Originally produced Feburary 2011

Six o'clock in the morinin', I pulled up to the diesel pump at the quickstop. It's dark, the sky is so clear the stars don't even twinkle, and it's so cold that even with the thermal underwear, a bunny suit and insulated gloves, it hurts to crawl out of the truck and handle the diesel pump. Out in the dark it's so quiet in our little one horse town that I can hear someone's rooster blown reveille off in the distance. Words from a Steven Fromholz song run through the clouds in my brain, "six o'clock silence of a new day beginning' is heard in a small Texas town, like a signal from nowhere the people who live there are up an' movin' aroun'…"

So I shuffle through the door in my mud caked boots, into the warmth of the cafe-quick stop. Three men are at scattered tables, reading the newspaper, drinking coffee, waiting for the day to start. The television is blaring news about the blizzard of '11 and pictures of stranded cars in Austin and Waco flip past.

"How's it hangin'?" is the greeting from one.

"Down and a little to the right." answers another.

Conversation ensues about what the cold weather does to various anatomical portions of the human body. Then a well known local cattle buyer slides into a chair.

"Those steers don't look as shiny today as they did last week!"

"Naw, I bet they lost fifty pounds over the last three days. Did they get a lot of snow up there?"

"No, not in Hereford where that lot is located."

"Funny, because they had six weeks in Sweetwater just a hundred miles further southeast."

"Yeah, it's weird. But then I believe the wind blowed all of the snow off east, that IS the panhandle after all!"

"Speakin' of gambling on feeder cattle, who you got for tomorrow's game?"

"Well, I ain't saying' I don't like the Steelers, but I WILL be wearing' a big square of yellow Styrofoam on my head tomorrow."

"'minds me of the guy who went to the hose races. He noticed a priest in the saddlin' paddock making the sign of the cross in front of one of the nags about to run. He had twenty to one odds against, but when they broke out the gate, he actually won by a length. The guy noticed the same priest doing it to another long shot in the second race, so he ran down to the window and put some money on the horse. Again the horse won and paid out big time. This happened several more times, until the last race the padre was making signs of the cross over the eyes and both hooves of a real glue factory nag. The guy says to himself, jeez this must be a real ????leggie???? so he goes down and bets his house, his pension plan and all his money.

The ol' Pony comes in twenty lengths behind dead last and the guy loses everything. Completely disgusted the guy tracks down the priest and asks what the heck happened. The priest answers "That's the problem with you protestants, you can't tell the difference between a blessing and last rites!"

This got a pretty good laugh all around. Then a retired veterinarian came in, shook hands all around, sat down and looked at me and said "say, one of those Braymer bulls you brought in for test was more than a little snorty!"

"Yeah," I said. "When I went to pick him up I was standing kinda close to the fence and he barked and blew snot in my pocket more'n once."

"I believe he's got a bad case of claustrophobia!"

"Yeah, he's not bad out in open country, but boy if you get in a pen with him you'd best not stray too far from a fence you can crawl up on!"

"What you gonna do with him?"

"I believe he needs to find hisself being owned by someone else pretty soon."

"Weighin' bulls bring seventy to eighty cents right now, what'll he weight?" said the cattle buyer.

"Well, about nineteen hundred, but I'm hopin' he can go back to someone's pasture, then I can get a little more for him." I replied.

"You know, I think that's a good plan, 'cause those personality traits tend to be inherited." said the vet.

"Well," started the brings breeder who'd been quiet for a while "while that may be true, I've seen the gentlest Angus cow, bred to a pet Braymer bull that the grand kids could put a halter on and lead, to produce the snottiest, saltiest crossbreeds you ever seen. In fact, an old boy I knew down near Beaumont was killed last week by two old pet Angus cows with calves in a pen.They stomped him jet like they would a coyote, pure Angus, you could just imagine what a couple of tiger stripes would do!"

"Well, generally, if you breed a gentle bull to gentle cows, you will have a tendency to produce gentle calves. I've seen bunches come into the clinic from different ranches for bangs vaccinations. One bunch would be dog gentle, and the next bunch would put you over the fence, and they were all tiger striped Bradfords that looked like sisters!"

This conversation continued for a while, and met with general agreement that if a breeder wanted to develop a reputation for producing manageable crossbred heifers for commercial cattlemen to use, he's be ahead of the game with gentle bulls.

As I paid my bill and headed for the door, the smiling young man at the counter said "more laxmi!" I laughed, for we'd talked before about the Hindi word for money. Then he said "feels like Katmandu outside!" And I remembered he was from Nepal. I realized that there were in fact colder places than Central Texas. As I drove away, the sun was coming up.