(Reuters)
Big hat, no cattle.
Or... Big bottle, no sugar.
I saw a bumper sticker in Nashville a while back that read, "We don't give a rat's a** how you do it up North." (Don't ya just love "red necks"? Actually, I do love rednecks. Some of them. But I digress.)
My guess is that the owner/operator of the beautiful black Mercedes sporting the "rat's a**" bumper sticker, was not a real redneck, or at the very least the driver was a well-to-do, highly educated redneck.
I say that because on the opposite side of the "rats a**" bumper sticker was a Duke Alumni bumper sticker.
You just can't make this stuff up.
We have great bumper stickers in TEXAS too (I always capitalize TEXAS, when I write about my home state. I just can't help it.). I saw one the other day that read, "Obama -- big hat, no cattle."
Well, in the spirit of full disclosure, I just made that up...it's a play on an old TEXAS sayin'... That hasn't made it to a bumper sticker, yet. Not that I know of anyway. But I hope it will.
See, in TEXAS, when someone casts a contemptuous glance at another someone, and then whispers "big hat, no cattle," it means that the someone looks the part but just doesn't have the goods.
As I heard a caddie say years ago, about a hot shot Country Club golf pro who had decided to try to make it on the PGA tour, " he's all bag," meaning that he had a great looking shiny new golf bag but he didn't have the goods to play with the big boys on the tour. "He's all bag." I like that one, too.
Which brings me to New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I don't give a rat's a** how you do it in New York ( my very favorite place in the world next to TEXAS) but I am at this moment casting a contemptuous glance at you-wherever you are-sitting off center to the left because of your politics and the size of your wallet and saying about you, "big hat, no cattle." Or, more specifically, "big bottle, no sugar."
Mr. Mayor, I respect your success. I am not envious of your wealth (well, maybe just a little bit). I am a free market capitalist, too. I congratulate you on your business acumen. But, as a leader you are, simply put, big hat, no cattle. Soft drinks?! Are you kidding me?
You're going to get rid of big bottles of soft drinks? Wow! Now that's telling them, Mr. Mayor.
What a spurious crock of crappola.
What is that you say, "how about an example of someone who is big hat with cattle"? Well, how about your predecessor, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and the way he got rid of squeegee guys and drug dealers. Completely cleaned Times Square -- and New York City, for that matter. Now, that's big hat with cattle.
I have an idea for you Mr. Mayor. Use your power and skill as the mayor of New York City to make the good folks from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey install a higher grade of toilet paper in the stalls, so visitors who have just landed in your fair city can access more than a single sheet from the roller thing before the cheap paper breaks, leaving the occupant of the stall not being able to access enough paper to accomplish the paper's intended purpose. Even that small feat would be true leadership. But soft drinks?!
Get to work getting some cattle, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you for letting me share.
Bye, bye.
Larry Gatlin is a country music singer and songwriter.
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