JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

It’s the weekend and it’s been pretty serious around these parts lately, so I want to shift gears and liven things up a bit.

…It’s American Royal time, right? Oh, it ended last month? What the hell…I’m going to tell you an American Royal story, anyway.

Let’s go back to the days when the Golden Ox, the Genessee Inn, Sutera’s and Kemper Arena were the lifeblood of the West Bottoms. A grand time it was, especially when the Royal was underway.

A lot of people who came into town for the American Royal Livestock, Horse Show and Rodeo would hang out at those places, and you could usually distinguish them by their attire — brown suits and string ties, sometimes, boots, belts with big buckles and sharply structured cowboy hats.

One night during the American Royal, Patty and I and a good friend of ours from St. Louis, Mary Buttice, were at the Genessee Inn, standing at the bar. Nearby were two suit-and-string-tie gents with big hats — probably in their 50s or maybe early 60s. Pretty soon we struck up a conversation with them, curiosity being a big factor in our initiation of the chat.

One of the two was more talkative than the other, and in short order he announced that he and his buddy were livestock judges. Well, now, we were pretty doggone impressed…The only judges I’d ever known were those I covered at the Jackson County Courthouse.

Livestock judges? We wanted to know more about that, for sure.

To be properly deferential, I immediately began calling each of them “Judge,” and, naturally, we asked them what judging livestock was all about and what criteria they used in determining quality and rankings.

Judge 1 then started in…”Well, you’ve got your sheep, your hogs, your goats, your cattle and your chickens…”

He paused, and we leaned forward, waiting for him to go on. “Like I say,” he said again, “you’ve got your sheep, your hogs, your goats, your cattle and your chickens.”

Again, he paused, and at that point something registered with one of us, who said, “Chickens?”

“Yes, chickens,” the judge continued. “Do you know how we judge chickens?”

“No,” we said, shaking our heads, anxiously awaiting the answer.

“Well,” he continued, “it’s all in the shape of the egg.”

“What?” one or more of us said as we looked quizzically at each other.

“Yes, the shape of the egg.”

At that point, Mary, our St. Louis friend, experienced an epiphany of sorts and enthusiastically blurted out, “Oblong!”

“Right!” Judge 1 replied, pointing at Mary. “Oblong!”

…Then, he suddenly shifted gears.

“You know why the egg is oblong?” he asked.

“No,” we said, mouths and eyes now wide open.

“SO WHEN THE HEN LAYS THE EGG, HER ASS DON’T SLAM SHUT!”

With the words “slam shut,” Judge 1 slapped his hands together in a loud, startling clap.

We recoiled a bit and stared as Judge 1 and Judge 2 broke into raucous laughter, slapping their knees and exchanging self-congratulatory nods and smiles.

There wasn’t a lot to say after that, and within a minute or two we sidled off, leaving Judge 1 and Judge 2 luxuriating in having laid a trap for three “hens” from the city and then, very efficiently, lopping off their heads.