(Meanwhile,) back at the ranch

[Douglas G. Wilson]

> From Ramon Adams, _Cowboy Lingo_.  Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1936, p 147
>
>... Back at the ranch one referred more or less elegantly to "breakfast,"
>"dinner," and "supper," but when one hit off the day's work with all
>outdoors for a dining room, and a sooty Dutch oven on a bed of embers
>in place of a kitchen range, one became more or less of a savage, and
>"grub-pile" seemed to fit better in one's rough, outdoor vocabulary.
>Back at the ranch, too, the cook was likely to be more polite, and to
>say, in announcing his readiness for a meal: "Sit in, gents, she's on,"
>or, .....

If "back at the ranch" is all that's required, here's one from before 1910:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/MeaNaug.html

L. T. Meade: "A Very Naughty Girl": Chapter IV, p. 38:

"We'll be as snug as snug can be, and we'll have our fun just as if we were
back at the ranch."

(No, it doesn't seem to be pornography ....)

These examples may not be germane to the original issue with "meanwhile" ....

-- Doug Wilson