Real men don’t spin folk tales
Of Possums and Persimmons
Texas Small Tales
OF ALL THE LEGENDS OF THE WEST, mainly meaning legends of Texas — which is bigger than the whole wide west and wider to boot — ain’t no legend with an object lesson better known and less told than the legend of Dimebox Dan. Dimebox Dan, the cowboy who belonged nowhere near a ranch, nor horse, nor cow, nor even cactus. Hell, he probably should never’ve set foot in Texas.
Dimebox Dan was the take rootinest pootinest, most uselessnessest cowboy ever.
Technically, he didn’t set foot in Texas. He rode in on the back of a Conestoga wagon that was taking a shortcut to New Mexico across the Texas Panhandle. By way of Austin to Laredo to Abilene and Amarillo, which means he probably didn’t have too deep a gene pool to draw resources from.
Dimebox Dan was the take rootinest pootinest, most uselessnessest cowboy ever.
About 50 miles from Dimebox, which is somewhere between San Antone and Ft. Stockton, best anyone can guess, that wagon rolled over a rock that bounced baby Dan from the back of the wagon and into the Texas dust in the middle of the mesquite and sagebrush where rattlesnakes hide under rocks and armadillos bask in the sun.
