\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Much like Willie Nelson, I’ve been on the road again.\u00a0 I’ve sorted through numerous sets of goats in several states.\u00a0 I’ve gathered lambs from the midwest.\u00a0 And I’ve traveled to several learning experiences such as the spur making workshop that I went to in east Texas last week.\u00a0 It was fun and I learned.\u00a0 Not that I’m going to go into business making spurs.\u00a0 I just thought it was a project that I could learn to teach kids how to do.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 As I’ve been driving, I’ve been thinking.\u00a0 Thinking about experiences that I’ve had.\u00a0 People that I haven’t talked to in awhile.\u00a0 One of those people is Fred Urban.\u00a0 If you don’t know him, you should.\u00a0 A true character.\u00a0 Fred is the oldest brother to Kenny and Ritson Urban, two legends in the sheep barns.\u00a0 Fred, however, liked dealing with pigs.\u00a0 For the past decade, Fred has lived in the greater Odessa area.\u00a0 I occasionally get a call from him.\u00a0 Or a message via another acquaintance.\u00a0 Something along the lines of “Tell Kelln that Fred Urban will be by to visit Tammy sometime when he is gone.”\u00a0 Or a random item mailed in an envelope with no return address, no note or letter inside.\u00a0 Just something like a piece of a menu from the Big Texan steakhouse in Amarillo.\u00a0 Or a smart ass birthday card that has a pic of some piece of nasty with a signature of a person that I know would NEVER send anything that disgusting.\u00a0 That’s Fred.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Anyways, I hadn’t heard anything out of him in months.\u00a0 I’ve tried to call and text.\u00a0 Radio silence.\u00a0 A month or so ago, a mutual friend of ours down near Houston called me and said that he had talked to Fred.\u00a0 Things weren’t good.\u00a0 I stepped up my game of trying to get a hold of Fred.\u00a0 Finally, he called back this weekend.\u00a0 Not good.\u00a0 He has been laid up in a hospital since February.\u00a0 He has been fighting cancer and heart problems.\u00a0 Told me that he has died three times and they have brought him back three times.\u00a0 I had watery eyes as I listened to him talk.\u00a0 But, in true Fred fashion, I was laughing as well as crying for the rest of the conversation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I could literally write a book full of all of the experiences that I have had over the decades with Fred Urban.\u00a0 Back in the mid 90s, he and I made a trip to Jimmy Strube’s farm near Garden City, TX.\u00a0 Two years in a row, we made this trek to get leftover FREE barrows for show pigs.\u00a0 Two years in a row we had one of these free leftovers make the premium sale at OYE.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When I taught at Waynoka, lots of really good hogs were farrowed and raised around there.\u00a0 Fred hooked me up with numerous connections to sell school groups in Texas.\u00a0 Sometimes, he delivered the groups, sometimes I did.\u00a0 There were breed and reserve breed champions at Houston that came out of these school groups.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0For years, Fred drove an early 80s black 4 door Lincoln car.\u00a0 A real land cruiser of a boat.\u00a0 The first time that I ever met him, he pulled into the Waynoka Ag Farm with this Lincoln pulling a single axle trailer.\u00a0 He had 20+ pigs in the trailer and another 6 in the trunk.\u00a0 Yes, in the trunk.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0One time, about the year 2000, I went with Fred to deliver a set of hogs south of Houston.\u00a0 It was the weekend of Thanksgiving.\u00a0 We left late Friday night.\u00a0 We drove that Lincoln pulling that trailer.\u00a0 He dropped that set off, gathered the cash and then stopped at a couple of pig farms that he dealt with in the south Texas region. We had some furniture in the trailer that he bought at a yard sale.\u00a0 Next stop, we put pigs in the trunk.\u00a0 He had a special cut board that had air holes in it and it could be attached to the car with the aid of some wire to keep things closed.\u00a0 Real piece of engineering.\u00a0 It was now late Saturday evening when we headed back north.\u00a0 I was driving and Fred was sleeping.\u00a0 I was getting really tired and Fred wouldn’t wake up.\u00a0 I made it across the Red River on I35 about 1 am.\u00a0 I pulled into the\u00a0 large truck parking area that was there at that time.\u00a0 Now, they have a big damn casino.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I pulled into the nearly empty parking lot and put that car in park.\u00a0 I left the car running.\u00a0 I cracked the windows to get some fresh air.\u00a0 It was cold outside.\u00a0 A mini van pulled up and parked right next to us.\u00a0 Of all the available parking spots and they chose that one.\u00a0 Right on our passenger side and close to us.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The past 5 or 6 hours those pigs hadn’t made a sound while that boat of a car was floating down the interstate at 90 mph.\u00a0 But now, the boat was docked.\u00a0 The pigs started moving.\u00a0 And now, the standard pig fights were beginning.\u00a0 The couple in the mini van next to us were now looking to see what in the hell was in that trunk?\u00a0 Imagine, if you will, the sound of 4 forty # pigs in a car trunk, fighting.\u00a0 This poor couple was looking back at the trunk, I’m sure trying to decide whether to leave, call 911 or see if assistance was needed.\u00a0 They had their window rolled down, looking.\u00a0 And that is when Fred, who was only a mere few feet away from them, began barking like a Rottweiler.\u00a0 It scared the crap out of those people.\u00a0 As I didn’t know that he was even awake, it scared me as well.\u00a0 That mini van left in a hurry.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Once I got my wits back, I decided that we too should leave.\u00a0 Before the law showed up.\u00a0 Fred laughed for a few miles and then went back to sleep.\u00a0 I had such an adrenaline rush that I drove all the way to Waynoka.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Years ago, I sold him a goat.\u00a0 I priced the wether at $800.\u00a0 He said that he would pay me “$500 cash and 5 dozen tamales from Manuel’s Tamales in Midland, TX.\u00a0 Delivered, fresh and warm.”\u00a0 Those are good tamales.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Sure nuff.\u00a0 He rolled into the Deere dealership at Woodward about noon on a Saturday.\u00a0 Manuel’s made the tamales early, packed them for him and then he drove to deliver them.\u00a0 He had Styrofoam ice chests full of warm, fresh tamales.\u00a0 I ate fresh tamales for lunch that day.\u00a0 He got his goat.\u00a0 Good trade.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I’m praying for my friend.\u00a0 I hope to see him again.\u00a0 I’ll be driving and thinking and laughing about lots of stories that involve Fred Urban.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Much like Willie Nelson, I’ve been on the road again.\u00a0 I’ve sorted through numerous sets of goats in several states.\u00a0 I’ve gathered lambs from the midwest.\u00a0 And I’ve traveled to several learning experiences such as the spur making workshop that I went to in east Texas last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4788"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4788"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4807,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4788\/revisions\/4807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellnlivestock.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}