The Corn Flakes Cure

If cowboy BS’ers had a union, they’d more than likely kick me out ... that is if they’d ever let me join in the first place. I really don’t think there’ll probably ever be such an organization, (… because who in the world could they possibly trust to take care of the dues money?) but if such an association did actually exist, there are a couple of rules that would most definitely be in their by-laws.

1. Never, ever tell a story that’s 100% the truth. (There are lots of good reasons for this one, but we won’t go into that now.)

2. Never, ever tell a story that makes you look like an idiot. (The reasons for this one should be fairly obvious.)

This little story is going to break ‘em both. It’s not only all the truth, but it’s also going to make me look sort of stupid ... (although I really don’t need a lot of help in that particular area.)

The fall of 1970 found me and my bride on a place on Clear Creek on the north side of the Bear Paw Mountains. I was working for Harry Olson, and it was sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The cattle were shipped, the hay was all up, and we were doing the usual fall chores.

Harry had an old wooden grain bin with a pile of rye in it that he’d thrashed a year or two before, and he wanted to take it in to the feed plant in town to have it mixed with a little barley to be made into pellets for the cows.

Boy, was that some awful stuff. It was full of smut or ergot or whatever that stuff was, and the dust was as black as coal. Bein’ the low man on the totem pole, it was my job to get in the bin and shovel that valuable commodity into a little auger that he’d stuffed in a window. I don’t know if anyone has ever died from breathin’ that black junk, but it sure wouldn’t surprise me any if that were the case. I think it was beyond a doubt the worst bin I’ve ever had the pleasure of shovelin’ in my life.

By the time we finally got that truck full, I was in pretty bad shape. I could hardly see, and breathin’ was almost out of the question. I was coughin’ and spittin’ that black goo on the ground, and would have given a month’s pay for a drink of water. Of course, we didn’t have one.

It was late in the afternoon by the time we got the tarp on the truck and headed the 17 miles or so into town. We dumped the truck at the feed plant, with the elevator operator wisely donning a face mask as the black dusty smut cloud enveloped a couple of blocks in both directions.

“Thirsty?” Harry asked as we got back in the truck.

Boy, was that an understatement. I would have gladly sucked the juice out of the bottom out of a hoof track at that point.

“Yea, a little,” I bravely understated in return, not wanting to let on exactly how bad I felt. Cowboys are tough, you know.

We stopped in at the Bar X down at the foot of Main Street. Blondie Austad was the proprietor, and the place was running over with rancher types. Ma Blatt ran the restaurant in the back of the bar, and it was getting close to supper time, but of course we couldn’t eat because the women folk were looking for us to be home. That very well may have been mistake number one.

Getting something to wet your whistle at Blondie’s was fairly easy, and in retrospect I perhaps should have been a little more selective about what I ordered. In all fairness, there WAS water in that concoction someplace, but not enough to counteract whatever else was in there. That was more than likely mistake number two.

Harry likes a little nip once in a while, and not wanting to look like a slacker in front of my boss, I ordered what ever he had, and drank as many of them as he did. The exact numbers escape me, but with all the neighbors in town celebrating the Holiday season, the count would have been fairly substantial. That was definitely mistake number three. But then, cowboys are tough, you know.

It was snowing big ol’ flakes as we at long last pointed the truck back south to the ranch. Whatever else was mixed in with that water I drank at Blondie’s had quite a grip on me by now. I couldn’t have hit a bull in the butt with a scoop shovel. We were late for supper, but really not too bad. It was only about 7 o’clock or so.

The little bride and I were camped four or five miles up the creek from the home place where Harry lived, and when we arrived at his place, I got in the old International feedin’ pickup and headed up the county road for home.

It was becoming clearer to me all the time that Blondie Austad had apparently tried to poison me. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, and my entire body felt like it had been pumped full of Novocain and then submerged in molasses. To make matters worse, the hood ornament on the old pickup kept spinnin’ around in the windshield, and the fences on either side of the county road kept crossing each other.

Cowboys are tough, you know, and I had to make ‘er home, so I pulled the old pickup into four-wheel drive just in case that durn road tried to give me the slip, which it in fact did on a fairly regular basis.

By the Grace of God I made it home. They say He looks out for children and idiots, and I dang shore wasn’t a kid anymore.

Even the door knob was hard to catch as I stumbled into the porch. The cook had left me a little note that she had gone to a baby shower or something and that I was on my own for supper. Something to eat didn’t even sound good by now. A nice padded casket would have looked a whole lot better, but I knew that one of the keys to possible survival just might be getting something in my stomach to dilute all that poison. Dang that Blondie anyway.

I found a box of Corn Flakes, and a big pitcher of milk and clumsily began the dilution/detoxification process. I started to shovel down that cereal like my life depended on it. Things didn’t go very well. Upon reaching its designated destination, the milk and corn flakes immediately began a rapid assent back to the bowl from which they had come. It was not a pretty sight.

The next morning told the tale. It had stopped snowing the minute I’d gotten home, and there were four-wheel drive tracks going from one barrow pit to the other all the way back to the home ranch. Unfortunately that wasn’t the worst of the tale. Apparently, there had been TWO pitchers of milk in the fridge. One from the cow we were milking, and one full of milk-replacer that the cook was feedin’ to a bum calf.

Yea ... you guess it. I had picked the milk-replacer. Don’t let anyone tell you that milk-replacer will mix with that tanglefoot poison that Blondie used to peddle, because it won’t.

All was not lost however, because only a dang fool will refuse to benefit from his mistakes, and I have definitely learned my lesson.

I haven’t touched Corn Flakes since.

Keep Smilin’….and don’t forget to check yer cinch.

Ken Overcast is a recording cowboy singer that ranches on Lodge Creek in North Central Montana where he raises and dispenses B.S. http://www.kenovercast.com