Dark, Darkness and Black Holes

It was Thanksgiving a few years ago at the Knot and to quote Snoopy "It was a dark and stormy night." Wayne cooked a great Turkey Day meal with all the fixins and some of the Knotheads showed up for a free feed. We ate and partied till the wee hours and that's when we discovered the rain had turned to ice.

Now a Texas ice storm is not for sissy's. You can talk all day about your "name the state" blizzard, and bet me it's worse, but I'll see that bet, and raise you an ice storm. The only thing louder than the howl of the wind is the rifle shot crack when a Live Oak branch hits the ground under the weight of all that ice. The roads freeze over with a layer of ice 3 inches thick and you are frozen in time until the sun finds its winter coat and reluctantly trudges back to work.

So I made an executive decision that the Knotheads would stay put for the night and by the time we opened on Black Friday we were all kind of out of it and just waitin for the roads to thaw. But the storm was not givin up without a fight, it was drizzlin rain, foggy damp, and colder than an aluminum ice cube tray. We had the wood stove on medium boil and still couldn't get the bar warm. As the day wore on and the roads took on the look of a 7-11 slurpy with out the cherry syrup I looked out the door and saw the most unbelievable thing. A man was riding a horse up our driveway. Behind him he was towing a pack mule that was well packed, and all three, man, horse and mule looked more miserable than a hooker workin a Mary Kay convention. I went out the door as he dismounted in a frozen daze. He asked in a raspy voice if I had a place to tie up the critters while he came inside to thaw out. I got them to the east side of the bar, out of the howlin wind. He tied them to a hitchin post,and I got him to the wood stove. He was an older man wearin a Black Oil Skin Duster, boots and hat to match and a look of pure misery. He didn't speak much, just made shiverin noises and hunkered around that stove like he wanted to suck all the heat out it and keep it for hisself. Of course all the knotheads were on high alert, this sort of thing just don't happen around here and we were all dying to pepper him with questions. But we were polite, gave him some time to settle in and get a feel for the place. He finally sucked up all the heat he could hold and sauntered up to the far end of the bar. He took off his duster and hat, layed them on a table and real quite like ordered a Coors Light. He pulled out a smoke and to quote David Allen Coe:
"I noticed a stranger with ghost white hair as he asked me for a light and I knew there was something strange about this ride."
Not being able to wait any longer ,I burst out with "Who, what, when, where, why?" It probably wasn't the nicest thing but we just had to know. And this is what he told us:

His name was Bob Moore and he was from a small town in Alaska, Wasilla to be exact. (I had never heard of it back then, but we have all heard of it now). He was a retired helicopter pilot who had learned to fly in Viet Nam, and after the service had went to Alaska to work the pipeline. Now he was retired and spent most his days sittin around home bored stiff. He said " Well I was sittin there one day staring at my dog, and my dog was just lickin his nuts. So I said to myself, well Bob, you can either learn to do that, or you can get up out of this chair, and go ride a horse across the state of Texas."

And that's what he did. He flew in down south of us, made some arrangements there, got a horse and a mule and started off on this epic journey that brought him to our Saloon. He wasn't planning on sticking around, just wanted to warm up and get back on his trek but he was so darn interestin that we just couldn't let him leave. The Knotheads were buyin him beers and he was buying back and before you knew it the day was gone and night ridin with a good buzz on was out of the question so he asked us if he could pitch his tent and spend the night. We got his animals unpacked and into our cattle pen, he got his camp set up, and we closed up shop and headed to the house.

The next morning I got up early, the storm had finally passed, but it was dang cold. I saw Bob up and stompin around outside trying to get warm and brought him to the house for some coffee and breakfast. We talked that morning about him, Viet Nam, and life, till it was time to get the bar open. He said he was gonna get the camp packed up but he would come in the bar to say good bye before he headed down the road. By the time he was done a few Knotheads were already there. Bob came in to say howdy and bye, but ya know, them Knotheads wasn't have none of it. It started innocent enough. He said the critters needed some hay and did I have any? One Knothead, Henry, said he did, told Bob to wait just a minute and he'd go bring a bale. Then another Knothead, Mac said well hell you might as well have a beer while you wait. And another Knothead said he'd put on some Johnny and Waylon to pass the time. And so it went, all day long and before you could snap your fingers, it was dark.

Now I knew Bob wasn't goin nowhere, and by then he had become part of a much larger family than he'd left Wasilla with, so I told Wayne to go ask Bob if he would like to stay in the house that night. Have a hot shower, sleep in a real bed and wake up to a warm toilet. But Wayne told me that Bob was a cowboy an he wasn't gonna go for all that luxury, said it might actually offend him.
But I was insistent so Wayne went down the bar to pose the question. Bob got the biggest grin and said, "Hell yah!" You could actually see the smoke comin off his boots as he went out the door.

The next morning I had to go to town for supplies and Bob met me at the truck. He was so nice and gracious and he thanked me so much for all that we'd done and he said he wanted to do something to show his appreciation. He gave me a wad of cash and asked me to by a stack of Ribeyes for dinner. I said I would but only if he'd stay to eat with us, he agreed and a bargain was struck.
Later that night after many a cold Coors Light, Bob said "Robin the only way I'm gonna get out of here is I am gonna have to escape in the cover of darkness." I told him, " Yep! You fell into the black hole of Texas and you gotta claw your way outta here."
Very early the next morning I was gettin coffee ready, the sun was trying hard to come up and I looked out the window at the dawn. And there in a ghostly shadow I saw a sadly beautiful thing: a man, a horse and a pack mule well packed, headin off down my driveway. It filled me with a feeling of melancholy that's hard to understand. In 3 short days we had spent a lifetime together. We had made friends, shared stories, laughed and played. I never forgot Bob Moore and wondered how his ride turned out.
We heard stories for awhile after he left, a Knothead ran into him in Llano, gave him a place to stay, he handed him off to friends a little further up the road. They handed him off to some one they knew, and so it went.
We kept in touch once in awhile mostly at Thanksgiving. He was building a barn in Wasilla, tryin to stay busy. Not wantin to let that old boredom set in again. But after awhile we lost touch.
So this year as Thanksgiving came around I once again thought about Bob. I really wanted to find out what happened to our old friend and drinkin buddy. I guess I just wanted to satisfy my mind if he was alive or what. So I got on this infernal machine a googled Bob Moore, Wasilla Alaska. Since there has been alot of action in Wasilla since we knew Bob, with a certain little soccer mom Govenor, my search brought up tons of stuff about Wasilla. It looked like every newspaper reporter in the world traveled up there to interview locals and get some inside info on her. And in an article published in a newspaper in England I found this mention:

In Wasilla at the Mugshot Saloon, when I went back there this week, the Palin lovers were still there.
"We feel about Sarah Palin the same way you guys feel about the Queen," said Mike Spalding, chewing tobacco. He quit shaving in 1992, and has a grey beard down to his navel.
"She's a rock star," his drinking pal, Bob Moore, chimed in, drawing on a pipe under a ten-gallon hat. "She's the hottest governor on the planet. And we've got her back".

Yep, it was our Bob Moore! I had to go to England to find him, but he is alive and well and most nights he can be found at The Mug Shot Saloon.