Ode to Grit

"Ode to Grit"

The cowboy from Downey who called himself “Buck” didn’t much cotton to braggin’

The biblical prohibition agin “showin’ yer alms before men” just seemed like plain damn horse sense that ought work for man AND beast alike.

But the day alus comes to a man who walks straight through life, when he EARNS them braggin rights fair’n square.  Course when that day comes, the good book has a different take.   “Let yer light shine” is a piece of plain damn mule sense that, like most higher laws, is a bit tougher to swaller.

Cowboy Buck found hisself in a much-accomplished position on that fine, sunny day.  Why, he had rode old man Gooch’s ass all the way up Silor Spring’s gulch.  Ear envy had gotten the better of him, but he wadn’t about to start showin’ it off!  “T’weren’t proper” he properly thought. 

With grit and steely resolve he waded through them paparazz like a red-hot knife through suet from a she-grizz.   Flash bulbs were a-poppin’ and the clamor of screamin’ fans hung thick in the air.  Women-folk fell faint at every turn as they beheld the man on his beast, and then lay there in crumpled heaps.

The Downey Idaho cowboy sat straight in his saddle, completely unperturbed.   Why, he was unflappable, ingenuous, and guileless all at the same time.  He just couldn’t trade that plain damn horse sense for that plain damn mule sense, higher law or no.  And so it ended, on that splendid, much-accomplished day…much as it had started, without the faintest hint of braggin’ from the man they call “Buck.”

(Mule Poetry in Motion)