Tag: Pearl Beer

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Dispatches From The Cactus Patch, August 10, 2025


Keep Those Teeth In Your Mouth….

One of my recent “Ask A Texan” write-ups included a blurb where a large dog ate a man’s lower false teeth. It fit the story well, and it actually occurred about 67 years ago, and I was around when it happened.

My late, late, late uncle wore choppers, as he called them, and had a love-hate relationship with his false teeth. This was back in the days when the technology was archaic at best, and folks suffered greatly when wearing the prosthetics. They weren’t quite George Washington’s wooden teeth, but not much better. I’ll tell the story as best I remember it, as it was told to me by my uncle, then my Sainted Mother.

My two late uncles were the best liars and yarn spinners I have known. My Mother says I am possessed with their restless spirit, wisdom, and imagination: I’ll gladly accept that. Uncle Jay was the best of the two. Uncle Bill was close and at times could out-lie and rip a great yarn better than his brother, but only after Jay drank too much Pearl Beer. I would sit in awe as the two of them went at it on the front porch of the farmhouse on hot summer nights. Of course, cold Pearl Beer always made everything better. One night, the two of them may have had a bit too much beer and retired early. Uncle Jay had lower false teeth, a result of an injury in World War II. He collided with his anti-aircraft gun, or that’s the story he told. My Mother, his sister, said he got them knocked out in a barroom brawl, which sounded about right; he was a mighty scrapper. He also had a large Chow dog named Mr. Pooch. As dogs go, he was friendly, but only if you didn’t get too close, look at him, or try to pet his big head; then he would rip your arm off. So, we cousins stayed the hell away from Mr. Pooch.

Upon turning in for the night, Uncle Jay removed his lower teeth and set them on a chair by his bed. Mr. Pooch, ever the faithful dog, slept by the bed on a pallet of Granny’s quilts. The dog needed something to chew on, so during the night, he helped himself to Jay’s lower false teeth. In the morning, Jay, seeing a tooth and some gum material on Pooch’s pallet, realized the dog had eaten his teeth. Country folks didn’t use vets back in the 1950s, so he figured Pooch would pass the teeth in a day or two. Granny gave Mr. Pooch a dose of salts and some fiber to speed up the process.

The cousins, including me, were doing our usual daytime activities: shooting chickens with our BB Guns, roaming around the Mesquite Tree woods looking for Rattlesnakes, the usual kid stuff. My cousin, Beverly, headed back to the farmhouse by herself, probably to get some ice tea. We heard her scream and took off running. We found her plastered against the wooden plank wall of the smokehouse, crying and snow white; she was having a minor breakdown. We checked her for a snake bite and found none. She then pointed to a large pile of dog poop about ten feet away and wailed louder. Jerry and I walked over to the unusually large pile, and there, alone, was one of the most enormous dog turds we had ever seen. Looking closer, we saw that it had human teeth and was smiling. It scared the hell out of us, and we ran to join Beverly. We didn’t know that Mr. Pooch had eaten our uncle’s lower false teeth, so we thought it was a demon turd from hell or something worse. After Granny told us the story and inspected the poop, we all had a great laugh. Uncle Jay and Mr. Pooch never lived that one down. We never let him forget it.

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A Chicken And 88 Keys


Photo by; Colonel Sanders

Marjorie Mae has a dozen chickens living on her small farm on the outskirts of San Angelo, Texas. Normal Texas folks don’t think much of chickens except when they eat their eggs or have a piece of it fried or baked. Marjorie Mae is different; she treats her chickens like real folks; all of her fowl have first names and are somewhat educated.

Gilda, Ruby, Tootie, Francis, Lucille, Ethel, Jessie, Rea, Poochie, Piddle, Bebe, and Poteet. Call any one of them by their given name, and they come running like a spotted pup. She rather prides herself on being the keeper of educated farm fowl. She isn’t sure about the depth of their education, but they seem smarter than most run-of-the-mill barnyard chickens.

One day, walking by her barn on the way to the chicken coops to gather eggs, she hears piano music. She instantly recognizes the out-of-tune sound of her ancient broken-down upright piano that’s been stored there for ten years. Unfortunately, her husband Wilfred doesn’t play, so she figures a hobo or possibly an escaped felon from the prison farm must be hiding in her barn, twinkling the ivories. She grabs a 20 gauge from the house and marches off to confront the interloper.

