This next one is about Phil Statler,
who we all bought cows from or sold cows to
at different times.
I'm reminded of another story about Phil,
when there used to be a restaurant where
the jail is now, and Phil Statler was a great big fella.
He's still alive, and apparently, he
wanted to get a fellow's girl.
The fellow was selling jewelry, so they went out
to look at the jewelry.
And Phil Statler just picked up the fellow
who was selling the jewelry and put him in the trunk of the car
and took his girl away.
That is a very direct--
there is a sort of directness to manners
of the cowboy in that area.
Phil Statler had a bunch of cows sold to Ted Robb,
but some of the cows got the jimmies
from eating poisoned weed and was trembling and shaking
and about to die.
"I'll buy every son of a bitch that
walks off the trucks alive," Ted Robb said.
Well, about 40 of them walked off the trucks
and lay down and died.
Old Ted got mad and didn't want to pay.
"I thought you'd take every son of a bitch that
walked off the trucks alive?"
Phil Statler said.
They may have walked off, Ted Robb said,
but they was dead sons of bitches while they was walking.
Now, that's practical poetry.
I mean, that's what I like about the people
there in the country.
There's no fooling around.
If Ted Robb could say that convincingly enough,
it would have saved him some number
of $1,000 because Phil Statler would
have had to take the pressure off him to keep
those cattle that were walking while they were dead,
dead while they were walking.
So that's an example of how a rural place, an area like that,
creates its own language and its own power.