John Erickson Hank the Cow Dog 2022

I like to walk on parents and the teachers and students and also watching us via long distance education our schools from around the U.S and we also have school in Ghana and West Africa who's also joining the program so welcome to all of all the schools for joining us from uh around the U.S and around the world I'd like to thank the Presidential Center Conference Center staff they help facilitate these programs we couldn't do it without them so to the presidential Conference Center staff thank you very much to all the volunteers so President Bush and his inaugural address talked about a thousand points of light and what he was talking about was volunteers across the U.S and we have a lot of those thousand points of light that uh volunteer their time with um us and we couldn't do programs like this because we simply don't have the staff big enough to do it uh without those thousand points of light so thanks to our volunteers and then also our education department which is the best in all of Texas and uh Dr Shirley Hammond and her staff who put on great programs like this today so if you give a hand to Dr Shirley Hammond and her staff [Applause] all right so I know you're going to enjoy the program uh this is one of the one of the more most enjoy all of them are enjoyable this is one of the most enjoyable programs that we do so I'm going to invite Dr Shirley Hammond to the podium and she's going to introduce today's program but again thank you all for being here um let's give a round of applause to our director of the library Warren Finch [Applause] [Music] we are so glad that you are here today and it is my um very great honor and also privilege to introduce John Erickson today he's the legendary Texas author it's legendary because he's the one who created Hank the cow dog and Hank is the famous dog with many Texas ranch Adventures in fact Mr Erickson has actually written 83 books that include Hank the cow dog books and ranch life books so it has actually become one of our nation's leading best-selling and most popular book series and of course we knew that in Texas but it's National and international it's been translated into four different languages so join me in welcoming John Erickson thank you [Music] chickens [Music] all I see are chickens it really is a Dickens when the Mind plays clever tricks projecting colored pictures of a bird up on a plate such a cruel fate dinners all I see are dinners [Music] just exactly what a sinner doesn't need it's so frustrating to see roasted Birds parading down the Broadway of my mind Destinies unkind on the other hand it's really kind of neat to have these visions it provides a little break between decisions don't forget a dog needs rest a break from all the stress of a working day and night to earn his pain sleeping Sallie Mae is sleeping and while she sleeps I'm creeping like a panther through a park at ease in total darkness like a phantom in the night [Music] still aware it isn't right lurking [Music] images are lurking I hear the sound the sounds of slurping in the river of my mouth my life is going south for if I should get caught [Music] I'd have to eat these chicken thoughts on the other hand there's a kind of that I am needing it's the calm that soothes the conscience after eating good digestion forms a link to what we do and think cause nourishment is part of Mental Health chicken [Music] [Music] my heart grows wild for you you're the soft Commerce a morning dew my heart just grows wild for you the fragrant Earth sustains it the sky just won't contain it my heart grows wild for you my heart glows wild for you you're the son that gives it light than you my heart just blows Wild For You loves flame nose no season it burns both rhyme and reason my heart blows while for you foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] my heart goes wrong for you [Music] for you [Music] well those of you those of you who were properly raised on Hank audiobooks know that there's a musical side to the to the Hank stories I do them all as audio books and with an audio book you can do something that you can't do in a regular paper book which is bring in music and I was raised in a little town up in the Panhandle it's uh it's probably about 500 miles north and west of here and almost to Kansas it's a little old Windswept Farm and Ranch Town but I grew up in a musical family my my dad played the piano played classical music on the piano he was church organist in our church I started singing in choirs when I was about four years old and sang in high school choirs and uh the University of well I won't mention the name where I went to school it's a it's a small school around Austin they have a football team yeah that one we can't mention it in College Station but that's where I went and I sang in the acapella choir Chris and I sing in the church choir now I play the banjo started playing the banjo when I was in junior and now a junior in high school and I've played it all my life and I come up with ideas for songs so I'm not really qualified to do what I'm doing today standing in front of a respectable audience of people and singing songs that I wrote and am playing but I'm doing it anyway because it's fun and the audience seems to enjoy it and I have these songs that are on the Hank audiobooks now the first one I don't remember which book that's from but it it's very revealing of Hank's character it gives us kind of opens the door on his subconscious mind and we know what he's thinking about every time a chicken walks past and he knows what Sally Mayo do if he does what he's thinking about doing you know get in big trouble with the boss's wife so he lives he lives in this Subterranean world where when a chicken walks past it