Things always get pretty festive around the ol’ campfire when Cookie prepares his signature dish for the trail-weary crew. Nothing seems to lift their spirits like a hearty meal of frijoles and foie gras.
Sweetwater Slim was ready to spoon goose guts over his beans when Shorty stopped him by saying, “No! Ya never mix ‘em up, Slim! Ya always gotta keep the beans on one side o’ the plate, an’ the foie gras on t’other.”
“Horse puckey.” replied Slim. “They taste better if ya stir ‘em together. You been eatin’ ‘em wrong yer whole life, pard.”
Shorty waved his fork at Slim and said, “It ain’t ‘bout flavor. It’s all ‘bout presentation.”
As the two hungry cowpokes argued about how best to eat Cookie’s culinary masterpiece, Cookie turned to the audience like a Greek chorus and stage-whispered, “Here we have two simple sons of the Wyoming soil caught in that Manichaean rhetorical trap, trying to make sense of their world by claiming that there are only two kinds of folks in it, those who put foie gras on their frijoles an’ those who don’t.”
Panhandle stopped chewing long enough to say, “Slim an’ Shorty are right, Cookie. There really ARE only two kindsa people in the world. Them that can ride that snotty bronc o’ mine, an’ them that cain’t. There ain’t no middle ground.”
“Or how ‘bout boots?” queried Sourdough. “There’s them that put on their left boot first, an’ them that put on the right boot first. Ain’t nobody can put ‘em both on at the same time.”
Cookie stood back and let the debate rage. The crew was energized by this linear discussion of their binary world.
“Way I see it,” said Goshen Hole Gus, wiping foie gras from his mustache, “this here world is neatly divided into two kindsa people. Town people an’ cowboys like us. An’ ya don’t never try to mix ‘em up. That’s just crazy talk.”
Rawhide from Rawlins, who had a year of community college under his Stetson, offered his educated opinion. “Yer all missin’ the point, an’ it’s obvious. The only two kinds of people in the world are men an’ woman. I read that in a biology book once.”
Any mention of women around the ol’ campfire just served to get the cowboys’ intellectual juices flowing. The discussion ratcheted up a notch.
“Speakin’ o’ women,” Rawhide continued, “there’s them you can take home to meet momma, an them you cain’t. I should know. I got plenty o’ experience with both kinds.”
“Bankers an’ good folks,” said a voice from the campfire smoke, “that’s the only two kinds o’ people in the world.”
“Commies an’ capitalists.” said another obscured voice.
“How ‘bout politics?” asked Latigo Lou from Lingle. “There’s yer Republicans an’ then yer Democrats. How’s that for neatly divided?”
“Nope.” corrected Cookie. “There’s a passel o’ other parties. If yer gonna sort folks by politics, there’s only one way to go. Them that kiss Trump’s ass an’ them that don’t. Ain’t no other kinda folks in the world but them two.”
The Trail Boss sauntered up to the campfire circle, brushed dust from his chaps and said, “Y’all are thinkin’ inside the box. Open yer minds, fellers. There’s more’n two kinds of folks. There’s them that mix their foie gras with their frijoles, them that keep ‘em on either side of the plate an’ then there’s folks like me that never eat that crap at all.”
Stetsons nodded at the Trail Boss’s wisdom, then the cowboys said in unison, “What’s for dessert, Cookie?”
Rod Miller can be reached at: RodsMillerWyo@yahoo.com
