Paradise Preoccupied

According to T.L. Squeeze, there’s a ranch for sale near ’bouts Red Bluff, California, and I’m thinkin’ I want it.

No, I have no real wish to move back to the stifling little cow town I escaped from ASAP so many years ago, although it would be nice to have more time with my mother and she still lives there. I don’t miss those 115 degree summer days that left so much of my flesh stuck to steering wheels or the sight of tobacco juice dribbling from the lips of good ole boys; most of my memories of the place are prosaic and fraught.

There are good people there and may still be the possibility of getting a decent margarita at the Iron Horse or the Palomino Room, hopefully without the strains of “Gloria” blaring, and as pleasant as those peeps and drinks and atmosphere might be I have no interest in living their again.

It’s the ranch idea that has me going this morning, but maybe not for reasons others would understand.

I could just as easily … read: it’s impossible anyway, so why the hell not dwell on the images for a while … do some ranching in Africa, although it would be called a “farm”. (As in, “I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills … “)

I’d like that, actually, being steeped for so many years in the lives of women who carved places on the continent for themselves in the early days of the last century and wrote eloquently about how bloody hard that was.

I could maybe even call this one-acre-plus bit of African island I already have a ranch if pressed, but there’s not enough room for more than maybe one cow, and it’s cows I need, you see.

Cows, and that whole “ranch” thing because it’s a brand I’d be going for, and I’m not after leather on the hoof stamped “Prada”, if that’s what you’re thinking.

Nope.

I want to drive on to my place under a sign that reads: But Bar None Ranch.

Why?

Because I want to drive by cattle branded thusly:

:-0