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Down at the sale barn Saturday, the
think tank had coagulated there with coffees to go to celebrate
life. Doc and Dud had their dogs with them, while Bert and Dewey and
Steve went stag.
Dud tried to start a conversation, but the loudspeaker soon drove
them outside, where they arrayed themselves on dropped tailgates and
waited to hear what Dud had in mind.
“I thought about it a lot,” Dud said, “and I wondered what the
favorite part of my job was, and wondered if you fellas ever gave
that any thought, too.”
They nodded. Yes, by mutual consent a worthy subject.
“With me,” Dud continued, “it wasn’t so much my job as it was my
hobby. You know, writing that book. I’m claiming it as the best part
of my job, anyway.”
The assembled were still waiting to read “Murder in the Soggy
Bottoms,” as it had yet to see print, and was really a work in
progress.
Then Bert picked up the conversation thread. “Of course I’m retired
now,” he said, “but when I was running the pawn shop, my favorite
part of the job happened when a customer found something in there he
really needed and ended up paying much less for it than he thought
he’d have to.”
Doc laughed “And you made more on it than you thought you would,
too,”
Bert grinned and nodded.
“Yep. That was good too. And you, Dewey?”
Our accident-prone pharaoh of fertilizer got a serious look on his
face. He finally said, “The best part of the fertilizer business is
seeing the difference it makes in the flower gardens around town.
Now maybe it’s just my imagination, but I kinda like to take a
little credit for a prettier town.”
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column] |
“You deserve it,
Dewey,” Doc said kindly. “Well now … with me it’s a little
different. I have doctoring skills, of course, and it’s good when I
can help someone, but these days the most satisfying part of my job
is to check someone out thoroughly and find there’s absolutely
nothing wrong with them. Now that’s special.”
They all looked over at the tall cowboy, Steve.
“Digging postholes,” he said.
“What?” they said.
“You know,” he said, “the favorite part of my job.”
“Digging postholes?”
“Sure,” he said, grinning.
“It’s the only part of my job where I start at the top end work
down.”
[Text from file received from
Slim Randles]
Brought to you by A Cowboy’s Bucket List. Available online and from
Rio Grande Press.
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