As she gets closer, she realizes this is not some rube pecking around on her piano, but an educated musician, like herself, that knows their way around the 88 keys. So she slows her advance to a near stop to listen a bit more. She can’t be sure, but that sounds like Mozart’s Concerto No. 3 in B minor, but the piano is old and out of tune, so it could be anything short of a barn cat walking on the keyboard.

When she reaches the barn door, the music stops, then starts again. The beautiful haunting notes of Moon River float from within the dark depths. Whoever this trespasser is, she wants to meet them and have a bite of lunch at her kitchen table; hobo or felon, she opens the sliding door and enters the barn.

Thirty steps to the center of the barn, behind the frozen-up Ford tractor, is her dust-covered piano. The tarp cover is haphazardly thrown to one side. In the low light of the barn, she can’t see anyone, yet the playing continues. Finally, the culprit is discovered when she gets within five feet of the piano.

Her Sussex Speckled Hen, Rea, is standing on the keyboard, pecking the keys with her beak and both feet. Not the corny huckster trick pecking you see the chicken at the county fair playing on the toy piano for a quarter, but calculated and coordinated movements that are producing beautiful music. The first thing that comes to her mind is, “I’m going to be rich.”

I’m into the second week of my month-long summer visit to my grandparent’s farm in Santa Anna, Texas. It’s a hot night, and everyone is sitting on the covered front porch drinking sweet iced tea and Pearl beer. My two uncles, Jay and Bill, are visiting for a few days from Fort Worth and are putting the finishing touches on a case of beer they bought this morning at the Dino station. July is beer drinking season around here. It’s considered a main food group but must be served iced-cold to gain the nutritional value from the barley and hops.

Bill gets up from his chair and reaches into the Coleman cooler, extracting another Pearl; he uses his feed store church key and a pen knife to pop the cap. Then, looking out over the Santa Anna mountain, he says to no one in particular, ” I heard this morning there’s a piano-playing chicken over by San Angelo.” Uncle Jay, his brother, immediately replies, ” bull-shit, there ain’t no such thing as a piano-playing chicken. I bet you twenty dollars it’s a can of crap.”

The two brothers are the biggest storytellers and liars in Southwest Texas and will bet on anything. The more far-fetched and unbelievable, the better. Uncle Bill says we are leaving for San Angelo in the morning. I’m excited about this one.

After getting directions from the feed store and a man standing on a street corner, we head towards the farm of Miss Marjorie Mae. She is already a local celebrity and is the gossip fodder of the town. We arrive at her farm around 10 AM.

Marjorie answers her screen door, and uncle Jay states that we are here to see the piano-playing chicken. She says, ” it’s ten bucks a carload and I can’t promise you she will be a play’in if there are eggs to lay, she will most likely be doing that first; she’s a chicken you know.”

We are led to the barn, the door is opened, and there, glistening in the sunlight is a hand-polished upright piano. A silver candelabra and swirled glass vase of fresh flowers rest on top. Marjorie collects the ten bucks from uncle Bill. Jay pokes him in the ribs and whispers, “this is all bull-shit so you might as well pay me now. ”

Marjorie emerges from the barn carrying a fat Sussex Speckled Hen. This chicken is downright gorgeous for a barnyard critter. Its feathers are fluffed up into a fuzzball, and its toenails are painted bright red. A gold nametag hangs around the fowl’s neck. I can tell my uncles are duly impressed, as I am.

The hen is placed on the keyboard and immediately launches into a jive-inspired rendition of Glen Miller’s” In The Mood.” Finishing that tune, she plays a classical number and then goes right into ” Moon River, ” closing with the theme from ” A Summer Place.” My uncles are tapping their feet and laughing like deranged mental patients. Finally, the hen hops down from the keyboard and struts back into the barn; the show is over.

Uncle Bill thanks the lady for her hospitality. As we leave, he asks her name. She replies, “Marjorie Mae Mancini.” Bill inquires if the chicken has a name. She says, “oh yes, that’s Hen-Rea Mancini.” I kid you not.