I Was Destined To Be A Texas Cowboy

In October 1955, my parents took my 11 month old baby brother Chet and I to our Uncle Skinny and Aunt Gladys's house that was about 10 miles west of a little town in the panhandle of Texas by the name of Claude (where the movie Hud staring Paul Newman was filmed.)  My uncle lived on a little ranch where he raised a few cows and did some farming.  When the car pulled up to the house it resembled a scene from the television series The Walton's.  My dad's two younger sisters and their families were also there and my best guess is there were no less than 14 little booger pickin' kids running all over God's creation in various stages of dirt, sweat and chewing Bazooka bubble gum.  Once all the hand shaking, hugging and kissing was over, I walked with the big boy's to the barn where everybody grabbed an empty feed bucket and turned it over and sat down....cowboy style.

Since I was only 5-years old, I wasn't allowed to smoke snipes, which was nothing more than crushed cigarette butts from the ash trays of our parents cars.  The two older cousins, Jimmy and Jerry, asked me between puffs if I wanted to become a real cowboy.  Do I? Of course I want to be a cowboy!  I had all the qualifications necessary for this position.  Every Saturday morning I was glued to the television set watching the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Hop Along Cassidy, Gene Autry, Sky King and the Cisco Kid. Why, I even had an official Range Riders cowboy hat and badge.  Of course I'm ready!!
                                      

After everyone crushed out their cigarette, we resembled a small mob walking towards the horse tank where all the livestock get a drink of water and the corral was ankle deep in mud and large quantities of bovine body waste.  Or as country folks call it 'cow shit and pee' and it's also been known to be called feed lot pudding by those in the live stock industry. The older boy's instructed me to sit on the edge of the horse tank and hold on tight to a very long cotton rope that was attached to a large young cow and not let go.  If I was able to hang on to that rope for 8 seconds, I would then have passed my initiation and would be recognized as a real Texas cowboy.  While I wrapped that rope around my arm like it was a coiled snake, all the boys' jumped up on the corral fence in great anticipation of what was about to take place.  Jerry swung the gate open and Jimmy hit the cow in the butt with a hot shot and I was jerked off that horse tank in a flash!  I couldn't see anything and was having to breath through my nose because I had my mouth clamped shut. When I finally got up off the ground for what seemed like forever, all I could hear were the cheers from my cousins. "Way to go Buck!  You did it, you did it! You're a real cowboy now Buck."  I was so proud of myself.  I got the approval of the 'big boys' and now I was one of them.

When I entered the house to tell all the adults of my accomplishment, I remember my Indian mother's mouth being wide open in disbelief and saying, "Oh my God son!  What happened to you?"  Every pocket on my shirt and jeans had mud, cow shit and pee in them.  My face was brown from the spray of the water and urine in the corral, my ears were packed and my hair had no telling what in it.  Needless to say the adults weren't that impressed with my becoming a cowboy and were more interested in knowing which of my cousins were responsible for this act of juvenile mischief.  Being a 5-year old I naturally told everything!  I was now one of the 'big boy's' and proud of it.

 Once I identified everyone involved in my initiation, Uncle Skinny reached inside the pantry in the kitchen and took down his razor strap and walked out the back door.  During this period of time, it was normal for children to be disciplined with a belt or strap.  It was easy to tell when Uncle Skinny was really made, because all the veins in his neck would pulsate with every beat of his heart and this time they were throbbing like a mocking bird's ass on a high line wire.  Uncle Skinny walked very rigid over to the picnic table and yelled "You damn boy's get over here.  Now!"  The uncle yelled loud enough that it's a pretty safe bet the people living in Arizona could hear him. The two younger boy's began crying immediately, while Jerry and Jimmy's face resembled a glazed doughnut.  There was no doubt in anyone's mind in Armstrong County there was going to be an ass whoopin' that day.

By 1967, I had improved my skills of working with farm and ranch animals.  I even rode in a couple of rodeos in the bull riding event, but came to the conclusion this was not a sport I could excel in.  To be honest, I wasn't all that good to begin with.  My two brothers and I came to Wellington for the summer and worked in our grandparents drive-in, called the Dixie Maid, to make money for school clothes. Jokingly I've said for years that I was probably related one way or another to 65% of the people in Wellington and the remaining 35% were just traveling through.  The farming and ranching industry in that town is one of the primary sources of income, so it's not all that uncommon to see horses and cattle everywhere.  One afternoon after working the lunch run at the drive-in, I was told that the following day everyone was getting up at 6am to work about 40 head of cattle and it was going to be a full day of hard work.  I was smiling like a jackass eating briars when I heard this, but 6am is way earlier than I had been getting up.  Oh well, time to saddle up and make it happen.

My two brothers Chet and Tom worked as hard as the rest of us.  The first place we started at was my grandfathers best friend Claude Smith's place and he had cows that needed to be branded, de-horned and castrated.  Since my grandfather had worked on numerous ranches in his life, he was magnificent in telling us what we needed to do and how to do it correctly.  My grandfather and Claude did the castrating while my two brothers and I were responsible for herding the cows into what's called a 'cradle' where they could be locked down and kept from moving around.  This was going to be a one-stop situation for the cows.  They would be herded into the cradle, clamped down, branded if needed, then de-horned and castration was last with the testicles pitched into a bucket to be cooked later.  Ever heard of Mountain Oysters?  Things were going along like a well oiled machine that morning and we had this down to a science by 9am.  Our grandmother was cooking everyone breakfast outside just like she did when they lived and worked for the Mill Iron ranch...hot biscuits, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs and a large pot of camp fire cooked coffee.  Man that was good.

Long about one that afternoon the temperature was closing in on triple digits, flies were so abundant the cows were getting rest less and the stench of burnt hair from the branding was getting a bit gamey.  Chet and Tom's faces were red as a turkey's butt and the sweat was just pouring off their faces.  They were sending a cow down the chute toward the cradle and this particular cow had it in his mind that he was NOT going peacefully.  I twisted his tail to get him moving and once his head went through the opening at the other end of the cradle, Claude's hired hand Clint clamped his head down and now all is good.  Anytime a cow or horse is being castrated, it's imperative the back legs are spread wide open and tied down to keep the animal from hurting itself or the person doing the cutting.

Once the animal was secured, Clint and I spread the cow's legs open and anchored them with rope to the corral fence.  Just as my grandfather put the hot branding iron on the cow, it shot a string of cow shit about 10 feet straight back up the chute and hit Chet square in the middle of his chest.  Not only did Chet get nailed, but that string of cow shit streamed down from his chest all the way to his belt.  He was not the least bit happy and of course the rest of us thought it was hilarious.  Chet stomped all the way to the back of the pen repeating, "Damn I hate cows!  I don't want to do this crap anymore.  It's hot and the damn flies are drivin' me nuts.  Damn I hate cows!  Dammit Buck, it ain't funny!  Stop laughing."  I'm not sure if Chet saw Tom doubled over with laughter by the horse tank, but the poor kid was almost in tears.  This bit of excitement and humor certainly brought things to a temporary stand still.  But after everyone regained their composure and Chet washed off his t-shirt in the horse tank, it was back to business as usual.  My grandmother said that was a moment she will always remember.