October 25, 2006
Woke up to a cool morning. The air is very wet. Last night I got up in the crow’s nest and shot several dozen photos of a majestic sunset. It was quite a light show.

A Woosie On Woosies
“What is a woosie? You say that ‘only woosies ride Harleys’ Thanks and we enjoy your True West Moments."
—Pete and Linda Souza, Tampa, Fl

First of all, let's put that in context: what I said was if you want to get your butt beat, go into a biker bar, jump up on a pool table and yell out, "Only woosies ride Harleys." A "woosie" is a cross between a wimp and a pussy. It's a toned down version of the latter, kind of like Crime-anie is to Christ, or Gol-darned is to God-damned, sort of a fudge against swearing. This saying was born, at least for me, when I was rooming with Carole Compton and Kathy Radina in an old farm house at Seventh Avenue and Indian School, deep within the Beast. I was doing my weekly installment of Honkytonk Sue for New Times and I had a gag where Sue calls a couple cowboys “the one word they can’t stand,” and of course the word was “pussy,” and this upset Carole and Kathy and they didn’t want me to use it and one of them, I think it was Carole, suggested “woosie,” and I went with it and my readers loved it and thought I was a genius. Ha. Prior to that (1978) I had never heard of the term, but I assume Carole had heard it in Texas, perhaps. Today I hear it quite often, and I often wonder if my obscure little old comic strip helped spread the usage.
—BBB

”When in doubt, listen to a woman. When without a doubt, listen even more.”
—Old Vaquero Saying