looks like uh baked chicken on a plate the second one was a pretty song it's called my heart goes wild for you it comes from the seventh tank story the curse of the incredible price is corn cob and in that story Hank leaves the ranch runs away he's going to join up with the coyotes and become a cannibal and seek out Miss Beulah the colleague no not miss Beulah Missy coyote she's a coyote princess and they meet out in the pasture and they sing that song Hank's thinking about going back to the wild becoming a coyote and that's what that song is about and Missy coyote kind of likes him even though he's kind of a fool so in the eight tank story Hank runs into a kind of animal that he's never met before now he's head of ranked security on a ranch up in the Panhandle so he knows about coyotes and raccoons skunks Badgers buzzards silver monster Birds little boys and he's never met a little girl there's not one on the ranch and uh so he's play he he's used to boys and and all the noise they make and he likes boys he thinks he doesn't like girls or he won't like girls but in this story a little girl named Ashley it's uh it's little Alfred's cousin comes with her grandmother to visit for Thanksgiving and their two girls and they're out in the backyard playing beauty shop and tea party and Hank watches drover you know drover little short-haired sawed-off chicken-hearted little mutt drover they invite drover to come in and get his hair fixed and he just loves it and Hank watch it they even dress him up in doll clothes and Hank watches this and said drover you look ridiculous he says yeah I know wearing a dress makes me look kind of silly but you know this is really wonderful I I really like these girls and I think you would too you ought to get your hair fixed he says I will never get my hair fixed I will never go to a beauty shop I don't like girls well this little eight-year-old girl Ashley sees him he's outside the yard gate and she says hi well he turns away he's not even going to look at her well she comes out and opens the gate and start stroking him on the head and she scratches his ears and he looks into her eyes and suddenly he floats through the air and lands in her beauty shop chair and she has a little box plastic box with her tools and she opens it up and she gets a soft bristle brush and starts brushing his hair and brushes his ears and brushes him under the chin where dogs love to be rubbed and he doesn't even notice that his hair is up in pink rollers and by then he's lost [Music] Fallen head over heels in love with this eight-year-old girl with which is something that daddies do by the way I got the idea for this when my eight-year-old daughter Ashley came up and started playing Beauty Shop with my hair which is something my two boys had never thought about doing but she was she was really something special and I got the idea for this song and this is the one that Hank sings to this Ashley in in the story [Music] oh little boys like snakes and frogs they're mean to cats and puppy dogs they'll pull your tail and twist your nose and drive their tractors across your toes they'll make you a man and they'll make you a howl and make you wish for a little gal thank you Lord for making gals they give a boost to our morale is to be a side old world if we had frogs instead of girls these little donkeys we call boys they make a mess and lots of noise you always know when they're close by they tease the girls and make them cry they're hard on clothes and break their toys there ain't much use for little boys thank you Lord for making gowns I give a boost to our morale this would be a saddle world if we had frogs instead of girls foreign little boys aren't fit to keep they'll mess things up and make you a weep they'll keep the place all torn apart to the run your hose and break your heart they'll make you a cuss and they'll make you growl and make you wish for a little gal thank you Lord for making gals they give a boost to our morale this would be a side of the world if we had frogs instead of girls so thanks again for making gowns outreaching nice and be your pals but I swear by the stars above watch out or you'll fall in love [Music] [Music] well [Music] that's uh that's a song that I thought of when my little Ashley was playing Beauty Shop with my hair so uh but I had a good time with my boys and I got song ideas from my boys too you know I had these characters in the stories coyotes every Ranch has coyotes and uh they're wild wild dogs is what they are and dogs are fascinated by them because they look like dogs they can bark like dogs sometimes they even play with the dogs but they're not dogs there's something different about coyotes and uh dogs are a little bit afraid of them Hank is kind of fascinated by him too because they don't have jobs they don't have to work like he does he said of rant security you know he has to get up early in the morning and stay up late at night and Patrol the ranch bark at every airplane that flies over bark at the birds that Roost in his trees without his permission he has to Humble the cat several times a day and then of course he has to watch and guard Sallie Mae's chickens coyotes don't have any jobber duties they stay up all night they Howl at the Moon they sing songs they have belching contests they beat up skunks and Badgers [Music] and uh you know Hank kind of admires that they and they sing they have terrible voices but they like to sing and uh over the course of the Hank audiobooks I've written a number of songs for the coyotes and uh none of them are very good songs but they're fun to sing and I thought I might teach you all one of the songs would you like to sing a trashy coyote song all right well in faded love number five Hank runs in to these coyote