"Love Counseling and Fly Tying Service"

 

  Delbert McLain smiled at the sign in Marvin Pincus’s yard as he walked briskly up to the front door and knocked. Marvin had seen him coming and opened it with a big smile and a handshake.

  “Delbert! I’ve got to tell you I’ve really been looking forward to seeing what kind of flies we can tie up to improve your love life. You want some coffee?”

  “Love life?” Del said. “Oh not today, Marvin, not today. I’m here on chamber business. Yessir.”

  Delbert McLain is our Chamber of Commerce. We have all designated him … well … okay, I guess Del kinda designated himself to let the world know we adore progress, our community is the healthiest, safest and most prosperous place to raise children or crops or make widgets.

  “Official business, Del?”

  “Yes indeed, Marvin. Now that you’re a local businessman, you’ll be needing the services of the chamber to put your love counseling and fly tying service on the map. The world (he waved his arms) is waiting to hear about the (he looked out the front window at the sign) … the Fly Tying Love Center.”

  “Does it cost money to join?”

  “Fifty bucks a year, Marvin. That’s for a whole year!”

  “And what do I get for that?”

  “We list you on our chamber business list, and of course there’s the monthly lunch meeting at the Mule Barn.”

  “Oh, you pay for lunch at the Mule Barn?”

  “Uh … no…”

  “I eat there every day now, Del, and the guys tell me how to run my business and live my life, for free.”

   On the way back out to his car, Del thought how some businesses just weren’t very progressive minded. Not at all.

Brought to you by “I Honked My Horse But the Tree Didn’t Hear,” which will be  published as soon as I locate the bravest publishing company in the world.

 

Newspaper columnist Slim Randles, who writes the weekly Home Country column, took home two New Mexico Book Awards in 2011. His advice book for young people, “A Cowboy’s Guide to Growing Up Right,” took first place in the self-help category, and “Sweetgrass Mornings” won in the biography/memoirs category. Randles lives and works in Albuquerque. Home Country reaches 3 million hometown newspaper readers each week

Slim Randles learned mule packing from Gene Burkhart and Slim Nivens. He learned mustanging and wild burro catching from Hap Pierce. He learned horse shoeing from Rocky Earick. He learned horse training from Dick Johnson and Joe Cabral. He learned humility from the mules of the eastern High Sierra. Randles lives in Albuquerque.

Randles has written newspaper stories, magazine articles and book, both fiction and nonfiction. His column appeared in New Mexico Magazine for many years and was a popular columnist for the Anchorage Daily News and the Albuquerque Journal, and now writes a nationally syndicated column, “Home Country,” which appears in several hundred newspapers across the country.

 

  Huntington Beach News