Bloomin' Prairie Poetry

I first became interested in what they were calling, Cowboy Poetry when my daughter’s husband was working highline construction and they were in Torrington WY. She had seen a poster about a Poetry Contest in a window and told me about it. (1993)The first year I went and just listened, as that year it was just for locals. The next year I went it was open mike, so I read some poetry, and heard for the first time, Georgann Sheets. I enjoyed listening to the guys’ poems but always had to listen real hard to catch the rhymes. In Georgann’s poems, I could hear the rhythm and the rhyme and I thought, I can do that ~ that’s my kind of poetry. Then the third year the MC of the show told me, “Helene, your material is good, but you ought to do a couple of things. You should put your poems to memory, and you need to record them, so that when you go somewhere, you’ll have something to sell.” That was Cowboy Poet, Butch Martin, so I ask him where he did his recording. He said “If you want to record country music, you go to Nashville, if you want to record cowboy poetry, you go to Ron Twist”. Then I talked to Georgeann, and she told me “Yeah, he does a great job, and don’t let the long hair ,hippie kid look, throw you, he knows his business.” When I recorded this first Album, I’d talked to Ron, was going to Riverton, but the night before, I called him, said the weather forecast was for snow up there, what did he think about it. He said “Oh, come on up, it’s usually snow in the mountains but just rain in the valleys, and we are in a valley”. So, I take off around eight am, this is in the latter part of March, and arrive in Riverton about sundown. I settle in to a motel in town, call Ron to let him know I made it and he said “See you in the morning.” Well, he calls me in the morning and thought I’d really be mad at him, there was about 4 inches of wet snow on the ground. I said “No, I’m here and it’s OK.” Rather than just giving directions, he came to the motel and had me follow him out to the studio. We had to stop once to get snow off the windshields. Then it snowed the whole day, as we recorded in his small garage studio. It was lined with egg cartons and had a booth for me in one corner, him behind the controls in the other . He was the kind of a person that made you feel so at ease and capable that it was really neat. Not easy, but challenging and accelerating! The microphone was so very sensitive that he said, “Don’t you dare burp or you’ll blow me out of here.” There was a window that I could, see to the outside from the sound booth, and it snowed the whole day as we recorded, beautiful big flakes drifting to the ground there along the little wooded creek. He was radio announcer, Ron in the Morning, but his recording business was called Owl Creek Productions. Any way we finished the process around three pm and I started for home. I was in a heavy old Dodge Van and the roads were crusty-icy. Between Shoshone and Casper the roads really didn’t bother me though as I was just high on life and on the fact that I had just recorded my first album. He had given me a tape of some music that he had recorded for a cowboy singer and every time I play those songs to this day, I get that same elated feeling. Then going through Casper it was an absolute WHITE OUT and only by the grace of God, did I make it through there! I traveled the interstate for some more miles but it was going to be getting dark, it was snowing and the road was snow packed. I was getting tired, so I decided to pull it in at Glenrock. Next day the snow got lighter as I went south, the roads were still crusty ice, but I just went slower, top speed probably 45, and got to Scottsbluff Nebraska. I started out south of there but it was a blinding ground blizzard, so I went back and stayed there, second night. The heated pool at the Super Eight, was sure a welcome place to be and I got a good nights sleep before going on home, the next day. One day up, three days home. Wow! But just so glad to have it done. Of course getting it duplicated, after designing the jacket for the tapes took some more time but I enjoyed doing all of it.