Kaleidoscoping Cowboy Visions

 **WARNING** 

**Cowboy Tirade Alert** 

-Proceed at Your Own Risk-

If this was the sixties I'd say somebody slipped some LSD into my orange juice. Ever'thing is a kaleidoscoping tangle of colors and sounds and memories and visions... sort of like Alzheimers in reverse.

Yeah... instead of forgetting ever'thing EVERYTHING is buzzing in an endless reel. Hell, I don't know that I can keep a single thought going for 12 seconds before another comes crowding in and...

Oh look! A butterfly!...

See what I mean?

To start off... How''d I ever get to sitting in a box on wheels... in the desert... with not a horse in sight? My saddle is right here. I can touch it... but not a horse hair around. A kid who only ever wanted to cowboy... and somehow let himself be talked into so many lost years doing what other people said do... rather than what deep in his soul he -Knew- was the right thing__just a durn fool.

Then there's the fable of freedom... the Holy Grail we get beat with in this country__that only exists if you're a critter.

Think about it... if you get caught fishing without a license what happens? Yup. A fine... or jail if you resist the fine hard enough... or... Get caught speaking your mind, if somebody doesn't like the fact that you don't like jews, or gays, or romainians... do not pass go, lose your job and go straight to jail.

Forget what the men who wrote the Bill of Rights said about the Freedoms of Belief, speech and the press... That you must defend the Rights of those - who hold opinions abhorrent to your own - to EXPRESS those opinions... or you do not deserve and WILL NOT KEEP your own.

But... back to critters...

There's beavers... yup... beavers. If you go out, deep in the mountains and cut some trees down and build yourself a tiny lil' cabin... what's gonna happen? Why, the first brain dead tree hugging disney educated moron that comes along is gonna have a coronary and fall over dead... right there.

So then, the first talks-to-bears forest ranger, that is trying to teach the bears and bunnies to coexist,  that comes along is going to charge you with illegal tree cutting, building a cabin without a permit and contributing to the coronary of a moron.

... and if building that cabin happened to dry up a seep that only showed by a ten square inch patch of greener grass? Why... "THAT was a wetland you sick beast!" shouts the EPA.. and That's $5000 more fine and ten more years on your probationary period!

But... that Beaver? He gets to dam up whole rivers... build however he sees fit in a way that pleases HIM... without ever having to get the permission of another damned beaver... just to live... and Lord help you if you interfere with that slick tailed rodent.

Then of course there's cougars... thousands and thousands of cougars... Them damned things take a deer a week on average, Each. That's FIFTY TWO deer a year X thousands and thousands of house cats on steroids. No license. No bag limits. No "Season"... just the cougars... Free on the Earth.

But... the man who toils away on the "King Permitted" ranch the cougar hunts on? Why... if he got caught taking one of the kings deer... or in actuality... obstructing that cougar from taking his? Why he's an anti social pervert who's gonna get paid a visit by black helmeted toughs imposing the Kings authority...

Freedom? Ha! It's the stuff of legend. You can't buy a book without the King getting a cut. You have to file permits to walk through the wilderness. You're BARRED totally from thousands of acres of land for months and months at a time... to preserve it "For the critters"...

You have to get a PERMIT to exercise the RIGHT to produce your living. Either a permit to work for somebody else... or a permit to run your own shop... to which, of course, you pay a split to the King.

You have to pay for permission to build a shelter... and must, by law, build a shelter HUGELY greater than what you may need or want... because; "That's the Law"... as if Law was some great and honorable truth... rather than only the brutal force it is... imposed only because those who own it have the force to do so.

There's little "Life" you're permitted to live... without first... buying a permit... It's the Law.

uh huh. Law... schoolyard bullies with badges and authority. but resist their bullying and you're labeled a pervert of some variety...

Where's that darned Butterfly when I need it???!!!

Yup... many's the day I'd have rather been born a Beaver or a Cougar... or hell... a Horse! I'd have made one hell of a fine Bucking Horse!

...and those are just a few of the kaleidoscoping colors and sounds. I've edited out those I calculated to be of an even more offensive nature to those inclined to defend the "Rights" of the King to impose his values and authority on Everyone... King of course spelled s-o-s-i-g-h-u-h-t-e-e.

... maybe that's where this lost ol' buster belongs... astraddle a saddle on a fine horse in new country... extending one finger in partic'lar to those who would impose their ideas of "What you have to do"... as he rides away... giggling...

Brian