Hunny Bee’s Beauty Parlor, Happy, Texas

My late fathers’ late Aunt Bee, and her late sister, Hunny, had the most unique beauty parlor in town. Happy Texas was, and still is, not known as anything but a place you wind up if you get lost. In the 1950s, it was so small it wasn’t shown on road maps, so most of Texas didn’t know the hamlet existed. The one gas station in town always had a father behind the wheel of a station wagon full of screaming kids and barking dogs, asking directions to anywhere but there. Any wrong turn within twenty miles always put you smack in the middle of Happy.

In the 1970s, some oilman from Lubbock started himself a bank there. The Happy Texas State Bank was born so the caddie driving cowboy could embezzle from himself instead of the big banks. The feds couldn’t pop him because he always managed to pay back the money before they moved in to arrest him. Then in the 1980s, a bunch of Hollywood boys came to town and made a movie. All the citizens were used as extras. Aunt Bee and Hunny found themselves genuine movie stars. Their beauty shop was used in many of the scenes.

The movie was about a little cowboy kid that lived on a cattle ranch with his grandparents after his Daddy Jake got stomped by a bull, and his Mama ran off with his Daddy’s brother. Little cowboy Gabby also got kicked in the head by a mean Shetland pony and was a real slow after that, so his Granny had her ranch dog, trained as a service animal to watch after her addled grandson so he wouldn’t wander off onto the prairie and get eaten by Coyotes or Dingos.

The dog that was hired to be in the movie was a relative of the famous, Lassie but developed a prima-donna attitude and wouldn’t do anything but chase chickens and bite the movie boys. They were in a spot and needed a four-legged actor pronto.

Hunny Bee happened to have a cattle dog named Lester Munroe the II, which was a female. Being the only dog in town that was trained, Lester was hired to replace the star. Unfortunately, the movie script called for a male dog, so the poor canine had to wear a prosthetic penis and gonads, which didn’t jee-haw with Lester Munroe the II.

Lester had to spend two hours every morning in make-up and then was sedated so the movie vet could apply the prosthesis, turning Lester Munroe the II into a boy dog.

After a few weeks of filming, Lester started hiking her leg to pee and commenced humping the actor’s legs. The pooch was a nervous wreck.

Finally, Hunny Bee took poor Lester to her beauty shop and gave her a set and curl, one of the dogs’ favorite things, but nothing helped; the dog had gone through the change. The vet decided to leave the prosthesis on Lester because it wasn’t worth getting bit trying to remove it. He said it would eventually fall off.

After the movie crew left town, Lester Munroe the II pranced around town for a few days like she owned the place; he/she was the big dog in town. Then one day, it rained, the prosthetic gonads fell off, and the fake penis followed. After that, Lester Munroe the II got moody and depressed and real squirrelly, so the town vet had to give her Valium, Xanex, and some hormones to help her out. The picture above is after Lester Munroe the II started going back to the beauty shop for her weekly curl and set.