Baxter Black

A while back, I was asked who has had the greatest influence on my life. I hadn’t ever given it much thought, like most folks, I guess. After considerin’ for a while, I came up with six people that I could say actually affected the direction of my thinkin’.

ATTN: This is addressed to teenagers, tuba players and grown-ups in the news media who have gotten great giggles out of the story that cow flatulence is a danger to mankind.

“So, how’d yer dad git that big dent on the door?” I asked Dave. Truth is, it was quite an accomplishment for one single dent to stand out from all the other wear and tear, deterioration and assorted damage that covered his 1983 Ford Ranger diesel pickup truck like elephant tracks on a Styrofoam cooler.

Imagine you were a livestock man in medieval England a thousand years ago. It’s early spring. Snow on the ground, mud in the cow lot. You walk the small pasture where the heavy heifers are kept. It’s hard to see much with just the moonlight. But you spot one that’s down in a swale. She’s on her side in the process of calving. One foot is showing.

Catching avocado rustlers is sort of a cross among the Covid virus, wildfires, exchange students bearing addictive goodies and coon hunting.

“Here we are friends, on the Serengeti Plains in the wilds of Serengeti.” As the crowd leans in closer to the television, we see the swaying boab trees, an endless sea of grass waving off into the horizon.