Pickles by Brian Crane for October 21, 2020

Bravo Earl good one. Keep at it you’re getting better.

AABB again. Maybe we could graduate to ABAB?

I’ve got an equine named Hoss

And a dog, I call him Bill

And when my life becomes a loss,

You’ll inherit both… in my will.

good job, Earl… now send it to a cowboy magazine

I kinda like this one.

Pickles is a comic strip that gives us clean humour, mirrors real life and delights the heart. I appreciate these things. I just started to read this strip and I had no idea what a gold mine I have been missing since it’s creation. With all the doom and gloom that this world can give it is indeed an oasis in the desert. I am thankful for Mr. Crane’s talent in making us laugh and feel good inside.

Comfortably wide until it’s time to get up and getting up is not so comfortable.

Yippee Kay-yo Kai-yay! Earl!

Earl has found his Pink Floyd and has become “comfortably numb”

It’s a Limerick Earl, not a poem.

It looks like you’ve gotten better at this poetry thing, Earl!

I’m a cowboy who rides on a leather recliner

At chow time I mosey on down to the diner.

You might think that I should eat chuck wagon beans

But that’s just too risky, if you know what I means…

Earl you have the Cowboy Hat but where are your Cowboy Boots ? You know to get the true Cowboy feel ;-)

Well howdee I think he’s got it

“I’m a wannabe cowboy, and I have a big butt; ‘cause a big hat, a big shirt and boots aren’t enough.”

Earl does better when there’s no one around to criticise him.

“So I sit back and feel no remorse.”

Too bad you retired from your day job Earl.

My wife and I are old. We both read Pickles, and if a strip reminds either of us of something we did or said, we always tell the other!

Opal seems to be busy……she’s not into poetry…..but then again, neither is Earl! LOL

He’s gonna take that recliner to the old town road, and recline till he can’t no more.

Now his “poem” is done, what’s next?

Surprising what wearing a cowboy hat will do to you. I suspect that when the poetry phase is over Earl will practice some roping and hog tying on Opal. And beans.. Earl will definitely have a hankering for beans.

Great hat, Earl. Out here we call wanna be cowboys, who’s hat is their only authentic thing, “hat ranchers”.

As we used to say in Arizona, Earl’s a cowboy who’s all hat and no horse!

I once sat a cayuse, a horse,

it was tall and long-legged of course.

but the saddle was hard and quite rough

and the horse I’d been told was real tough.

“be careful,” they said or you’ll land on your head

when you give him the ol’ ’giddy up!"

but like Earl, my hero, I’d figured and planned,

I barked out the ‘get going’ command.

with a sweep of my hat on his rump

discovered bucking is more than a bump.

and when finally I fell to the ground,

to land on my head, I had found

the greatest truth that can be learned from all this

IS – you can’t make a cowboy from an old man!!!

Best one yet!

wouldn’t miss it – I read it everyday!

Earl is a poet and don’t know it!

With his cowboy hat and his moustache Earl kinda reminds me of Sam Elliot sitting at the bowling alley bar in The Big Lebowski. Just a loveable ol’ cuss.

This is a fun strip, and it gets better as I get old enough to identify with some of it. Another one is “pluggers” which is on this site.

Mine as well, but I’m beginning to wear my chaps on my keister.

This is the best stanza yet.

Give it up, Earl – go back to your old job of doing nothing.

Thumbs down Earl, but keep trying.

A limerick, in spirit (the last line doesn’t rhyme with the first, technically speaking) is still a poem.

Best cowboy poem ever!

You can hang them up now Earl, it not going to get any better than that masterpiece.

That the best poem yet buckaroo. Ya got me hummin so keep em comin.

And it captures the late stage of life perfectly…

Comfortably numb?

Whoa, Lay-Z-Boy. Take it easy, big fella’

Third day in a row I’ve thought I’d got “The Elderberries” out of order in my queue!

Tired of this. Move on.

I wholeheartedly concur with Mikeyjay!

I agree. I love Earl, Opal and the family.