Bone has been in many tough situations in his life; he can handle tough questions. Here he rests on top of a saguaro cactus in Arizona looking for border patrol agents. His lack of official papers, or even a birth certificate, can cause problems at times. President Trump has yet to tweet about him, however.
One of the more recent followers of this post, Gunta, was doing an Internet search on Tom Lovering a week or so ago when she came across this interview that Bone did— and laughed a lot. Again, many of you will have read this interview, but I am reposting it on behalf of the new folks who have joined my blog in the past year.
Q: Do you really talk? We’re speaking ethics here, Bone. Blogging is about transparency. That means honesty.
A. Are you crazy? Have you ever heard a bone talk? Of course I don’t talk. I just think out loud.
Q: Curt sometimes refers to you as he. Does this mean you are a male bone?
A. No. He makes assumptions, lot of them. He was showing me to a biologist at a writers’ conference and she suggested I have my DNA tested. “Just cut a small chip off of it,” she said nonchalantly. “You can determine its sex and breed.”
“Just cut a small chip off of it!” Outrageous! I am not some it to have chips cut out of. Besides, I lead a rich fantasy life and have no desire to know whether I am male or female. Call me she, he, or Bone, but never it.
Um, I think Bone is definitely a male in this photo. –Curt
Q: You have travelled all over the world and met thousands of people. How do they usually react to you?
A. With befuddlement. You should have seen the look on the face of the customs agent in New Zealand who tried to seize me as ‘animal matter.’ But emotions run the gamut. There was a Japanese man who got off a tour bus at Yellowstone National Park and wanted to hold me for good luck. Soon there were 40 other Japanese handing me around, oohing, and taking photos. I was thrilled. On the opposite side, I know a woman who refuses to touch me, like I have cooties. “I don’t know where Bone has been,” she states primly. Not surprisingly, there is also jealousy. “I want to be you and travel the world,” a good friend in Sacramento told me.
Some people act like I have cooties. This woman almost dropped me and then washed her hands! –Bone
Her daughter, on the other hand, so to speak, understands proper bone etiquette and respect. –Bone
Q: What is your favorite thing to do?
A. Visit graveyards; there are lots of old bones there. My favorite grave is Smokey Bear’s in Capitan, New Mexico. I once stood on his tombstone for ten minutes trying to communicate but all I could get was something about ‘growling and a prowling and a sniffing the air.’ A close second is the grave of Calamity Jane in Deadwood, South Dakota. What a woman! These are difficult choices, though, when you toss in the likes of Hemingway, Daniel Boone and Billy the Kid. On the light side I once visited Ben and Jerry’s graveyard of discarded ice cream flavors in Vermont. My spookiest experience was a visit to the Capela dos Ossos, the Chapel of Bones, in Evora, Portugal. Those folks definitely have a skeleton in their closet, lots of them.
Bone has a special fondness for unusual graves. Here he hangs out with Billy the Kid in New Mexico. Has he been in a shoot out? Is that blood on his vest?
Q: So, what’s your second most favorite?
A. Too hard; I am a dilettante dabbler, but here are a few.
- Wandering, of course, anywhere and everywhere and by all modes: bikes, kayaks, rafts, skis, backpacks, sailboats, planes, helicopters, trains, cars, RVs, etc.
- Visiting wild, remote and beautiful natural areas. I started life wandering the Sierra Nevada Mountains, John Muir’s Range of Light.
- Seeking out the strange such as ghosts and aliens (I’ve been to Roswell four times).
- Attending unique events like Burning Man but I also have a fondness for any type of fair.
- Meeting weird people like Tom.
Bone backpacking on the John Muir Trail.
Tom being eaten by a bony desert monster.
Q: Speaking of Tom, he and Curt ‘discovered’ you in 1977 and you have wandered extensively with both. Which do you like best?
A. Eeyore, the jackass who can’t keep track of his tail. We’re traveling companions and he saved me from being strung up and buried on Boothill in Tombstone, Arizona. I’d robbed a bank, cheated at cards and hung out with women of questionable character. (This is what I mean by having a rich fantasy life. It’s also known as evasion.)
“I was in deep trouble in Tombstone. Wyatt Earp had arrested me for robbing a bank and Doc Holiday was checking me for weapons.”
“My life as Bone was in serious jeopardy.”
“Odds were I was going to end up on Boothill, along with Billy Clanton.”
“But then the ever brave Eeyore came to my rescue! I hopped on his back and we went riding off into the sunset while leaping over large rocks.”
Q: Which of your journeys has been most memorable?
