The Basin is the Best 

Life in Southeast New Mexico and West Texas is better than life anywhere else. That’s true on any scale or metric—social, cultural, socio-cultural, socio-political, geographic, geologic, anthropogenic, or attitudinal. It’s true in terms of liveability, attractiveness, intelligence, neighborliness, common-sensible-ness, relative humidity, sanity, graciousness, godliness, opportunity, rationality, magnificence, unspuriousness, psychometrics, ebullience, health, uncrowdedness, and positivity. Everyone knows this. But it’s worth revisiting from time to time, lest we become disaffected and lose sight of our natural advantages.

And let’s add to those factors two more: climate and weather.

Sure, we are in a blistering time at the moment. But this being August, we know that relief is in sight. Next month brings the arrival of Autumn—and with it glorious weather, football, tailgate parties, hunting, and the outdoors at its best.

And while I wonder if some are going to blanch at my next assertion, I believe that climate is yet another crown we can claim. I arrived at this conclusion after having lived through insufferable climates in parts elsewhere. For most of my life, one season of the year always was most unwelcome, and for me that was winter. That remained true until I came to West Texas, where winter would rank as the most glorious of seasons, were it not for spring and fall, which here are the ultimate in rapturous seasonal contentment.

And while winter itself, in these parts, can throw its fits and hurl its polar vortexes, it doesn’t last. Cold snaps here generally run no more than three days, and are almost always followed by spells of superb weather. So I celebrate the end of August as the start of the longest, best weather window to be found in the Northern Hemisphere.

Combine that with all the other superlatives of Basin life, and you have a region par excellence.

 

Revisiting Baxter

In the June issue, in this space, I wrote on the subject of humility (“Keeping Things Real”), wherein I held up cowboy poet Baxter Black as a paragon of down-to-earthness. (Find that article here: https://tinyurl.com/3tdvv736.) When that came out, my friend and “cuzzin” Thurman Mullins (no relation, but we coincidentally share the same last name, and have known each other 30 years) messaged me with a followup. Cuzzin Thurman knew Baxter better than I did, and he shed additional light on Baxter. Incidentally, Thurman was the ranch manager at Twin Pines Ranch, the home spread of the since-deceased musical legend Charlie Daniels, near Lebanon, Tennessee. I spent a day at Twin Pines with Thurman once many years ago.

Thurman knows everyone. If you doubt this, see the images on this Facebook page: https://tinyurl.com/5229w94r

Thurman said: “Hi Cuz, Great write-up on our hero. He used to spend the night here [at Twin Pines] fairly often when he was working in the area and he put me up a couple of times at Brighton [Colorado, where Black then lived.] Shortly after the Twin Pines barn burned in 2011, I received a large box which contained all of his tapes, DVD’s, books, etc. [replacing Thurman’s lost materials], and each one was signed with a message. I called him and told him I had some insurance that would pay some if not all of the cost of the collection. I just needed a bill to present to the insurance company and needed him to send me a bill. For the next few months when we met up by phone or in person I’d remind him I’d appreciate it if he would send me a bill. One day I received a manila folder from Coyote Cowboy Company [Black’s company name]. I opened it to find what quickly became one of my most prized possessions. It was the bill of a cap cut off from the cap. Bax wrote across it, ‘Here’s your bill. Bax.’ His dog Boller and my dogs Blue and Bear were pen pals. You nailed him. Baxter was Bax 24/7 and a friend to all he met.”

Nice to get confirmation like that.

Meanwhile, neighbor, enjoy your end-of-summer slide into langorous Autumn.

 

Jesse Mullins is editor of Permian Basin Oil and Gas.