Mornin', Tribe. I'll be posting on-topic a little later, but here's your Watercooler for today. Here at Tennis, we're lucky to have a pretty relaxed work environment. A number of my colleagues, including pop music maven Steve Tignor, actually have their radios on and listen to music throughout the day. I always have trouble concentrating with music on, so I don't even have a desk radio. I know some of you have to be careful about surfing the 'net while at work, which must be a bit of a drag. In this business, thankfully, it's part of the job, although I'm not sure that going to the CowboyLyrics.com can be justified as proper tennis business. But hey, I'm a blog - ugh! - Internet Columnist, right? Anything goes!
Anyway, since it's fall and I'm heading for Montana in a few weeks, I've had *Michael Martin Murphy's* interpretation of a sweet RW Hampton song, Born to be a Cowboy, playing on an endless tape loop in my mind. Here are the lyrics; I have no idea if you can actually go on-line to listen to the song, but there you go.
The painted walls of Palo Duro
How my heart can see them yet
As a boy of eighteen summers
Long before I knew regret
There I rode the bold unwilling
And my loop was keen and true
And even in the dead of winter
The sky seemed always blue
(Chorus):
And its been Saddle horse and catch twine
That has been my life
Some say its been my downfall
That the world has passed me by
The life I live I freely chose
I'm at yet tonight
I was born to be a cowboy
And I will be 'til I die
In the heat of summer branding
We'd get an early start
And as we reached the pen of horses
We'd saddle in the dark
Then we'd ride out on the morning
Without a spoken word
The ring of spur and the fall of hoof was
All that could be heard
(Chorus)
I first layed eyes on Darcy Taylor
At the cowboy christmas ball
The daughter of a preacher
And the fairest of them all
But I knew I could never have her
Though I loved her just the same
And I still get that old time feeling
When I hear her name
(Chorus)
Photographs and trophy buckles
The things you hold with pride
When eyes grow dim, won't mean as much
As what you've got inside
But I've got a lot of memories
To me means more to me than gold
And I can say I'm ready lord
Any time its time to go
Chorus. . .
Well, that's certainly Off-Topic. But it always has me hoping I live long enough to see the sweat gleam on my boy Luke's naked back as he drives a fencepost or pitches a bale of hay into a creaky old wagon.
Guess I'm due for a break from city life. And I'd better start thinking about tennis.