March 2, 2008 6:17 PM
Another Sunday has been laid to waste. The entirety of my day consisted of feeding bulls and a couple hundred head of horses with a painfully small feed-wagon, then feeding an assortment of cows, colts, calves, and more bulls with five gallon buckets, then running into town for stove pipe cement at Bomgaars (a farm supply store) then getting groceries and getting other various supplies, then coming home, eating napping, doing night chores, sealing my stove pipes, and now here I am writing in my journal while smoking a Pall Mall cigarette and sipping on a glass of Amoretto. (A very rare self-indulgence, hope the woman doesn't find out.)
And that is how one goes about wasting an early March Sunday. But one has to be careful not to get too much accomplished. This is my only time off all week.
During the week I've been thinking about Bill. All the while I've been moping about the ranch with my complaints, I have a fellow worker in my midsts who really has something to complain about.
One time, while making small talk while fixing a fence or sorting horses, (I forget which) he related to me that he doesn't plan to live past the age of thirty.
“Why do you think that?” I asked.
He paused for a bit. Looking back now I see he thinking of what to say.
“Just my lifestyle, the way I drink, and the stupid shit I do. I'm going to die soon because of it.”
I was puzzled, but more or less satisfied.
Bill was right. He drinks every night if possible, alone or with others. And he is tough on his body, what with riding Broncs and such, and his stories about the silly, dangerous stuff he has done made me wonder how he actually was alive.
And little was said about Bill's mortality for quite some time. We'd simply talk about other things, such as each other's maladies. I'd talk about the broken nose I got from wrestling, the bad knees, bad back, and so forth. Bill would trump me with his broken arms, bad knees, bad back, and his heart condition that kept him out of the military.
We'd talk about drinking, fighting, and women. Bill always knew more about the first two than I did. We'd also bitch about the boss, swap jokes, anything really to amuse ourselves during the long days.
About a month ago we were on the subject of our futures; how I wanted to work for the Department of Natural Resources or a county conservation board. Bill said he didn't much care what he did, he still planned on dying before thirty.
Grant