The Texanist
Offering fine advice since 2007
Ranch dreams.
Illustration by Jack Unruh
The Texanist is associate editor David Courtney. Send him your questions, and be sure to tell him where you’re from.
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Q: I want to be a Texas rancher. Currently I’m a mechanical engineer in Chicago (raised in San Antonio). How do I break into ranching?
Anna Morton, Chicago
A: The desire to sit back down at the old drawing board of life and sketch up new blueprints is not uncommon and can occasionally result in pleasant renovations. Charles Goodnight, before he broke into ranching, spent time as a racehorse jockey in Port Sullivan. Willie Nelson sold vacuum cleaners door-to-door. The Texanist, until very recently, didn’t even have a job and would spend the “workday” drinking beer in his underwear, sometimes at the bar. But while the grass on the other side of the fence can at times appear lush, verdant, and indeed quite suitable for grazing livestock, you must remember that under the harsh Texas sun that green grass can quickly yellow and may even turn to dust and blow away completely (plus the fence will require mending). The rugged and bucolic imagery of the ranching life has always been alluring, but you would do well to consider its realities. Before trading your compass, slide rule, and pocket protector for a horse, a branding iron, and the chance to be called “tenderfoot” down at the feed store, the Texanist suggests you test the waters (assuming there are any). Sign up for the Longhorn cattle drive at Big Bend Ranch State Park or, better, spend a summer sabbatical working on a South Texas spread. Steer clear of posh dude ranches, which only serve to perpetuate the myth that the cowboy’s life is all about freedom, chuck wagons, and harmonicas. Whether you’re dealing in cattle, sheep, goats, or miniature donkeys, you’ll find that ranching is hard, dirty work. It is also much smellier than being a Chicago mechanical engineer. Especially if you’re dealing with the tiny donkeys.
Q: I have a friend who underwent a medical procedure (hip surgery), after which he received a handicap parking permit to hang on his rearview mirror. Even though he seems to have made a full recovery, he recently got his doctor to renew the permit. And he proudly uses it. This is wrong, right?
Name Withheld
A: Your friend’s only real handicap appears to be a disabled moral compass. Spots reserved for drivers with disabilities are by design a lot’s sweetest, but for the physically fit, this low-hanging parking fruit is forbidden, and must remain so. If your friend’s hip isn’t actually as poorly as he pretends, then he’s parking where he shouldn’t be. He is not only cheating the system, he is also cheating himself, and this can bring about no real happiness. A prime spot in a crowded parking lot is one of life’s most treasured prizes, and ferreting one out provides a satisfaction like no other. The Texanist prefers the “slow roll” method, which affords him plenty of opportunities to employ his keen powers of human observation. Is that man leaving or did he forget his wallet? Are those two teens heading to a car or cutting through the lot to go sniff glue behind the Sears? Sakes alive! Was that an inviting glance from the comely young coed with the cart full of wine coolers? Once parked, he is not above remaining carside for the next fifteen minutes to wallow in his good fortune and boast to passing strangers of his superior “spotdar.” Needless to say, these pleasures are denied to your friend, who must feel only guilt and shame every time he slides into a slot by the door and hotfoots it into the store with his jacket over his head. Where’s the joy in that? Soon enough this charlatan will be back to circling with the rest of us, and the gods who oversee parking lots will not look favorably on his transgressions. Their golden light will shine on him ne’er again.
Q: My father was a lifelong Texan: He was born in Youngsport, he graduated from high school in Killeen, and he lived in Waco the last 25 years of his life. He called upon a certain expression in given situations which I would ask the Texanist to interpret. What did my father mean when he said, “Can’t dance, too wet to plow”?
Randy Casey, Libertyville, Illinois
A: The Texanist is busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest today, but he can always make time to help translate the nonsensical-sounding utterances of our fathers. Unless your dad was indeed a Central Texas farmer with perpetually wet fields and two left feet, the Texanist is sure as hogs are happy in slop that he was just employing a colorful way of saying “might as well.” Sometimes you’ll hear “can’t dance, never could sing, and it’s too wet to plow,” which is an even more colorful way of saying “can’t dance, too wet to plow.” On rare occasions, you might hear “can’t dance, never could sing, have an infected hangnail, and it’s too wet to plow,” which is overly colorful and should be avoided.
Q: My next-door neighbor is an old man who has lived in his house since LBJ was in office. He’s nice enough, but he has the disturbing habit of sitting on his back porch and shooting at squirrels and birds with a BB gun. My husband couldn’t care less and even laughs about it. But I think it’s cruel, and I don’t know whether I should say something to him. Thoughts?
Name Withheld
A: Old people are often funny. Not funny ha-ha but funny peculiar. This is because by simply enduring seven or eight decades of earthly sorrows, they have “earned the right” to act however they damn well please. Unlike the rest of us, the aged possess an unofficial license that allows them to regard certain laws, ordinances, and cultural conventions as either balderdash or poppycock. Your neighbor, while probably not adhering strictly to the local codes regarding animal control and air guns, is nonetheless behaving in accordance with the rights granted him by this license. Besides, the old goat is likely just attempting to protect his backyard pecan crop before Wheel of Fortune comes on, and his actions shouldn’t be viewed as any great threat to you or himself or even the neighborhood fauna. Until his yard becomes littered with bird and squirrel carcasses or you feel a sudden sting on your backside while taking out the garbage, the Texanist would advise you to just go on about your business. In twenty or thirty years, if he’s still out there, you might have earned the right to walk over and tell him to knock it off.
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