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Holiday Stories *** Share those that are part of your Holiday Memories

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dot-matrix:

--- Quote from: Ellemeno on December 09, 2006, 06:03:46 am ---These are great!  Did she say all this stuff for real, "Pass the axle grease"?  Here are some of my favorites:

Arkansas toothpick: a large knife 
Beef Tea: shallow water where cows have stood
Boil Over:   a horse that starts bucking
Bone Orchard:  cemetery
Brain Tablet:  a cigarette
Burro Milk:  nonsense
Down to the Blanket:  almost broke
Prairie Tenor:  coyote
Whistle Berries:  beans

I notice there's quite a few about biscuits and blankets.  It shows how pared down to essentials a cowboy's life is.

This one - Snuffy:  a wild or spirited horse.  There's that song about "Get along little dogies" has a line "The firey and snuffy are rarin' to go."  Never understood that, so thanks.

And this one - Techy as a Teased Snake:  grumpy.  I guess it's not your kind of techy, with a hard K sound?  :)

--- End quote ---


 :laugh: No Elle, she would say pass the butter at the table but if someone lamented it being difficult to make bisquits  she would say something like  "Hard!  Pffft, How can it be hard? All it is, is a few cups of flour, a little milk, a pinch of baking power and some axel grease!"  She was born in 1890 and had a very colorful way of speaking which came from growing up herself in the west at a time when things were still not quite civilized, but she was a lady right down to the ground.  Some of these phrases peppered her everyday speech, others we learned from stories she or Grandpa told us.

Techy as  a Teased Snake was a favorite of her's, she used that one often.  It a soft ch sound.  Think touchy not the modern tek as in technical.

Meryl:
Dot, those are wonderful stories and Westernisms!  Thanks so much.  8)

What part of the West did your grandma live in?  Do you live out West yourself?

dot-matrix:

--- Quote from: Meryl on December 09, 2006, 03:40:44 pm ---Dot, those are wonderful stories and Westernisms!  Thanks so much.  8)

What part of the West did your grandma live in?  Do you live out West yourself?

--- End quote ---

My Grandma lived in Southwestern Montana from 1925 until her death in 1979.  She was born in Odessa, Texas but her Daddy was surveyor and they traveled all over the Great Plains while she was girl.  I was born and raised in Montana but have lived in Southern California mostly since my college days.

Jeff Wrangler:
"Monkey Ward Cowboy: a tenderfoot"

I think I remember reading somewhere that "Monkey Ward" was a kind of a nickname for "Montgomery Ward," as in the Montgomery Ward mail-order catalogue. So that would make sense: a tenderfoot would be a "mail-order cowboy"!  :D

dot-matrix:
A Busted Cowboy's Christmas
~ by Iyam B. Usted



I am a busted cowboy
And I work upon the range;
In summertime I get some work
But one thing that is strange'
As soon as Fall work's over
We get it in the neck
And we get a Chritmas present
On a neatly written check.
The come to town to rusiticate,
We've no place else to stay
When Winter winds are howling
Because we can't eat hay.
A punchers life's a picnic;
It's one continued joke,
But there's none more anxious to see Spring
Than a cowboy who is broke.
The wages that a cowboy earns
In Summer go like smoke,
And when the Winter snows have come
You bet your life he's broke.
You can talk about your Holiday,
Your Chritmas cheer and joy;
Its all the same to me, my friend,
Cash gone-I'm a broke cowboy.  My saddle and my gun's in soak
My spurs I've long since sold;
My rawhide and my quirt are gone;
My chaps-no, they're too old;
My stuff's all gone, I can't even beg
A solitary smoke.
For no one cares what becomes of 
A cowboy who is broke.
Now where I'll eat my dinner
This chrismas, I don' know;
But you bet I'm going to have one
If they give me half a show.
This Christmas has no charms for me'
On good things Ill not choke
Unless I get a big hand-out - 
I'm a cowboy who is broke. 

******This appeared in the Stock Growers' Journal, Miles City Montana in their December 1893 issue.  ****** Iyam B. Usted is most likely D.J. O'Malley  editor

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