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Frugal Cowboy Meal

This ain't no Hardee's
Nor is it a Mickee-dee's
There ain't no drive-up window
And a menu you won't see

This is just an old chuckwagon
That's been through hell and back
You won't see no Happy Meals
'Cause my food won't fit in a sack

We don't give no little toys
With the meal you receive
But will pass out the Rolaids
They're about the only thing that's free

We ain't got no purdy waitress
To bring out yer gourmet meal
Just an old wore out camp cook
Who's plum nasty, mean and ill

'Cause he's been up early fixin
Your meal didn't come pre-cooked
And there ain't no tellin what fell in
When you weren't there to look

But his coffee is always hot and black
You won't find no preservatives here
And the meat is 100% pure
Mostly coyote, beef and deer

Now don't go getting squeamish
Cuz we ain't killed nobody yet
And you'll get a free coupon
For a visit to the vet

So get up here in line, folks
For a frugal cowboy meal
Before ole cookie starts tenderizin'
With them big ole wagon wheels

© Kent Rollins

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Kent Rollins
Stories & Poems

Kent Rollins mixes words as well as ingredients, and his tape, Stories and Poems, would be a treat to listen to as you cook up his recipes for Chocolate Syrup and Sourdough Biscuits ("Most cowboys tell me 'we ain't never had that.' But after the first couple bites they figure out why I just make it on the last morning.") Even if you're not cooking, you'll want to sit back and enjoy the tape's 16 original poems and stories and the occasional music of Snuffy Elmore and Steve Schick, which adds just the
right amount of seasoning.

Rollins has a lot of hilarious tales, some with city dwellers and his wife's kinfolk as the focal points; some about cooking; some cowboying adventures such as "Cowboy Midwife"; and some about childhood antics such as "Ben Hur," which gets as vivid as the movie that inspired it.

In "Cowboy Midwife," a cowboy who has been assured he needs no horse or rope for a "gentle" heifer about the calve, becomes attached by OB chain to the calf and heifer and is whipped across pens and under fence posts, joined by an eager cow dog who "has never got to chase cattle with cowboys tied to 'em." As they all head through an open gate into 160 acres of grub mesquite, the cowboy remembers a trick his Daddy taught him "that works on anything of the female species as long as you're wearing headgear... just turn that hat sidewise to where the brim is over lookin' where your ears were...they think you are lookin' in a different direction than what you are and they'll circle and go way wide..." There is no happy ending to that story.

In what could be a recollection from his own childhood, the kids in "Ben Hur," who get dropped off in town on Saturdays for a movie and have already "seen so many shoot-em-up Westerns that we'd killed nearly all the neighbors' chickens as well as mama's too," so they look for something new to inspire their later adventures at home. Impressed by Ben Hur's chariot and gear (except the "'little skirt'" deal") and the fact that even though "people was always chunkin' rocks and spears and everythin' at him" he was always the hero, the kids go home to make elaborate re-enactments of Ben Hur's exploits. They replace a wagon's front wheels with tricycle wheels; gather up ammunition to throw, which consists of "sail rabbits" and "sail possums" (road kill that has baked in the Oklahoma sun; the possum were better because they have "a hook tail and you can get more leverage when you throw 'em"); make that "little skirt" of baler twine and feed bags; and use a half watermelon that "the chickens had holed out a week ago" for a helmet, secured by a chin strap made from something found in mama's dresser drawer, with "padded ear protectors on both sides and sorta buckled there under your chin..." The results would impress Cecil B. DeMille

Rollins has a serious side, too, and shows it in the poems about his beloved Red River, "The River," and "Springtime on the River" and in his respect for the past in "The Vision" and "12 Days Down the Trail." There may be no finer tribute to a father's wisdom than "Horseshoes and Heaven."