Ol' Flint rode into town the other day, sitting tall and straight behind the wheel of his battered old pickup. Behind him was the horse trailer that doubles as his home, and his faithful horse was looking out over the edge of it as they pulled up to the Mule Barn truck stop.
Now Ol' Flint is not his real name, but is the cowboy name he adopted when he moved to this country from England years ago and became what he calls “The Last Great American Cowboy.” Oh, he looks like one. Hat, boots, mustache, everything Western. It's only when he opens his mouth to say something that you realize he ain't really from around here.
He sounds like Eliza Doolittle's father.
But Flint is a part of the pattern of life around here and we think he's an OK guy. His life consists largely of riding around on his horse. He rides hundreds of miles on his horse and he lives in the horse trailer. He was arrested once for riding his horse into Tombstone, Arizona, because he was also packing a six shooter.
“Can you imagine?” he said, indignantly, “you can't carry a six shooter in Tombstone? Disgusting, innit? A tragedy. A Western tragedy.”
One of his favorite things during summer, when the tourists come, is to ride down to the town square and pose like a statue of General Grant for the clicking of Instamatics. He looks the part of the cowboy until he speaks.
“I were down there t'other day,” he says, “and there were these two women, nice and plump they was, too, and they took pictures and they says to each other, 'What a magnificent beast' and I smiles back at 'em, y'know, and I says, “Thank you, misses, and my horse is good looking, too.”
Brought to you by “Sun Dog Days,” at www.slimrandles.com, soon to be a minor motion picture.
