Butternut B.S. and the Sundance Kid

        Butternut Bullshit and the Sundance Kid  

 

    Regrettably I found myself in one of my least favorite places.  It’s a place where mega store pricing dances the tango with sour-note politics like Hee-haw on meth.  That’s right, I was in the check-out line at the Wasilla Walmart.  Yeeeeeee haw!

    I had been content to wait this one out in the truck while the wife went in but I realized that as long as I was there, I should scuttle inside and pick up a sundry item so as to not necessitate another stoppage on the gettin-home train.

  Low-and-behold who shall I spy pushing a shopping cart amongst the Roma tomatoes and butternut squash?  It was none other than the Sundance Kid!  

Howdie Walmart shoppers

   There, not forty feet from me was a true cowboy of old.  Leather banded Stetson, tight Lee Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots (of course) and perhaps the most definitive characteristic held high by the standards of Americans near and far, his six-shooter.  There it was in all its glory; His pistol was strapped to his hip held snug by a brown leather holster.

     Had he just flown in from the set of Josey Wales?  Where were his spurs?  I had a sudden urge to hear the metallic ching ching resonating off the Walmart tile. I had questions.

    Well thank God he was here today.  My heart rest at-ease knowing that the Sundance Kid was there for me, right here at my local Walmart in case of any malfeasance, or misdirected miscreants. I considered myself lucky.  I  should walk up and shake his hand.   But, like every other time I've been in that store, I was in a hurry to get the hell out of there and wouldn't get that chance.

  Keeping my smart-ass undertones in-check,  I left the Wasilla Walmart and resumed my perch in the parking lot to wait for my wife.  The wife, being a much better person than I, is decidedly unaffected by the redneck hootenanny that is the lifeblood of the Walmart machine. 

Somehow she is able to forge-on with focus, diligence and purpose.  Hurricane Katrina herself couldn't sway her from the aisles of deals and roll-back pricing with or without armed cowboys in-tow.

    “Did you see the cowboy in there?” I asked when she returned to the truck, which was more than a few minutes later.

  “No.”

   “Yeah, there’s a guy in there with a revolver holstered to his hip.  I couldn’t see his face because it was cast in the shadow of his black stetson hat, but I’m pretty sure it was the Sundance Kid himself.... he was picking out butternut squash!”

   My feeble attempt at humor and overactive imagination failed to pierce her armor as far I could tell, but she played along.

   “Okay honey.”

     As we drove home I found myself thinking about Sundance.  I wanted to know more.  Aside from the whereabouts of Butch Cassidy,  I wanted to know how this guy, this relic of the American West thought that bringing a loaded pistol into Walmart was a good idea.

    Maybe he was a true American bad ass that didn’t give a shit one-way-or-another what anyone thought.  Carrying a loaded firearm in public was his God given right by-way-of the second amendment.  He would know that there would be be skeptics but he also knew that he would be praised to high-heaven by these same people should he have the opportunity to subdue a crazed interloper that might happen to appear in the teen-miss, electronics, or dairy sections; It would be worth it.

    Maybe I’m being too harsh.  Maybe his ivory handled Colt was simply worn as a deterrent.  Like a garlic necklace to a vampire, crooks and evil-doers would be warded off.  Without it, the common criminal might view Sundance as a push-over.  If there’s one thing a cowboy hates it’s being bullied.  He might be mugged as he’s picking out chips.

    If any of these scenarios are true then it’s a wonder how the other 114 unarmed customers in the store were expecting to survive their shopping experience on that early Sunday afternoon.   If this was a typical representation of the demographics of the Mat Su valley then most of them would be proud gun owners themselves (myself included.)  Why on earth did the rest of us leave our guns at home?  We must be fools!    

     Maybe Sundance was a cop. Maybe instead of Hawaiian shirt Tuesday, or flip-flop Friday, maybe it was Cowboy Sunday.  

   As my guessings came to the end of their trail I realized that I didn't really care what the real story was. All I could hope for was that Sundance was a rational and reasonable fellow but it was hard for me to tell.  A rational and reasonable fellow, I decided might know a ripe butternut squash when he saw one.  A good one is known by its golden tan, with no green striping and an intact stem.  I’m sure he would know the difference.

    But if there was any chance he was the kind of guy that seems to be turning up at shopping malls, movie theaters, and schools around the country in increasing regularity,  like Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Virginia tech then I would no longer be sitting here typing and speculating.  Truth is no one knows why the Sundance Kid was ‘packin heat that day at the Walmart accept Sundance himself.  The problem is that unlike butternut squash I can’t tell a good cowboy from a bad one just by looking.

Two can play at this game.