This guest post was written by my sister, Kate. Thanks sis, for sharing this story!
From the time I was born to the age of 9, my family lived in the tiny town of Garden Valley, 50 miles north of Boise. Dad was the local Game Warden and "the only law in town." To us kids, he was God. He was big, strong and could be very imposing when the situation called for it. He was, in the best of ways, bad-ass. He also had a wild and wicked sense of humor, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to help a friend or neighbor in need. Bill Pogue had the respect of everyone in the valley. Until one day….
See, when I was younger (and apparently not very fast) mom would put my long hair in pig-tails using rubber bands and/or barrettes. This woman invented several never-before-used torture methods that, I’m pretty sure, have since been adopted by the military. But that’s another story. Suffice it to say that the Pogue girls had the TIGHTEST damn pony tails you’ve ever seen. Because of (or maybe in spite of) this, I developed an interest in beauty-parlor play, and after nearly scalping all my dolls, I turned to family.
There was, at that time, a place in town called The Joint; part restaurant, part tavern. It was where the cowboys started their day with coffee and ended it with several Budweisers and a game of pool. It was a place heavy with Marlboro smoke, bullshitting, Tammy Wynette on the juke box, and the occasional bar brawl.
One day dad stopped by The Joint for a cup of coffee before heading off to work. He probably pulled up a stool at the bar, asked for coffee, lit a cigarette and greeted the local men, including one of his best friends, and local really tough cowboy, Sterling Alley. It wasn’t long before the guys started whispering and snickering in dad’s general direction. Finally, Sterling managed to ask “Are you going to work with that pretty thing in your hair?”
Turns out that while getting ready that morning, he’d overlooked one of the pretty pink barrettes I’d beautified him with earlier. Poor man never lived that down.
3 comments:
Well done ! Bill is now sitting up on high , chuckling , remembering that day.
And that's the way it was ------
Oh my, that's some local flavor right there. Sterling had HIS SPOT at the counter there at the Joint, so I can put your dad right in context. Sterling and Dick Hanley were probably rolling their dice cup, too.
Not a place for the law-man to show up with pink barrettes in his hair, I'm afraid.
If it makes you feel better, Matt and I went to an event at the VFW in Cascade one night and we were standing around chatting with the local ranchers by the bar. What does my manly husband order to drink? White zinfandel. The silence was deadly...then he realized his mistake and blurted out, "Whiskey! I was just joking about the zinfandel. I don't really know what that is..." Sure, hon.
Ha! Thankfully, I'm sure he wasn't in uniform!
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