Yup, I was a wrangler for 2 years on a ranch in Moose, WY. I was a climber too. Guess I didn't look much like a climber 'cuz no one threw any beer cans at me!!
Thanks Splitter!
I just now saw your comment about the horse.
Yes, she's a beauty and a real piece of work. She respects me, but not much else. A big curious dog, always trying to be in the middle of whatever is going on. Whenever I'm working in the pasture, on the pond, on digging/pounding/chopping, I can rest assured that soon there will be a large black nose looking over my shoulder.....
Reading some of the posts in this thread got me thinking of my father who was not a cowboy but rather a jockey. Born in 1907 in Kentucky he was apprenticed out at age 13 to the JKL Ross stables in Toronto. He had no interest in being a jockey but his family had too many mouths to feed and he was was 5 feet tall when fully grown. He cried all night on the train To Canada. He was a taciturn man when I came to know him and rarely spoke of himself so these matters were related to me by my mother. He rode on tracks all over North America and Canada. As a teenager I was disdainful of him for a variety of reasons not least simple youthful vanity and misplaced self-regard. I recall him performing some remarkable athletic feats that seemed to have no relation to his normal rather somnolent state. I remember him and my uncle, also a small man of about 5 feet and a bit, drinking beer and laughingly comparing their biceps which to my astonishment bulged like demented grapefruit with multiple deep indentations and dimples and snake-like veins. Wherefrom these arms came I had no idea and never saw their like until I met David George Cook who had similar biceps and a remarkable ability to destroy people in arm-wrestling while all the while looking amused and dismissive. Of course for my father it had to have been the iron discipline of racing horses and living a life of hard work and self-denial that most jockeys of that day and age had to endure that gave him the powerful arms and body. His was not the life of the cowboy though both occupations have the horse at the centre. A different ethos occupies the cowboy and the jockey though for a while in the thirties my father had a SAG card and was an extra in Hollywood films when lots of wild "redskins" were called for in cowboy films; then he put on a loin-cloth and red paint and rode over the sagebrush in emulation of the noble savage. It seems the work resulted in many serious injuries to horses and riders too. His relationship to horses was not something I was ever to know other than that he knew them well and had been taught that they must be treated with the greatest care and respect. I don't know for a fact that he never sat by a campfire with his horse hobbled nearby but some how it seems very unlikely. The horses he rode were incredibly valuable princelings who often lived better than most humans, and for him and the horses the vast skies of the plains were replaced by the thunder of the straining men and horses galloping flank to flank and the screaming crowds.
I just found this small photo of my grandfather taken in Colorado in the early 1920's. He grew up in Texas and is wearing a typical Texas cowboy hat before the stetson came into style. It was adopted by the Texans from the earliest cowboys in America - the Mexican vaqueros.
Clell Baker
Credit: Jan
This is the guy who used to catch and break wild mustangs for extra spending money. The ones he couldn't break he sold to rodeos. One of his, Old Brown Joe, bucked all the way back to Madison Square Garden. That horse never was ridden with a saddle but the children could ride him bareback no problem.
Lots of horses at Jackson Falls, so I'm shaking out before a crux and look down to see this lady riding beneath me staring up, at which time her knee catches a small tree and she is on the ground, the horse dude behind her accesses the situation and tells to "get up and walk it off", ever since I've called that cowboy first aid.
My wife and I met on a chairlift 15 years ago - both as ski bums and full time climbers. Now we own and run an Organic/100% Grass Fed beef ranch in North Carolina and sell it all to Whole Foods - but we still sneak out to climb several times a month and a yearly trip to the desert thrown in.
240 Black Angus, 5 horses to work the herd with, 4 dogs to tag along, and two kids to do all the other farm chores. And - my 12 year old son climbs harder than I can now, just got his first 5.11b on real rock!
Nope, but I know lots of cowboys and more pretending to be. Both types have saints and as#@&%es just like every other group of people, say for example, climbers?
A little ditty about the life from Jerry Jeff Walker called Night Rider's Lament off of Ridin' High.
One night while I was out a ridin'
The grave yard shift, midnight 'til dawn
The moon was bright as a readin' light
For a letter from an old friend back home
And he asked me
Why do you ride for your money
Tell me why do you rope for short pay
You ain't a'gettin' nowhere
And you're losin' your share
Boy, you must have gone crazy out there
He said last night I ran on to Jenny
She's married and has a good life
And boy you sure missed the track
When you never come back
She's the perfect professional's wife
And she asked me
Why does he ride for his money
And tell me why does he rope for short pay
He ain't a'gettin' nowhere
And he's losin' his share
Boy he must've gone crazy out there
Ah but they've never seen the Northern Lights
They've never seen a hawk on the wing
They've never spent spring on the Great Divide
And they've never heard ole' camp cookie sing
Well I read up the last of my letter
And I tore off the stamp for black Jim
And when Billy rode up to relieve me
He just looked at my letter and grinned
He said now
Why do they ride for their money
Tell me why do they ride for short pay
They ain't a'gettin' nowhere
And they're losin' their share
Boy, they must've gone crazy out there
Son, they all must be crazy out there
Let us know!