"Howdy, Pardner."

This is the best of the rest of the story, not from Paul Harvey, who has gone on to his reward, but from your ranch hand scribe here at the Old Blogger Ranch. It is Wednesday, August 29, 2012, and I bid you a cowboy welcome where you can hear one say, "The only reason riding a bull is worthwhile is the opportunity to meet a nurse." You might also have heard this one: "It's okay to speak your mind but it always helps to have a fast horse to ride." You might not think I know much about cowboy stuff. You would be correct. However, the big company I worked for did buy a huge amount of property one time and it had a working dude ranch on it. What do corporate folks do when you buy a new enterprise? You integrate it into the business, that's what you do. These cowpokes had to have job descriptions written and they then had to be classified, you know, for the payroll system. All their gear and such had to be inventoried so the assets could be managed. It was a hoot for the programmers and support folks who worked on merging all of this stuff into the computer world. I can only imagine what the fellows riding out on the prairie thought when they received their first piece of corporate communication. They may have remembered this one, "Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction." Looks like it is time for me to sing a little of the Get Along Little Doggy song and move on down the trail.

I've actually read some of what folks say when they critique other people's writing. I read one recently that had this ugly analysis, "You couldn't write your way out of a wet paper sack." That's what I call cold. I actually don't deny that it applies to some of my own musings but it still stings just reading it about some other fellow's stuff. As you can tell, that fear hasn't slowed me down. I suppose nearly all of us were born with that critical gene. In fact, one of those most frequently mentioned peeves I talked about the other day had to do with people who criticize other people for doing essentially the same things they do. It is real easy to criticize. It actually comes quite naturally. Jesus wasn't pleased with those who went around knocking others while missing their own glaring flaws. You will remember His comedic description: “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." (Matthew 7, Verses 1-5)

Thinking about it, I guess I could qualify for some expertise as a stick cowboy. I sure enough did my share of shoot-em ups when I was a kid. We had reenactments of all kinds and the thought police would be working overtime if kids still played those same Cowboy and Indian themes. Even back then we had trouble getting someone to play the role of the one who gets shot or who ended up with a bunch of arrows stuck in their body. Getting shot wasn't too bad of a role because you could really put it on with all kinds of wailing and gnashing before succumbing to your fateful end. I traded all that for what I do now in rounding up keystrokes, branding them, and then setting them free to forage out on the prairies of the information highway. Yes, occasionally some of them ricochet, some hit an innocent bystander, and at times they even explode before they get off the ground. But as they say here at the Old Blogger Ranch, "We all have pieces of crazy in us, just some of us have bigger pieces than others." I actually think I resemble that remark. Have a great day and may God bless each one. Amen.        ....More later.