A. I would have to say traveling the length of Africa in the back of a truck from the Sahara Desert in the north to Cape Town in the south. Almost falling off the back of a riverboat into a piranha infested section of the Amazon River would have to be a close second. I was perched on the back railing doing a photo shoot. And then, of course, there was the 10,000-mile bike trip.
“I was much smarter when I rafted down the Colorado. I wore a life jacket!”
“That didn’t protect me from pirates. The dreaded pirate Steve held a knife to my throat and demanded to know where I buried my treasure.”
Q: You are often seen scrambling over rocks in remote sections of the Southwestern United States. What’s that all about?
A. I’ve developed a fondness for Native American Rock art. It resonates with my bone-like nature. It’s also another excuse to go wandering around in the outdoors. Plus, some those places might be haunted and it is a great place to look for UFOs. Some of the petroglyphs look amazingly like aliens. Finally, wandering in the desert is known to be good for the soul. Ask the Prophets of yore.
“How can this guy and his strange dog not be aliens?”
“Here I am making tracks across White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. It’s a great place to watch out for UFOs.”
Q: Ah, being a born-again bone, do you have any insights into the great unknown?
A. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Q: Finally, and this may be a little sensitive, but do you always run around naked?
A. What kind of a question is that? Do you think I am uncivilized? For shame. I am the epitome of haute couture! A bow and arrow toting, card-carrying NRA member in Montana has designed and made me two leather vests. What’s more, an 80 plus year old woman in Kansas going on 20 with a crush on Johnny Depp and a room devoted to the Egyptian gods has made me a kilt and several other outfits. Then there is the horse woman actress in Ohio whose husband is an ex-secret service agent who has promised me an outfit and the artist head of a PR firm in the Bahamas who has promised me another. Face it; I am hot stuff, clothed or naked. I may take up a modeling career.
“My Bahamian/Canadian friend makes me a new vest in the wilds of Montana.”
Bone, wearing his newly made kilt, fights off a ferocious sea monster in a scene straight out of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’
MONDAY’S POST: Back to the Grand Canyon.
Wandering through Time and Place 
Poor Bone, so close to the gallows. The day could have ended so much worse for him.
He was worried, Carrie. The mere threat made him behave for a day or two. –Curt
Bone would have slipped through the loop and escaped somehow.
Bone asked me to say “Thank you,” G. Plus he said to tell you that he has a strong neck. 🙂
Great to see your footprints, Bone. I think I’ve seen them in other places. Perhaps we’ll cross paths one day.
I wouldn’t doubt that Peggy, we have traveled down many of the same roads. And I, too, would like to meet you. –Bone
You never fail to amaze me with your posts! 😉
Thanks, Rebel Girl. That’s nice. –Curt
Maybe Bone will make it to the tropical little red dot someday!
I’ll have to talk to Curt about that, Suan. Thanks for reminding me. He traveled there the year before I was discovered. –Bone
Oh he did?
Definitely worth another read. It even produced a couple of extra chuckles. But I didn’t think to ask in the previous post: where has Bone been without you along? That’s quite a lot of traveling for a bone.
Many places, Gunta, especially traveling with Tom, when he left his business for a couple of years to see the world. But a number of other people have carried his as well. Glad you enjoyed the story again. It was your comments that inspired me to repost Bone’s history and interview. –Curt
Can a man have too much fun?!
Never… 🙂 And neither, apparently, can a bone!
Awesome.
Thanks, Sylvia! –Bone
I’ll make no bones about it — this was a great read.
Ah it’s good to meet an educated person who knows to insert bones into her observations. No bones about it goes all the way back to the 1450s when bones in soup was not a good thing. “And fond that tyme no bonys in the matter.” I, for one, am absolutely opposed to putting bones in soup! Thank you Linda. –Bone
This is fun. You have a flair for the surreal, Mr Bone. Does Curt get any of the credit for it? 😉
Absolutely not, Sir Kingsbury. Surreal is good. I do believe you are a knight, right. Curt said you spend a lot of time tilting at windmills, which he admires. Give my best to your horse. –Bone
Silly Bone. 🙂
Ah, I am not sure anyone has ever called me silly, Juliann, but I am okay with that. I’ve added it to my list of titles. –Bone
Surely one of the best interviews ever!! 😀😀 Curt, I think there should be a Bone fan club … he (oohps, sorry it!) is winning all our hearts. I love the costumes.
Oh, Annika, say such things quietly. Bone already has a swelled head. The thought of a fan club would throw him into a tizzy! 🙂 –Curt