"Mom, last night Mike and I camped along the American River. We met this guy, and he told us all these weird stories. We made a fire, and as we sat there talking, he walked up and said, "This is my ceiling." Said his name was Zip, and his dog was Easy.
We drank a little wine and he told us he'd been in Vietnam. Said he'd had a job once way up in Oregon, tending 26,000 sheep. But one morning he woke up and saw a wild man riding a lion and whipping it with rattlesnakes. The wild man picked up one of the sheep and tore it in half and ate it. Zip said he told that wild man to eat all he wanted. "Bein' the sheepherder that I am."
Said one night he heard a noise in the barn, so he shot his gun five times into the air, "Bein' the sheepherder that I am." But that morning the owner's wife came and told him her husband was going to kill him because he had shot their horse five times. So he up and ran away.
Said he was hitchhiking and a trucker picked him up and they began to talk. The trucker complained about his wife a lot, sayin' he didn't want her to get his money when he died, so he made out a will leaving Zip his truck and $50,000! Then he died on the spot! So Zip drove the truck with Easy all over the country. "Bein' the truck driver that I am." And
Easy drove the truck, too.
They were in Bend, Oregon, and he ran into his old friend Jake, who had a patch on one eye. Jake talked him into entering an ostrich race. So he rode that ostrich 40 miles an hour, hittin' it on the head with a broom to make it go. Said of course he won the race, "Bein' the ostrich-rider that I am." But then he ran into a wall.
Then, one time he and Easy were riding their motorcycle up in Calaveras and they ran into Hell's Angels. He invited them to a bar and bought drinks for everybody and then they decided to have a motorcycle race. So Easy got on and rode around a while and then Zip got on with Easy, and left them in the dust! "Bein' the biker that I am."
“So, what do you think, Ma?”
