Good Ride, Cowboy

Ray grew up on the ranch adjacent to ours.  He left to have a career as an engineer, then returned when he retired.  A good neighbor, a pleasant man, a devoted husband, father, foster father, sincere friend and a devout Christian, Ray was driving home from a Bible study when a truck pulling a trailer pulled out onto the highway from a side road and killed Ray when they collided with his car.

Ray had the right-of-way, but he is still dead.  His wife is a widow.  It was a wrongful death.  His wife, Robin, called last night to tell my wife, Sugar, about the accident.  That is how we found out.

Last time we saw Ray, a few days ago, he was walking in his pasture when we drove by on the county road.  Last time we talked was when I called to tell him that one of the cows seemed swollen and was walking awkwardly and might have been bit by a rattlesnake.  He thanked me and checked it out.  Previously, he had called me to say he found our cat.  Good neighbor.  Nice friend.

He is missed already.

Sugar could not sleep last night.

Robin asked her to sing at the funeral.

The song is one they had at their wedding.  It is Borning Cry.  God is with us from the beginning.  And at the end.

Good ride, Cowboy!  Good ride!

Poopy Pants

Miss Sugar and I have been  camping.  We have not really been roughing it because we have a camper trailer.   It includes a bathroom.

Those of you familiar with the joys and responsibility of camping in an RV are aware of the need to visit a dump station at the conclusion of the camping experience.  Guess what is dumped at a dump station.

Yes.  You are correct that a dump station is where one dumps what went down the sink and toilet in the recreational vehicle.  There are two types of “water” — gray water and black water.  Gray water comes from a tank where the sink and shower water go.  The black water is exactly what you imagine, i.e., the contents of the tank filled with contents from the toilet, which is more than mere water.

Miss Sugar, my trusty trophy wife, is very knowledgeable about camping in general and the operation of the gray and black water release systems in particular.  As her able assistant, I use my own personal hand to open the pipe and the respective valves under the verbal direction of Miss Sugar.

For those of you interested in the details, please visualize that the dump station has a hole.  The camper has a pipe.  The pipe is connected to the hole by a wide collapsible and flexible hose known in the camping world as a “stinky slinky.”  In another blog post, I described our initial experience with such a device.

That post was posted years ago.  Today I am writing about an event that occurred this very day.

Today, after I attached the stinky slinky to the dump hole at one end and the trailer pipe/tube to the other end, opened the black valve, emptied it, then opened the gray water valve and emptied it (the order is important), Miss Sugar directed me to rinse out the stinky slinky by transferring the end of it attached to the now emptied trailer over to a water spigot so that it could be rinsed by that fresh water after the gray water.  Get the picture?

Sugar operated the handle of the water spigot as I obediently held the stinky slinky and moved it to a position under the faucet.  Blessed with excellent eye-hand coordination, I accomplished the task.  Sugar’s water flowed down the wide tube, cleansing the you-know-what down the tube.  When she said, “Okay,” I interpreted that to mean that I could remove the stinky slinky because she was shutting off the water.  I was wrong.

I moved the tube away from the spigot but Sugar did not turn off the water.  Consequently, as the tube moved, its contents back-splashed onto my pants.

Sugar thought it was funny.  She suggested that I write this post and is credited with the title.

Despite her instructions to me and direction of me, let’s be clear about who wears the pants in the family.  That would be me.  I wore those particular pants as I drove all the way home.