Naugahyde Cowboys
In times past when folks didn’t have the convenience of trash removal, nor was it possible for one to haul undesired items to the refuse pile, people just acted the role of people and chose the easiest way out by throwing trash out by the side of the roads in a secluded stretch of unpaved lanes. Then the state, county and federal government established laws making it illegal to throw out junk beside the roads. During the unlegislated times there was no telling what might turn up in this universal “disposal bin.”
The three of us would just delight in going to a section of road that had gone into receivership of the neglected. Lukey, Lucky and I would make it our business to stop by and peruse for soda bottles, bike parts, anything that resembled a wheel, and stuff that could be transformed into some kind of fictitious battle tool of the old west or medieval times. Just ‘cause that’s what we did back then. Nothing suited us better than to find an old wagon with a wheel missing so that we could experiment and change it into a new “Cadillac” or some king of conveyance just as important to the three of us. I can’t begin to tell you how many times each of us went barreling down a washed out slope on one of our inventions. Now those were the days! Carefree and full of life we were and living life at full throttle is what we did.
Somehow our dads and moms were able to afford us some kind of bike. I remember my very first bike was a used, hand-me-down 24” cruiser that was too tall for me and I had to mount it from the side of the front porch. Once I got it started then I had to stop it and jump off before it left me lying flat on the ground. Then, if I were away from that porch I had to find another place to stand in order to elevate myself to the launching position. Again once in the cycle mode I had to bail off before it fell over in order to stop. Now, if those weren’t the days I would have to search hard to find the days.
Once while scratching through one of those favorite dump sites we three found an old naugahyde couch and chair that looked as if it was placed there just for the three of us. We all flopped down onto the two pieces and began to think of just how this great find would somehow benefit our lifestyles. We thought: furniture for our new club house, a first class swing suspended from one of our favorite trees deep in the swamp, a wonderful conveyance down the slope at the “white ditch bank” (that is after we had attached wheels from another great day of searching,) or just a sitting place by the side of the street near home.
Then it hit me! When we had the fortune of seeing a movie matinee some Saturdays there was always someone dressed in buckskin clothes that was the star of the show and we always wanted some real buckskin outfits. Well this naugahyde material would definitely suffice to become the stuff that made the frontier clothing three adventurers who were trapped in today while living in yesteryear. Yep! That stuff (that looked like leather to us) would soon become “leather” vests and pants for all three of us.
What had to happen was the removal of the hide from the dead couch and chair and then fashion it into the uniforms of the likes of Daniel Boone. It was easy for us to see that couch as the carcass of a buffalo we had just downed and also the remains of a bear felled by one of our old muskets. Now that buffalo was taken with a perfect shot to the heart however it required a shot from each of three muskets to down that grizzly bear. Both these magnificent animals were very rare indeed since they were white, which, by co-incidence was the color of that old couch and chair. Man! What a day. Two rare specimens downed in a matter of hours. What a day!
It was decided, since we had no way of retrieving our “kills” to the base camp (our hiding place in the branch,) we should just leave them until the next day and return with our skinning tools. We had no fear that our bounty would be stolen by other hunters because we were the only ones who ever came to this special hunting ground. Besides, if any other stalker of big game came here they also would face the problem of transporting their find from here to camp.
In papa’s tackle bow he kept a sharp filleting knife and that was the weapon of choice for skinning a buffalo (naugahyde couch) and a grizzly (naugahyde lounger.) We three set about the task of “skinning” our prey. Just following the seams to remove the hyde from the couch and chair were easy tasks. After that came the cutting out and sewing of the pieces together. We sliced narrow strips of the material to use for putting the creations together. When the garments were complete we all had make-shift frontier garb of white naugahyde that included vest and scrappy pants complete with lattigo lacings down the sides.
The finished project had taken the better part of three days but that was the birth of the naugahyde cowboys. Grown folks laughed at us but we lived in another time and never heard even a snicker.
