SHAVING COWBOY STYLE

Welpt, me an’ Zeke, an’ Hooker Ben,
Rawhide, Mike and Jim
Was movin’ cows for Jimmy’s ma
Up to where the snow wuz thin
The cows were at the snow line
An’ the calves were in the trees
Playin’ in the new grass
That came up past their knees

We wuz sittin’ on the pasture
An’ all at once, did Zeke
Raise up on his arm knees
An’ started in’ta speak
“I knowed myself a cowboy
When a button in this lan’
This feller at the Circle Q
Hire’d on there as a han’”

“One day we got to talkin’
‘Bout how the city folks do things
Like hangin’ out the wash’n
An’ wearin’ weddin’ rings
Sez a city guy, to this cowboy
‘Ya got little ‘bout to boast
So when ya shave yer whiskers
Ya oughta hold yer razor close’

“Welpt,” goes on the story
“That ain’t how I do the deed
‘Cause my beard is hard as jerky
An’ comes up like loco weed
So, what I do is this,
An’ it works so mighty fine
To clean my chin of whiskers
An’ shed off this beard o’ mine.

I build me up a fire
Nighttime coffee then I brew
An’ a take a burnin’ stick an’ hold it
Where the offendin’ whiskers grew
I burn ‘em off each evenin’
With a fire at my chin
But, they’ve growed back by sunup
A cowboy jus’ can’t win.”

Now, Zeke sez this with reverence
For a cowboy who’s so tough
To shed his chin hair there by fire
He’s showed he’s plenty rough,
But Hooker Ben he looks at Zeke an’ me
An’ a yarn he does begin
Of a cowboy that he oncet knowed
An’ how he cleaned off his own chin.

“We wuz over on the Llano
Runnin’ cattle fer a spell
When a han’, no names a tellin’
He had the beard from hell
It was thick an’ it was matted
It kinda looked like felt
It hung from his beak, (enormous)
Clean down on to his belt.

Welpt, I ain’t never one to ask
A cowboy what he does
So long the county sherriff
Ain’t a causin’ any fuss
But one night we wuz a hawkin’
An’ he up an’ sez to me
Any whiskers ya ever come across
So horrible to see?

Welpt, I answer in the hunt-uhs
It’s the meanest that I’ve saw
That hangs plumb to yer belt stays
From there off’n yer jaw.
An’ I’ve wondered to my ownself
Ain’t none o’ my accoun’
Why ya don’t go see a barber
An’ get them things hewed down”

“Welpt,” he shoves his chaw across
“It ain’t that I have saved
My chin hair fer my heirs
It’s jus’ the way I shave
I try to keep it oncet a year
An’ not much more I’d say
‘Cause when I clean the whiskers
It ain’t the normal way.

What I do might seem a bit odd
To some folks who come from town
But to us cowboys from on the Llano
Mos’ don’t even frown
When they hear of my method,
Some cowboys say I’m brave
When they learn the way I wuz
Taught jus’ how to shave.

“What I do is climb a mountain
Up to air that’s rarified
An’ I find maself a streambed
An’ I sit down on it’s side
Then I take out a jar of honey
An’ I drain it through the hair
An’ when it’s soaked up good ‘nuff
I go kiss a grizzly bear”

Welpt, Rawhide, he wuz a thinkin’
An’ his thoughts wuz leanin’ toward
His own stubble on his chin
You could use to sand a board
An’ he raises up from layin’
To nearly how a human sits
An’ he bites off half his chewin’ stick
An’ the used up part he spits.

He stares across the valley
At the sand that’s glowin’ white
An’ he starts to speak his verbage
An’ he sez, “I guess that is all right,
But me, I’ve got a method
That I always stuck
To get clean shaved, to go a dancin’
Or by a pickup truck

An’ I got to mow the whiskers
Or Sadie’ll do it there for sure
An I don’t like her method
It leaves my jowls so sore
So what I do is take a hammer
For my whisker’s they is stout,
An’ I drive ‘em in like nails,
Bite ‘em off an spit ‘em out.

where have I heard that punch line before? Another good yarn, Merc.

Peter

Merc:

I've heard the punch line before, as well, but I've never heard as entertaining a story as this to precede it. Way to go.

Joe

Wally McCrae, one of the greatest cowboy poets who ever straddled a horse oncet said, "Cowboy poetry is simply a way to use 38 stanzas to tell a stupid two line joke."

Entertainment matters. This is really entertaining. The best part isn't the joke, it's the story on the way to the finish. You could sell tickets to hear this stuff.

Hey Terry,

"I knew a city slicker
whose rep was pretty mean
and when he shaved his' self
he used the gasoline"

*smile.