Brothers and he's on his way to visit Miss Beulah the collie his one and only true love when he's not thinking about Missy coyote or Miss Scamper the Beagle or one of the other girls that crosses his path he's he's going to go see Miss Beulah the collie and he has a problem with her she doesn't seem to take him seriously she's interested in a bird dog named Plato which Hank considers an insult because bird dogs are ding bats anyone who owns one knows that how could she choose a bird dog over a handsome heroic cow dog he doesn't understand it he keeps looking for some kind of magic trick or potion to capture her heart well rip and snort have just found a dead skunk and they teach Hank something that he never knew before which is that amongst the cannibals when a guy wants to impress his girlfriend he doesn't send chocolates or flowers he rose on a dead skunk because the women are crazy about that deep manly aroma this is something that boys learn around the eighth or ninth grade and so uh ripman snort teach him this in a song it's called rotten meat I'm going to teach you the chorus so pay attention rotten meat rotten meat the odor's deliciously subtle and sweet coyotes love to cheat and we love to eat this life would be rotten without rotten meat foreign kind of pretty isn't it all right let's go over the words rotten meat rotten meat the odors deliciously subtle and sweet coyotes love to cheat and we love to eat this life would be rotten without rotten meat all right that's a little weak but uh let's practice it one two three four five six rotten me rotten me the owner's deliciously subtle and sweet coyotes love too and we love to this life would be rotten without rotten meat well it's still a little weak I think kids in Austin could probably out sing you [Music] but we'll try it we'll try it this ought to be a great Aggie song so [Music] I'm gonna do snortz part which is the hard part and then I'll tell you when to come in you join me on the chorus you got a terrible voice by the way there's many a Mysteries got lost in our history but none more important for us to repeat then this secret potion that's coyote love lotion the wonderful essence of ripe stinking meat hit it right to me rotten me the odor's deliciously subtle and sweet coyotes love too and we love to this life would be rotten without yeah I know a feller his coat is dark yellow he's got sinus drainage and sneezes a lot he had no success in the women Department until he discovered the perfume of rot hit it rotten me rotten meet the owner's deliciously subtle and sweet coyotes love to cheat and we love to this life would be rotten without [Music] The Secret of courtship and coyote circles depends on the Deep manly smell of the guy a woman worth courting wants guys who are sporting who stink too high heaven and smelt to the sky we were right to meet we share rot and meet the aftershave lotion that's sure hard to beat coyotes always smell neat we've accomplished the feet of charming are women with Wrong Turn what [Music] meat yeah all right [Music] well those of you who have read Hank books which better be all of you all right you know who drover is he's a little short-haired sawed-off chicken-hearted stub tail little mutt and uh he's afraid of storms and lightning and loud noises and uh but you know he's a sweet little guy and he's very popular as a character sometimes kids like drover been better than they do Hank and uh so years ago I kids started telling me you need to get give drover a book of his own and I had never thought of that and I decided I would try it so I started the book and I found out that it was not going to be easy because drover never does anything so I had to go way back into his childhood when he was a pup living in a yard in the town of twitchell and uh so he's the last pup he was he was in a litter of nine pups and all of his brothers and sisters have moved on they've gotten jobs or homes and they have left their mother and in the yard and drover is still alone with his mother and in people years he would be about 25 years old and if you've ever had a mother dog you know that when their pups get almost as big as they are they turn really crabby and when the pup comes up wanting to try some of Mom's milk she turns and bears her teeth at him and says will you leave me alone go get a job yeah those sweet little mother dogs they they have fangs and they show them to those pups that don't want to leave mother's Dairy Bar so that's where drover is with his mother and one day she comes to him and says drover I think it's time you moved on at a certain point every dog has to leave home and go find his place in the world and find a job he says a job you mean work yes that's what it means yeah but I kind of like it around here yes I noticed that she says but it's time for you to move along and uh so he gets up and starts walking towards the hole under the fence and all at once his leg goes out on him he hits the ground says oh my leg it just quit me ma maybe I better stay one more night a month later he's still there she comes to him and says drover uh how's the leg well you know it was coming along real well but then I took a spell this morning and it got worse how long do you think this is going to take well these legs are kind of slow to heal sometimes it sometimes it takes days or weeks or years huh then suddenly she says drover quick run the yard's on fire well he jumps up and heads for the hole under the fence Burrows underneath the fence comes up out in the alleys okay Ma I made it come on through [Music] he hears a clunking sound and looks into the tunnel and sees that somebody has moved a piece of plywood over the Over the Hole on the other side hey Ma somebody plugged the hole I guess you'll have to climb the