Solidarity

With the soon to be son-in-law

I’ve written before that we’ve got a sort of dude ranch cowboy wedding coming up this summer in Montana. And I’ve got to say, the soon to be son-in-law is a good fellow.

So, that necessitates a hell of a lot of shopping.

The other day we bought the granddaughter a new pair of western boots.

And we bought Mrs. Bailey a new pair of western boots.

Let me tell ya, that last bit was a nightmare. Boot shopping with Mrs. Bailey is double-plus-ungood. She doesn’t like ‘em in the first place, and she’s picky, and one foot is bad from an old injury. But, we got it done, she found a pair that she likes.

Yesterday we found a hat for the granddaughter. Also not easy, as it seems that most kids hats are just that, poorly made, ugly, hats for children. We managed to find her a like new vintage that looks great, and after some time with the steam and a brush, it’s top notch.

Photo by Benjamin Hersh on Unsplash

One problem remained though.

The belt buckle.

Now, normally I wear a big ol’ hunk of brass for my buckle, and I’ve got a really snazzy sterling silver buckle, but neither of them look particularly western. I figured on wearing the silver one anyway, as for this wedding we are genuine pretend cowboys, not actual cowboys.

But, the soon to be son-in-law bought a big ol’ rodeo style buckle.

And the daughter started pickin’ on him because of it.

I’m not sure why, I generally figure when it comes to such things that bigger is better, but who knows.

So, I decided that I’d better get a big rodeo style buckle for myself as well. To keep the poor fellow from feeling all alone.

I managed to find it today, an old commemorative buckle from the 1987 National Finals Rodeo. It’ll look snazzy, and the poor fellow won’t be the only one wearing a big hunk of german silver.

I don’t imagine that the engagement will get called off over soon to be son-in-law’s big belt buckle, but just in case it leads to a big fight, at least he’ll know that the men of the family are on his side.

Even though, us men will lose. There just aren’t enough of us. There are only women in this family. Women ancestors and women descendents, I don’t know if a boy’s been born to this outfit in a century.

But we men have to take a stand somewhere, so it might as well be over big belt buckles! If necessary, we choose this particular hill to die upon.

The soon to be in-laws were out here this week from Ohio too. They stopped for a couple days on their way to Hawaii, so they did lots of shopping for cowboy clothes too. Not sure if soon to be son-in-law knows yet that they left all those new clothes and boots here for him to fly back with on his next trip. I guess he’ll find out soon enough.

I do think that maybe, just maybe, this upcoming wedding has created a little boom for the western wear stores in our little city.