So, grab a coffee, a comfortable chair, relax and scroll down to enjoy
the warm feelings and pleasure that this wonderful poem will bring...
"AN ODE TO WINTER "
A poem by Abigail Elizabeth McIntyre
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"SHIT, it's Cold!"
The End
*****Don't Cry Because It's Over, Smile Because It Happened*****
Dory,
How poetic!
Donn
*****Don't Cry Because It's Over, Smile Because It Happened*****
but may your feet stick to the cold floor while you wait for your piss
poor coffee to boil... one poem "er" wait one song will bring a wish of
strong coffee and lambs wool tucked around your feet... donn i wish you
a cup of ticks killer brew:-)... dory
Texans know as much about "cold" as Yankees know about "hot".
Cold: when you go outside, take a deep breath, and feel your nose-hairs
forming into tiny, individual clubs, freezing, and breaking off.
Hot: when you go outside, take a step, and feel your shoe adhering to
the melting asphalt.
Of course they figgered since I wasn't going to be with them forever
maybe I wouldn't mind passing my heretofore closely guarded secrets
along to a new generation. Well I had to admit something as special as
this shouldn't die along with my ability to roll out and ride out early.
I even started looking around for a serious and worthy recipient of my
well worn, well loved and often scoffed at tools of the trade. It
would have to be someone not so young as to not take the responsibility
seriously but someone of sufficient age and sobriety that could see, no,
'would see' the duty as an important piece of the pie in life's grand
equation.
Well this was going to take some serious pondering so I looked around
til I found a suitable ponderin' stick, one that would be to my
Schrade Old Timer what the marble was to Michelangelo's chisel. I
spotted one that looked like it had the makings of a fine bearded gnome
when properly finished, dropped my butt in the sand, leaned my
constantly aching lumbar against a downed log, dug my heels into the
sand and threw an imaginary log on the imaginary fire...damn this
drought and its burn bans.
I studied the stick for a moment or two and proceeded to whittle away
everything that didn't look like a bearded gnome. My mind drifted
back over the hundreds and hundreds of pots of coffee I had brewed over
the years. And where those years had gone and where they had taken
me.
Damn there goes that A.D.D. thing again, how I do drift around.
Let's get to the coffee makin'. Ok first, I use a big 24 cup pot
whose innards had been lost sometime prior to George crossing the
Delaware. Boiled coffee, not perked nor dripped is the biggest secret
of all.
Water is important and should whenever possible be dipped the night
before in a separate vessel somewhere upstream from the herd and/or
bathing cowboys or hunters. Any old bucket should do the trick as all
you are doing is letting it settle overnight so as to dip into the pot
the next morning. Basically, hygiene is not much of an issue since
the boiling is going to kill 99.999% of the cooties.
Next morning while water is coming to a boil search around for an old
piece of rusty barbed wire ('cause invariably you're going to have
misplaced the one from last trip). This will be used to stir socks
around in pot (we'll get to that in a second). The barbed wire is
very
important and should not be substituted with a stick. Over the years
I have tried every kind of wood stick there is in these hills from elm
to oak to pine to sweetgum. I've tried screwdrivers, tire irons and
gun
barrels but nothing adds that special little zing like old barbed wire.
It doesn't seem to matter if its 2, 3 or 4 pronged as long as it is of
an old enough vintage to make it rusty.
Now about those socks. Always use yesterdays tube socks, they add
that
secret ambrosia that causes a sense of deja vu of some long forgotten
jail cell. Not only are they fundamental to the flavor but they keep
the coffee grounds from saturating the water and they keep your socks
sweet for the next change.
Simply measure a heaping palm sized mound of coffee into each sock, add
a sprinkle of salt and a pinch of Bull Durham and knot the ankles
loosely.
Brand of coffee doesn't seem to matter
much as long as it's Folgers and it's fresh. I never, ever use last
years coffee that I've found in the tool box behind the truck cab. I
do after all have my standards.
Get the water boiling at a good roll, remove from fire, let sit for a
few seconds before tenderly dropping socks into pot. If you don't let
the water sit for a few seconds it will boil over when you add socks.
Now set pot near enough to flames to keep hot but not to boil, time it
for
about eight to ten minutes and remove socks. Quickly move down to
creek
and rinse socks out and put in tool box to dry before waking the rest of
the crew with a hearty, "coffee's ready, off yer ass and on yer feet!"
Always keep a package of Styrofoam cups in the truck cab for those who
ain't proud enough to bring their own favorite, freely obtained, logo
encrested coffee mug from somewhere they've never been and advertising
someone they ain't never worked for. You know the kind of cups I'm
talking about, they closely match the dozens of ball point pens, zippo
lighters and baseball caps you've run out of room for but won't get rid
of even by threat of divorce.
Well, there I was, staring at my handsome little finished bearded gnome
and thinking to myself..."ya' know, not only wouldn't these yahoos
believe the truth, they
wouldn't be able to handle the truth. I guess they'll just have to
bury my ashes in that old pot. Screw 'em, let 'em
buy a thermos."
Tick
Thank gawd that only happens every ten or seven years. Must be a drag
up north to only be able to have sex outside three or four months out of
the year.
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Re: OT: An Ode To Winter
Group: alt.support.mult-sclerosis Date: Wed, Dec 6, 2006, 10:25pm From:
tyg...@yahoo.com (Tiger Girl)
HAHAHAHAHAHA. A real weenie-shrinker, eh?
There's a swimming hole I used to go to outside of Dripping Springs that
had much the same effect. Which was just as well - the fish would
nibble at anything that looked like a worm, anyway.
> Thank gawd that only happens every ten or seven years. Must be a drag
> up north to only be able to have sex outside three or four months out of
> the year.
Heh. There's a difference between "F***ing Cold" and "Too Cold to F***"
My first year up here I went for a massage one night in December - no, a
massage, not a "massage" - and getting undressed for that was like
Salome and the Dance of Seven Veils, but with lots of wool and polartec.
I felt like I was peeling an onion. By the time I was down to the
nekkid bits, the stack of garments on the chair was so high I couldn't
see the back anymore - and that didn't involve the coat or boots. It
really made one wonder what passed for a Hot Date Clothes in these
parts...silk - thermal underwear. Feathers - stuffed inside a coat.
Leather - hats. Rubber - coated snow boots. Cleavage - under six layers
of clothes.
http://www.marijuanamadness.com/imagegallery/albums/userpics/1113.jpg
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Re: OT: An Ode To Winter
Group: alt.support.mult-sclerosis Date: Thu, Dec 7, 2006, 7:22am From:
tyg...@yahoo.com (Tiger Girl)
*****Don't Cry Because It's Over, Smile Because It Happened*****
> http://www.marijuanamadness.com/imagegallery/albums/userpics/1113.jpg
THANK YOU! Only smile I had today, does it matter that it had more than
a touch of dirty old man in the smile?