YEE HAW!!

Back to the wild west, today is the day on which Black Bart Robbed his first Wells Fargo Stage. On July 26, 1876, the Gentleman bandit and poet robbed the Sonoro to Miton Wells Fargo stage in Calaveras County, California. Bart, whose true name was Charles Bolles, distinguished himself by his politeness and lack of obscenities, and by his habit of leaving poems at the site of the crime, or in a discarded strong box after the robbery. He often signed them with Po8. From letters to his wife back east, it appears he had a run-in with the Wells Fargo folks while prospecting for ore in Montana. One of his remaining poems refers to his lack of affection for the stage company:

I've labored long and hard for bread,
For honor and for riches,
But on my corns too long you've tred
You fine-haired sons of bitches."

Po8

He seems to have had a sense of humor in his work. Bart once addressed a driver who had a view down the wrong end of Bart's shotgun, ""Sure hope you have a lot of gold in that strongbox, I'm nearly out of money."

The picture at the top is NOT Black Bart, but my Grandson Xander returning my hat. It appears that he decided my hat reminded him of Woody, from the movie "Toy Story", and so he has traded in "Papa" for addressing me in favor of "Yee Haw." Well, I'm gonna’ live with it. He is about as stubborn as a two-year old can get. People say he resembles his grandfather that way.

His Grandmother was a cowboy too, although maybe in another life. Like Black Bart, she has a penchant for writing western poems, but if she robs stages, she has not shared that with the family. I once called her my little "Poet Lariat" as a pun. Next day it was a poem:

You're my little poet lariat,

My cowgirl of repute,

Your verse is down right lovely,

and I'm your gallopin galloot!

You can twist a word, corral a hear,

Foal a mare to boot!

You're my little poet lariat....

And life with you's a hoot

You made this house a home,

Out on the prairies of despair;

And through your loving poems,

I know you really care.

You can mold a phrase, shock the maize,

Paint the barn, I swear!

You're my little poet lariat....

My ranch wife with a flair.

On Sunday while at church,

Beneath your flowered bonnet,

While I'm praying for some rain,

You're composing me a sonnet.

You gather sheaves of rhyme at harvest time,

Each bail a verse upon it.

You're my little poet lariat....

My heart has your brand on it.

You're my THEN, my NOW,

My YET TO COME, my ETERNITY,

You're my little poet lariat,

The bard of the Triple B....

------I'll stock up the pens and sunsets,

If you'll just keep on lovin' me

Well, Yee Haw!, yawl.