Got a Question? Ask A COWBOY POET!
July 2021
It is understood that the poets and other artists who have become regulars at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada are masterful storytellers, wordsmiths, and musicians, but rumor has it there are quite a few who have made a name for themselves as jokesters. In this month’s edition of Ask a Cowboy Poet, a few of our poet panelists were willing to share a little of this behind-the-scenes, good-humored jesting that has turned into legend and lore of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Read on below to see their responses.
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What was the best prank you ever pulled, participated in or witnessed on a fellow artist at the Poetry Gathering?”
- John Breternitz
Yvonne Hollenbeck:
One year at Elko, I and others orchestrated a well-planned, well-rehearsed surprise birthday party/roast for Pat Richardson. He was not only surprised, but speechless...which was rare for ol’ Pat. Some of the entertainers wrote songs or poems just for the occasion; Glenn Ohrlin told a hilarious story with Pat as the victim, and Kip Callahan Jumped out of an inflatable birthday cake as Sourdough played stripper music. She stripped out of umpteen layers of clothing (wrapping some around the red faced cowboy). No, she didn’t completely strip. It was such a fun event and fortunately video taped by Paulette Tcherkassky...fortunate because many of the greats that were there are no longer with us, including Pat, Jess, Rodney, Glenn, and now, Stan Howe.
Bill Lowman:
I live for pranks and good humor. Three good cowboy singers from my range (eastern Montana and western North Dakota) that I had worked many shows with needed to be seen by the world, so I brought ‘em to Elko. Glenn Vaagen got permission to take his wife Adeline's Cadillac, so he and Lowell Larsen, both of rural Taylor, North Dakota drove. Bob Petermann of south Wibaux, Montana country and I worked a show the night before Elko at Rhame, North Dakota, then drove the rest of the night to "catch a bird" at the Billings, Montana Airport at daybreak.
Somewhere along the line we hatched an idea that Glenn would be our chauffeur. At the Gathering he was to always walk ten feet behind us, except to step up and open doors for us, and never speak unless spoken to. Glenn took it and played it to the limit. I had a lot of fun introducing him as our Cadillac Chauffeur to my long time buckaroo friends on buckaroo wages.
One morning, after the usual two hour social breakfast at Stockmen's, we stopped for a quick tour of a western store over on Commercial on our way out to the Elko Convention Center. We had just sent Glenn out to "fetch the Caddy," when an over-painted young lady approached us remaining three asking our "cowboy opinion" on which t-shirt she should purchase for her fiance back in Philadelphia, the pink one or the purple. It was a three to zero landslide for the purple. She informed us she was a freelance corespondent sent out here to do an article on "real cowboys" for a national magazine and needed a ride out to the Elko Convention Center.
Just then, the store front doors flew open and there stood Glenn waving us to the Caddy. We seated our guest in the front seat as us three shouldered up in the back. Glenn was now in full character, with his North Dakota winter scotch cap pulled down over his ears, his big forty below leather chopper mittens on, and both top and bottom plates out as his chin touched his nose. As cars honked and dodged past, Glenn would wave a big fist and shake his head. As he weaved from lane to lane without signaling and ran a red light, he looked back and commented on how we "mummed up" so quick. He wheeled up around the "chauffeur loop" in front of the Elko Convention Center. As hundreds of showgoers watched through the plate glass front, Glenn opened the Caddy’s door for her as I tipped him a quarter, and offering my hand, I walked her to the entrance.
As the Gathering wound down, sometime between late Saturday night and Sunday morning, we four pointed Adeline's Cadillac toward our domestic haunts. At a truck stop breakfast near American Falls, Idaho, one of us slipped up and Glenn found out who the "painted lady" really was. He slowly eagle eyed us around the table, then said, "You dirty rotten S.O.B.'s, that's why you “mummed up" so fast." Adeline said Glenn watched the news stand at the White Drug Mall for nearly a year hoping he wasn't on it.
There's half a dozen other Elko funneries, but in all my travels and friendships this was by far the best. We lost Glenn a few years back. He was one of the greatest friends a person could hope for and a blast to travel and do shows with.
Waddie Mitchell:
One year, D. B. and his kids were invited to the Gathering. We were catching up on our lives, when D. said he had found out I was well known in Elko. He said they’d eaten at a popular restaurant the night before, and he had ask their waitress if she knew me, to which she said she did. He said he guessed she knew I was a little light in the loafers. (not that there’s any wrong with that). She said, “But he has all those kids,” to which D. lifted eyebrows and kinda shrugged and shook his head. I, to say the least, was embarrassed and a somewhat upset with him.
I was entrusted that year to produce a night show on which D. and his two kids were to play. I had it staged to where when one act was done, I would signal via headset to the lighting people, and they would turn the spots off on the act that had finished while turning the spots on the new act. It had gone well for three acts, the next act being D. and kids. The light went down on the previous act and D. was prepared and waiting on his light cue. I held the light off, and off, and still off, until I saw them getting nervous. They looked at each other and shrugged in question. Still off. The lighting crew was frantically asking why I was taking so long on the cue. Still off. D. and kids were in the dark. They were going to leave the stage. D. started to take his guitar off and had his strap over his head while stepping away from his mic. I called for the lights to be turned on. D. had a deer in the headlights look. They all had to compose themselves and get back in place.
They did a great set. After the show D. said he hadn’t had a sauna-sweating moment like that since he got caught in the closet as a boy. I didn’t know what he meant.
I looked a D. and said, “Really, you thought you’d come to my hometown and disparage my name with no repercussions?”
The crowd had been patient, the lighting crew had been frantic, the staff was miffed, and the other entertainers perplexed, but a prank supersedes everyone else’s time and worry, right? That’s why I’m not much of a prankster.