fence she says drover can you come back for Christmas dinner Christmas dinner that's six months from now right we'll see you at Christmas watch out for the dog catcher and go find a job well he sits down in the alley and sings this song it's kind of sad but maybe we can get through it [Music] I have no ambition I'm not on a mission I'd rather go fishing then look for a job but mother's a cheapskate and now she is irate she thinks I'll be j-o bait if I'm unemployed I think I will throw up I don't want to grow up I don't want to show up for job interviews my life would be easier with nothing but leisure I never will please her so what is the point [Music] she thinks I'm a bum I know that I'm dumb I'm sucking my thumb and trying to hide I'd rather stay home and sit Like a Stone or chew on a bone or sleep in the shade nobody would harm me I'm sure it would Tire me the effort would Tire me and stir up my leg there's no sense in Wishing for nuclear fashion I have no ambition so leave me alone well would you mind if I read some Hank to you [Music] I think that would be fun speaking of drover he's in this passage he's a funny little guy all right this is from book number 61. the case of the prowling bear and uh it's a winter time Hank and drover are spending the night at slim chances Bachelor Shack on the banks of Wolf Creek slim chance is the the hard hand on this Ranch he's a cowboy and he lives in What's called the tenant house and it's an old house with a tar paper on the outside and it's got a wood burning stove and uh Hank and drover liked to hang out with Slim in the winter time because he lets them come in the house on cold winter nights Sallie Mae does not let dogs into her house so they have to stay outside when they're up at headquarters so we have Hankins Rover in the uh in the house it's the middle of the night slim has built up the fire in the wood in the wood stove and he's gone to his bedroom gone to bed Hank and drover are curled up around the wood-burning stove asleep and Hank here's the voice it's Drover's voice and he says hey I'm thirsty I looked into his eyes and felt that I was looking into two cardboard tubes with nothing on the other end that might sound cruel but it was true you woke me up to tell me that you're thirsty that's ridiculous how can you be thirsty in the middle of the night I don't know but I am why didn't you get a drink before you went to bed I was afraid I might wet on the floor oh brother drover you are the most slim keeps a water bowl beside the back door instead of waking me up why didn't you just go to the water bowl and get yourself a drink well I tried but it was empty I guess he forgot to fill it then why didn't you do the obvious walk into the bathroom and drink out of the pot that's what pots are for he rolled his eyes around well it's dark in there and I'm scared of the dark oh brother so you expect me to give you an escort to the bathroom is that what you're saying he nodded forget that pal I'm off duty and I don't give escorts in the middle of the but if if you don't get your drink you'll be whining all night and I'll never get back to sleep I'm sorry to be such a burden if you're so sorry quit being a burden drink water during the daylight hours like every other dog in America come on let's get this over with I sure appreciate this please hush I headed down the dark hallway and stopped at the bathroom door drover followed okay this is the bathroom the pot is over there get your drink and hurry up he crept into the bathroom a moment later I heard him say uh oh what does that mean somebody put the lid down on the pot impossible Bachelors never do that well somebody did come look there was just enough Moonlight coming through the window so that I could see the device and much to my surprise drover had gotten it right somebody had put down the lid drover was fretting what do we do now we you're the one who wants a drink figure it out yeah but drover put your nose under the lid lift it up and stick your head inside what if my head gets caught it won't get caught the lid is on hinges well I guess I could try give it a try I licked my lips and realized that they were dry as a matter of fact I'm kind of thirsty myself so make it snappy drover slipped his nose under the lid poked his head inside the bowl and began lapping the sound of water produced mental pictures of a pool of Crystal Clear Spring water on a hot afternoon I was ready for a drink are you done yet he removed his head and I noticed that he was making a sour face what's wrong I don't know the water has a funny taste [Music] I don't want any more good it's my turn I thought you weren't thirsty I wasn't until I had to stand here listening to you guzzle you know Hank I'm not sure you ought to drank that water it has a soapy taste get out of the way I pushed him aside slipped my nose under the lid lifted up several inches and plunged my entire head face and nose into the porcelain Bowl then with the wooden seat resting against the top of my head I began lapping Cool Spring Water okay maybe it had an odd taste but Ranch dogs don't worry about such little details hey we're the same guys who drink out of stock tanks creeks and mud puddles wow great water and it really hit the spot I drank my fill and at that point all I had to do was huh holy smokes I couldn't get my head out see the toilet seat was resting on top of my head and when I tried to back out the stupid lid became wedge behind my ears actually there was never any chance of me drowning but let me tell you something if your head has never been trapped inside a toilet bowl don't laugh at someone who's been through such an ordeal it was scary my mind was telling me it wasn't a big deal but there I was in this dark place hearing my own voice in