The stories, insights, and wisdom of Bill remind me of a star that has burnt out yet the light reaches earth for thousands of years. What are your favorite posts by Bill? Post them on this thread with reference to where they are located so those interested can go back to those old threads and read more context. One of my favorites tidbits of Bill's wisdom comes from post #27 in the Old Time Rodeo thread. I guess I appreciate most anything from yesteryear that reminds we could get along just fine with out the government being involved too much. We seemed to be hardier, healthier, and more content.
From County Fairs post #4 Ken is right, Rodeoing started as a way for some of the best at what they did to show off their skills entertaining their followers and the public at large. I find no fault in this as long as we realize most of our participation like whether to wear Levi's or Wrangler's or which boot or hat to wear, are ideas pitched to us by fashion people and that we are celebrating an era now mostly gone buy. What we have learned is that some few folks have always lived this way, mostly out of the way place in the northwest, not knowing or caring where the fashion went. And along the way, we learned, in spite of the the culture that once existed, as written by Waylon Jennings, that he had reached a certain age and was still wearing jeans, we learned this denim material made pretty good work clothes in addition to looking good at the Saturday night western dance.
Post #2 From a Wide Spot in the Road. I sometimes wish I had a reset button. I suppose my big decision would be where to reset life. I've had so many failures I'd almost have to go back to the beginning to correct most of those and I'm not sure I'd want to do that. They were my failures, my responsibility. Always overestimated my ability, thinking I could somehow do it, whatever do it was. Or allow someone to talk me into something and before I knew I was in over my head. I could make things worse in a hurrying. Standing back, looking at the road I took, the road less taken. Someone might say, "Boy. You're a mess. The road less taken is less taken for a reason, it's a rough ride."
Bill's musing was some of the best writing I ever read and I have read a lot. I wonder if he ever realized just how gifted he was. We Might Have Been Friends I wish we had time, you and I to sit down and talk a spell about life and experience, good times and bad and the road we took getting here to this place. We’d talk about your country and mine, the things we like, about food and wine. talk about family and large dinners, It was things like that that molded us, gave us character, carried us through the hard times, like sickness and accidents, wars and loneliness, how we like the same things. It would’ve been good, we'd agreed to have known each other over the long haul, maybe as neighbors how we could’ve aided each other, gossiped together, helped out in times of sickness, and how we'd agree each in his own way, agreed silently, we liked each other, and puzzled to ourselves what might have been had we met earlier. We stand up. I say its been wonderful seeing you, getting to know you a bit. You say, Yes, its been a fine time we’ve had, so nice to sit and talk, get to know each other. We say goodbye and I walk to my car, thinking, a fine lady. I wish I could take her with me. You turn back to your loneliness, I drive back to mine. I remember that he had a blog a few years ago. I think he deleted it at some time. He wrote a story about walking down a country road and coming to a fence at the bottom of a hill. The gate seemed to beckon to him. He stood there and debated about whether to go through the gate. He finally did and when he went through the gate, he seemed to be in another place. It was a fascinating story. I forgot how it went after he went though the gate. I wish I had saved it. Does anybody remember it?
"Drifter should know a big mess of prose will surely spoil the pot. And what you will see is less of me Here on this Dairy Lot." -- Drifter (Bill Boggs) From a Wide Spot in the Road August 9, 2019
I searched on all of Bill's posts that contained the word "blog," and found 2 website references. http://thelastsooner.blogspot.com https://firstsooner.wordpress.com/ The shell of both accounts are still up, but he must have deleted all of the content, as he apparently was wont to do. There are no Wayback archives for either, and I cannot find specific references to the other blogs he apparently had and deleted over the years, not that I would hold out hope that such web searches would be more fruitful.
Hi everybody this is Serafina Ranaldi, I am Bill's daughter in law, he used to say that I was the best and I reminded him everytime that I was the only one!!! I did for him and his daughter who passed away last July a sort of a card in their memory for the people who loved them and are missing them. I thought you would appreciate a virtual version. Thank you for all the love you showed Bill, he was one of a kind!!!!
@Serafina Ranaldi, since some of our members don't click on links, I have rendered your PDFs into JPEGs that can be displayed here without clicking. I hope you don't mind. We all miss him very much.
Bill was a special part of this forum, @Serafina Ranaldi . We miss him. Thanks for your tribute to him and his daughter.
Thank you Serafina. The second part of your tribute to Bill didn't appear on Ken's post above (for me anyway). I'm going to include it in case someone doesn't click, because it's perfect.... A harmonica, a camera, a cup of coffee and a book.
Thank you everybody, I would like to talk to all of you, Bill was always happy to have a chat on this platform. I did join, but then I did not have the time. This was a hard year, my mother passed away just a month before Bill, same kind of disease and I have been going back snd forth to Italy since a long time. Tomorrow I leave again and I will back at the end of August. I will not bring my computer with me, but I will be back and give you guys some more reports about Bill, our family, some stories and pictures. It seems a good way to enjoy Bill company even if he is not the physical writer but a loud presence in spirit with his way of being Bill. Good night and sweet dreams.