Monday Meanderings - 1.15.2018

Ran into a couple of “good ol’ boys” in the Salt Lake City airport. Sometimes a seat-mate on the plane will engage you in conversation, but it’s rare for folks in the waiting area to speak up.

However, Bubba was not shy. He “hidy-ed” me the moment we sat down and began asking questions about where we were headed and where we had been and then commented that we would be home upon arrival in ATX, but he and his buddy Billy Bob, seated next to him, would have to drive on to Burton, some 70-odd miles down the road. He likes to take 290 instead of going through Bastrop.

Turns out that he and Billy Bob had been skiing at Park City, but there hadn’t been much base and Billy Bob only lasted a day, but Bubba had shredded everything in sight.

Now the interesting thing about this pair was that they were the least likely duo you could envision hitting the slopes for a week of skiing. Bubba was a classic overweight farm boy who should be much more comfortable in a beat up pickup truck than riding on a ski lift. Billy Bob was a wiry, skinny kid with a chaw in his cheek who looked like he could toss hay bales all day (but evidently couldn’t handle a pair of skis a half day).

Now by nature, I'm cordial, but not outgoing in public places, but we were bored, waiting on a change of equipment that was still an hour out, and Bubba was a puppy-dog friendly type of guy, so I went with my best "Sean of the South" impersonation and started chewing the fat with these guys.

Pretty soon I had been introduced to Bubba Sr. and looked at pictures on Sr's phone of a vintage Buick that he had rebuilt, and learned that Sr's bull-riding days and resulting metal body parts made going through security quite the hassle. There was also a Mrs Bubba Sr. and a couple of Bubbettes in the group as well, but they were not very gregarious, and didn’t join the conversation.

We talked about cotton gins (Burton is home to the Texas Cotton Gin Museum, which houses the oldest operating cotton gin in America; I told about my father firing up a cotton gin by riding the pulley belt down from the 2nd story) and trips to Hawaii (Bubba had been; I have not) and and ranches in far south Texas (Billy Bob was headed there the following morning, no doubt to toss hay bales).

By that time our new plane had arrived and we parted company like life-long friends, and I was feeling pretty stoked about holding my own in conversation with my new BFF Bubba, but Barb whispered to me as we walked down the Jet Way, “If he ends up in my row, I’m trading seats with you."