an echo chamber it sounded like I don't know like a voice from the Bottomless Pit of Doom drover do something we have a code three I can't get my head out of here I tried to tell you hurry up and do something help murder what's a dog to do I went to full reverse on all engines and we're talking about all four legs digging deep and throwing up Sparks in the night after a terrible struggle my head popped free and well I went roaring backwards hit the wall and ended up on the floor two towels fell off the towel rack rack and landed on top of my head wow I had survived the experience but then oops the bathroom light came on and I found myself looking into the eyes of slim chance there he stood in his red one-piece Long John underwear hair down in his face and wearing an expression that suggested irritation man he looked mad and burned me up with a hostile glare Hank were you drinking out of the pot why did he address that question to me what about the little ninny who had started this whole thing it was then that I realized that drover had vanished leaving me all alone to face Slim's Wrath I held my head at a proud angle and gave him a direct gaze that said of course we were drinking out of the pot what did you expect you fed us dry popcorn for supper and didn't put out any water for us and we chose not to perish from thirst I got my head caught in the commode but I managed to survive thanks for all your concern and you can go back to bed slim rolled his eyes and shook his head bird brain I closed the lid on the pot for a reason a reason I put babo in the water babo cleanser you drank toilet bowl cleanser huh perhaps that explained the odd taste well how was I supposed to know slim wasn't famous for cleaning anything in his house and who would have guessed uh oh something was happening in the depths of my stomach it came suddenly in a rush in a blur my head began moving up and down and I heard odd noises coming from deep inside my body up up slim soggy eyes burst into flames get out of here outside quick he made a dash for the front door and I heard him yell this way Pooch outside you know in moments of crisis we sometimes make peculiar decisions later we look back on our actions and wonder why we did them see I knew he wanted me to make a dash for the front door and to finish off the drama in his yard it would have been the sensible thing to do and yet in that tense stressful moment when I had to choose between going left toward the front door or going right towards the darkness and Solitude of Slim's bedroom I made a hard right turn and went Galloping down the hall to the bedroom looking back I can only guess that I couldn't bear the thought of purging my system in front of an audience yes it was my sense of modesty that drove me into the bedroom I was ashamed that I had guzzled tainted water a shame that I had ignored the little warning signs of my taste buds ashamed that the nasty stuff had made me ill and most of all I was Furious that drover had sat there like a stump and allowed me to drink poison okay maybe he'd muttered something about funny taste but he should have warned me that this stuff was contaminated contaminated cremated he should have warned me that someone had tampered with our water supply but he didn't and there I stood in Slim's bedroom my mind was fogged and my gizzardly depths cried out for some kind of release I had to do something so I did what any Brave American dog would have done what Brave American dogs have been doing for centuries I crawled under the bed there I found the Privacy that I needed for this ordeal a place where I could correct my mistakes in a quiet spot and spare myself the humilification of being mocked by a crowd of small minds if I was lucky nobody would ever find the mess and you know it worked out pretty well the first 10 seconds were violent and messy but then it was over I had faced the crisis head-on and now it was just an unpleasant memory good news but things got even better when I was able to express this learning situation in a wonderful song called be careful when you drink from the pot you might think the water's pure when it's not a Thirsty Dog is full of Hope but if the bowl is full of soap it changes the equation quite a lot foreign well that passage probably raised your IQ 15 points or more so you need to read the rest of that book the Case is a prowling bear all right well I wanted to leave some time for you all to ask questions about the Hank series or My Life as a Rancher and a writer and we have ladies on in the aisles with the microphones so that everybody can hear the questions how long have I written books yeah well I started writing I wrote a little bit my senior year in high school I never wrote anything growing up we didn't think writers could come from a little place like the one I grew up in Perryton up in the Panhandle so I didn't write until uh I was a senior and our English teacher made us write poems and I found that it was easy for me and I wrote a little bit in college at that other school up there and uh but I didn't really get serious about writing until I married a woman with high standards and that really wrecked my bachelor life because she and her mother expected me to amount to something I couldn't just sleep in dumpsters and howl at night and write a poem once a month they expected me to do something with my life and so I started getting serious about writing and I started writing every day okay that's enough what's your favorite book what's my favorite book well it would have to be a Hank the cowdog book of course

Channel: TheBushLibrary

Views: 1,360

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Id: 0uum2gvqZKI

Length: 55min 44sec (3344 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 05 2023