I live in Amarillo and know some folks who are waiting on a calm day to sight in there rifles, they have missed the last five hunting seasons.

[44man]

Been reading this with a lot of chuckles. Don't know how it got from lead to ice but you guys are great. You all need to write a book of jokes! Thank you for the fun.

[Abert Rim]

Tex: Appreciate your post on the biochemistry of cellulose. I am sorry to hear you have goathead in Texas, as it is an invader here in Oregon along with G.D. star thistle.
As to using buffalo chips to melt lead, I would bet on it without a second thought. Plenty of heat in a glowing bed of chip coals, and the pottery traditions among the Indians of New Mexico include firing their works in dung based fires for both heat and a smothering, reduction atmosphere.
If it weren't so dang wet here in Oregon, I'd gather up a mess o' cow chips, lay a fire and take pictures of the molten lead in the old Ideal pot.

[montana_charlie]

Been reading this with a lot of chuckles. Don't know how it got from lead to ice but you guys are great. You all need to write a book of jokes! Thank you for the fun.

I'm just reading along when somebody mentions Lubbock. Well, as a boy (growin' up around Potter County) I did have occasion to get south of Swisher County, and therefore out of the Panhandle. That always occurred on trips to visit Lubbock. Why we wanted to visit Lubbock was somethin' Daddy never let on about.

But, I was content to continue reading until somebody mentioned the wind in Amarillo. Now, that's even closer to home. I don't think the Potter County Hospital still exists because Amarillo probably grew out enough to swallow it up. But, even though it was outside the city limits, my birth certificate says I was born in Amarillo...and most of my fundamental character development took place in and around that area.

'Course, that isn't really material to the discussion...but then 44man comes out with a suggestion that stuff like this outta get wrote down.
Well...I have. And here is one of 'em...

If you are a native of the Lone Star State, you are fully aware that most babies in Texas are born fully clothed. Well...as it happened, I was the only premature baby ever born in Potter County Hospital.

Now I don't mean to say that I was overanxious to say 'Howdy' to folks. Mamma carried me ever bit as long as the book says she should. It's just that I was born bare nekid…except for boots and a hat!

That don't mean I weren't fully formed, 'cause everything I would need in life was present and I was normal sized...just shy of fifty-nine inches tall. But when the doctors saw what they had delivered, they just naturally assumed that this was one of those 'premature infants' they had read about in the medical books. So they decided to try and keep me alive, to see if they could make a real Texan out of what they had available.

Since it was late February and calvin' season was in full swing, no one in the area had a calf warmer they could spare. So they sent up north...way up north...plumb to Oklahoma City for one of those little electric boxes that somebody had invented to 'cook' a preemie in 'til he was done.

Now Daddy didn't care if I had come early, late, or inside out...he was hankerin' to show off his first kid, and tickled that I had turned out as a boy. He had invited all his pals over to the hospital to have a gander and there was a big box of pretty good cigars layin' beside me for those that were so inclined. I don't remember feelin' crowded, but that hotbox was built for Yankee kids and them cigars took up a fair amount of territory. Anyhow the doctors said that Daddy's gang would have to move on so they could close the lid and plug me in somewhere. And that 'somewhere' turned to be the only extra electric outlet in Potter County Hospital.

The day after I signed on was George Washington's birthday and they pretty well shut down everything in the hospital to go into Amarillo and celebrate. Now, residents of the Panhandle remember 1946 as one of the coldest winters on record and February was a real pipe buster. To stay in a celebratin' mood everybody in the county was runnin' the heaters at full bore and before long the local electric co-op just gave up the ghost. But by that time George Washington and Daddy had been toasted so many times that nobody really cared a hoot, so they built some bonfires over on Polk Street and danced 'til sunup.

The next mornin’ it was a sorry-lookin' bunch of sore-headed folks that came to open up the hospital. They found a mess almost as bad as the main ballroom on the Titanic after it smacked in to the big ice cube. Pipes had froze and busted and there was water enough to irrigate Arizona. It was a hung-over nurse lookin' for a mop that opened the janitorial closet where my little cookin’ box had got plugged in. Bein' tucked away like that, they had plumb forgot that I might need some lookin' after. Natcherly, she slammed outta there like a ropin' calf at a rodeo to fetch a doctor…so he could decide if there was anything in the box worth sendin' home. As it happened, I was a might hungry 'cause the round steak they had given me for a pacifier was just a memory...and I was a little chilly.

That doctor called Daddy in and told him the whole story without tryin' to blame it on nobody but his self. (You wouldn't expect anything else from a born Texan.) When Daddy asked him how come it was that I didn't freeze that doctor said, "The way I see it, that youngun woulda been froze hard as stone if it weren't for him smokin' that whole box of cigars...one after another."

Now you would've thought that all that tobacco might've stunted my growth. And it was probably so, 'cause those clothes I was missin' never did grow in. It's always been my contention that a 'hard start' was responsible for the fact that I'm not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree...which gave my little brother Patrick a chance to shine. But, of course, that's another story.

Charlie Maxwell

[highwallbo]

You still like dem ceeeeegars?

[montana_charlie]

I'd rather smoke buffalo chips...

[Txredraider]

I'd rather smoke buffalo chips...

Well, like a lot of threads that I've read on here and Shooters over the years, this one has finally come full circle. Now we just have to separate the fact from the fiction.

The story about all the pipes freezing in the hospital makes me think of my favorite Ace Reid "Cowpokes" cartoon. Two cowboys are saddling their horses in snow that is chest deep and you can tell the wind is blowing to beat hell. One looks at the other and says "Man, I'll bet its cold in Amarillo!".

The other story that makes me think of is about one pen rider in a feedyard riding up to another. "Hey, do me a favor and pull the hood of my jacket up over my head", he says to his cohort. "Its already there", his friend replies. "Damn, I was afraid of that", says the first pen rider.

If you can stay out of the wind in this country, the cold isn't too bad. I've been out when it was 6 degrees and it really wasn't that bad. However, when I stepped out into the wind it was so cold that it made me want to scream. I drew in to let out a good yell, and it was so cold that I couldn't.

That should get the pump primed with this crew to get some good windies going about how cold it was when they walked to school uphill both ways 5 miles in the snow, just so they could meet up with their friends to band together so the wolves didn't eat them so they could finish the hard part of the journey.

[MT Gianni]

My favorite Ace Reid cartoon is the TV repairman at the ranch house saying "The real reason you folk's ain't getting a good picture is you done bought yourselves a microwave oven". Gianni.

[montana_charlie]

"...you done bought yourselves a microwave oven".

That one cracked me up...I'll remember it.

...snow that is chest deep...

...about one pen rider in a feedyard...

...it was so cold that it made me want to scream...

I think I have a tale or two (in my Panhandle folder) on each of those subjects. Any preferences...?
CM