Sometime next week, I will give the final answer as to just how retarded I truly am.  I know that most think that I register real high on the dumbass thermometer.  I may have blown the top off the measuring device.  

Speaking of stupid.  Here’s a story straight out of the way back machine.  

      Back in the summer of ’93, I graduated from the great cow college at Stillwater, OK.  At that time, there were not many ag-ed teaching positions open in Oklahoma.  And there was a big class of graduates from that spring, the fall and spring before that were all looking for jobs.  I wasn’t going to go out-of-state and I wasn’t going to the one or two positions that were open in far southeast OK.  Basically, I was being picky.  It ended up working out for me.

      In the meantime, I kept busy.  Kind of.  One afternoon, a buddy of mine named Nick, loaded up with me and went to cruising backroads.  We came back through Shattuck to get more supplies and we picked up another passenger named Brucey.  At that time, he was the ag teacher at Shattuck.  We continued to make our rounds checking country road signs.  

      We ended up at a place right on the OK/TX line east of Higgins, TX.  The Little Rebel.  It was a pool hall and burger grill.  Since the Rebel sat on the OK side of the line, they also had another barn that held monthly cock fights.  Yes, it was still legal in OK at that time.  

      Anyways, the three of us decided to stop in and shoot some pool.  We were minding our own business, when another crew came in.  This crew had been hitting the beverages pretty hard.  The mouthy one of this crew was looking for a fight.  He made several remarks about some of my Kelln relatives.  Distant cousins that I really didn’t even know, but I had enough and it started to get physical.  But the owner of the place broke us up with her sawed-off pool cue.  That old lady was prepared to beat us with that stick.  

      I went back to playing pool.  This lasted for a few until his mouth started running again.  So, for fear of getting beat by a cut-off pool cue wielding old lady, we headed outside to settle it.  His crew kind of circled around he and I.  This dude just kept yapping and wouldn’t go ahead and engage.  They had me out-numbered but my mouth was know at full operation and I was primed to pound this sack of crap.  Brucey really didn’t want no part of this.  Being a young ag teacher himself, he probably didn’t need to be there.  And as for Nick, he jumped into the back of my pickup to grab an equalizer.

     As things were finally escalating, the old man that ran the poultry operation came walking right into the middle of us, holding a fighting chicken.  “What the hell is going on here?” he loudly exclaimed.  At this point, Nick had been trying to take the handle out of a hi-lift jack.  The handle was rusted in.  So all 5’6″ & 140# lbs of Nick decided to jump back into the middle of us, holding the whole hi-lift jack.  Kind of like a scene from Rambo.  He yelled, “Come on you (insert numerous bad words)!”

     At this point, old man Range took that fighting chicken he was holding and threw it right into Nick’s face.  OOOHHH SNAAPPPP!!!!  Now that was a beating!   Nick dropped the hi-lift jack on his foot and went to covering his face.  Cackels, wings, beaks and feet were going all over the place.  The sounds and the visuals were wicked!  Nick got free of the rooster and old man Range gathered his bird up and warned us to “All of ya!!  Get the hell outta here before it really gets ugly!”

       Now, how much uglier can it get than dropping a hi-lift jack on your foot while getting your ass whipped by a fighting cock?  

       Nick limped to the pickup and we headed to his uncle’s house in Higgins, 2 miles away, to clean up the numerous facial abrasions and scratches.  All I know, is it is a good thing that bird wasn’t wearing blades or Nick would have really been in a bad way.  And I got a teaching job a few days later and wasn’t around to finish the dealings with that low-rent mouthy dude.  Actually, I’ve never seen him or his buddies again.  And now, the Little Rebel is closed and cock-fighting is illegal.  Oh, the good times.  

      However, I’ve been to a few goat shows where I felt like I got a fighting rooster thrown into my face.  And now, I have Brucey’s daughter in my program.  Dang good student.

Don’t always do what everyone else is doing.  Remember, when following the masses, sometimes the “m” is silent.

Have a good one.