Living in a Hyphen-Nation

Having completed more than 739 months here on this globulation called earth, I’m at good age for the health I’m in.

I’ve picked up more communication skills than I can afford, like you’re sitting down at your desk right now reading this note that once in my lifetime might have taken more than a week or so to make it to where you are this very moment. Why, just seconds after I hit the send button you could be in your car, running red lights and reading my ramble on your I-Phone whilst sipping a latte, which, when I was a I was a little girl was called coffee with milk.  I even learned to text, but I will no more as AT & T wants me to give them $0.20 every time I send or get one. Though I could, I don’t tweet unless I’m trying to call up something to eat. Then it’s more likely to be a quack or a honk. ‘Course I do that to tickle ducks and geese. I mean, have you ever heard a crow laugh? I have made them almost fall from the sky and spit up warm armadillo meat listening to my renderings of friendship and more.

Knowing you would like for me to go on and on about all the newest modern conveniences I was deprived of as an innocent child, I’ll move along to something that has been on my tortured mind for a little bit. Now, this is not an item that bothers me much, it’s only that I don’t recall its common use back when. That would be the not always, but assumed, hyphenated last names of married ladies.

In my puppyhood it was easy to know what a woman’s name was. Say, if she was married to some guy named Earvin Hodges, well, every one would know her name, her name was Mrs. Hodges. Pretty good system, if you ask me. If you didn’t ask that’s alright, I’ll continue as you scroll down trying to figure out when I’ll get to the point of this missive. Alright, here goes.

Long, long ago, while sitting cross-legged on the floor watching Zorro on the black and white, there would always be some rich knockout Spanish babe whose name was something akin to Maria Conchita Sophia Cantina Margarita De Los Contrarioso who was hot after Zorro. Now, this unaffected The Z-man as he was generally preoccupied swishing his sword or having it polished by his ever present aide/assistant, Bernardo. Old Bernardo was a handy guy to have around as he made sure Don Diego de la Vega always had clean socks, toenails pedicured, a fresh cape and kept Z’s steed Toronado freshly curried and clipped. I got to thinking.

What if by chance or other, I were to fall for some gal and she had a long name like that and I wouldn’t be able to remember all of it when we were kissing and such. I discussed this with my identical third cousin Arturo, ‘No Me Llaman Arte’ Dekko (that’s as close as I can get to the Spanish, I’ll be speaking Texan from here on out) as we both had been sweet on a cute little redheaded freckle-faced girl that lived just down the road. As a matter of fact we even teamed up and wrote our first song together about her, it went:

There’s a red-headed freckled-faced girl that lives just down the road

Her teeth are all snaggled and both of her legs they are bowed

The first time she kissed me I thought that my head would explode

She’s the red-headed freckled-faced girl that lives just down the road

There were more verses but they got worse so we gave up on using it in our act.

I hesitate using her real name but I don’t think you know her and it wouldn’t matter if you did because she moved off to a foreign land, I think it was FarLandia. Her name was Amanda Lynn Wood. Now we thought that was cuter than she was at the time. Come to find out she was the marrying kind and got to messing around with one of our contenders, a lanky guitar slinger called Hardin Cox. Well, they kissed and the next thing you know she was taken and got married with him and called herself Amanda Lynn Wood-Cox. Arthur and I agreed that was pretty funny as we liked bird hunting enough to get the joke. Besides that we had given up on her shortly after she was wed and started to put on weight around the middle and got the waddles.

What I have failed to express is that Amanda had a temper of sorts and was directly un-married. After she had birthed her little snot-nosed brat she got back in shape and soon landed a stranger to town that wasn’t aware of her foul disposition that went by the handle of Harry Peters. Now she called herself Amanda Lynn Wood-Cox-Peters. That little ceremony seemed doomed from the inception and as all predicted, ended prematurely.

Not being one of those that give up easily, (beside the fact that she now owned two houses) she quickly snapped up one of the Johnson boys that was a little slower than the other Johnson’s there in New Monia. I forget his name, there were so many of them; None too fast on the draw when it came to ciphering or reading legal documents. He was gone as soon as he got the papers signed. Now she’s Amanda Lynn Wood-Cox-Peters-Johnson and has three houses, 69 acres of rich bottom land and several 4WD Jimmies. It’s too late for me to make a move due to the promise I made to Princess Penny but some fellow is soon bound to lose his head over her, seeing as how she is rich and all. Arthur says he’s out as that’s way too many names to remember while kissing.

That’s about all the news for this week cousin. Hope to see you coming up the driveway soon. Watch out for the dogs and honk before getting out of your truck so we’ll know you drove up.

Remember: Don’t Forget

Your loving cousin,

Rev. Dr. Buck Stonebroke

Egalitarian Raconteur and Licensed Piscator