3 men and a mule: Who are they?

Who are these three fellows . . . .
Only a few white people know his real name and I am one of them and sworn to keep it secret. In fact I was nearly 50 before I was told his real name even though I knew him since I was five years old. He’s been called “the grungiest man I’ve ever seen,” well I can assure you that he does bathe; yep he takes air baths once a week. See Don Pablo does not particularly like water. He says it wrinkles the skin and removes all the body’s essential oils. He says its ok for drinking and watering his roses, but soaking yourself in it is a different matter. So once a week Don Pablo strips to nothin’ but his boots and hat and stands naked facing the sun the last twenty minutes before it goes down and cleanses himself that a way. Occasionally he sits in a sweat lodge when visiting his friends up in the four corners, but he does that just to be hospitable. And when he does he wears all of his clothes in the sweat lodge. He figures that if he is going into a sweat lodge to open his pores he might as well open the pores in his pants and shirt as well. His Navajo friends didn’t mind, in fact they may be pleased that he keeps his clothes on. Don Pablo’s diet consists primarily of raw meat, he says cooking meat makes it wrinkled, and I already explained how he dislikes wrinkled meat. Don Pablo used to be a trader on the floor of the Chicago Commodities Exchange, but he quit to move to Arizona. But he just couldn’t sit on the urge to buy and sell things, so, he became a trader in native American jewelry, rugs, pottery, and you name it. He has an old west museum near Scottsdale full of stuff that he has retired folks from the First Pentacoastal Church work in for him, they’re a group that moved out west from Biloxi, Mississippi after Katrina came through and carried their church east into Hancock County, Mississippi. Hancock County is "dry," so that’s why they moved west. The Pentacoastals had been praying that Katrina would carry the church all the way to New Orleans so they wouldn’t have that problem, but, no such luck. Don Pablo used to have a girlfriend, but he would just look away every time my dad mentioned “Texas Flo.” Dad said she made the best tasting bar-b-q and toe-box porridge he ever ate, said that he had never had shiner bock on his cornflakes before or since, but it sure was good. Don Pablo would just grunt and look away, maybe that explains why he don’t like to eat cooked meat, who knows.

Orville is the guy in the center. He is not a cowboy, a bootmaker, a gambler, or the owner of permanent mailing address as far as I know. Orville is a prospector. He graduated from the Colorado School of Mining. He owns one third of an amethyst mine down in Bolivia that played-out years ago, but he still gets royalty checks from his partners, Guzman and Roderico. Orville has been wandering the west for years in his wagon looking for minerals. Orville styles himself as an ecological, or “green” prospector. Says his wagon pollutes less than a Toyota Prius, and with that I can’t disagree. Orville has not found a viable vein yet, but he has struck gold. You see, years ago wherever Orville went, he noticed that tourists would take his picture. So he decided to have postcards of himself, his wagon, and whatever beast was pulling it made up. He sells those postcards, autographed, for $1. Last time my father and Don Pablo helped Orville to count his post card money that he keeps in an old grain sack there were 60,000 one dollar bills. That’s a lot of postcards.

The other guy is my father, Bill Dwyer, who I can assure you bathes with regular frequency. My dad is an artist who wanders from Santa Barbara, California to the rocky coast of Maine via his home, New Orleans, painting landscapes, seascapes, and the bayous of Louisiana. Dad moves with the weather. He has a ’48 Packard that he drives that has a ping-pong table-top mounted on the roof. Around the ping-pong table-top there is a three foot railing. The table-top serves as a deck on top of the Packard that my father sits on when he wants to paint the scenery. He accesses the deck by way of a boat ladder mounted on the side of the Packard. I suspect he likes the deck as it must remind him of his days at sea during the war in the Merchant Marine; I have his Coast Guard certificates from five war zones and his under fire certificates.

As my dad is driving along and gets the urge to paint the scenery he just stops by the side of the road and climbs up on his deck with his paints and pallet and goes at it. He took out the bench seats and bolted in a bucket seat for the driver, and laid a bed down that runs from the front passenger seat into the back. If you ever ride in my dad’s car as a passenger you got two choices. Either lay down in the bed, or roll up the bed and put a kitchen chair where the seat has to go, but hold on when he hits the gas as your seat will fly backwards, this I know from experience. The area behind the driver’s seat and the trunk he uses to store his paints, frames, tools and groceries. He made those modifications to his car long before Winnebago came along. If you are driving west out of Abilene some day and see an old man atop the roof of his car, don’t call the rescue squad, it’s only my father painting what he sees. I could tell you more about my father, but what son couldn’t, but for now I hope I have satisfied your curiosity as to who those guys are. And please note, I ain’t making any of this up, I’m from New Orleans, and we don’t have to.

Meanwhile, I am expecting to hear from them any day now as they continue on their journey with Phone Home, and I will keep all of you posted when I do.

Yours in earnest, Emmett

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