The Cowboy in Me

Born in 1922 on a homestead in Wyoming. At 3 years of age he was out shooting a .22 rifle. The family then moved to Pine Ridge South Dakota, where his dad raised sheep and range fed them along the reservation. By 13 he had saddled up a horse and worked as a cowboy herding cattle. He found a rope discarded by one of the older cowboys and kept it, used it, it's now in my possession, as is his saddle.

When the cowboy jobs dried up, he got a job cutting logs with 2 others. The 3 of them could cut 100 trees a day with a 6' straight saw earning them $10 or $3.30 a piece.

By 17, his sister married and had a small child and a need to get to Colorado where he'd been told they were paying $0.25 an hour. He took a 1938 engine his older brother (who had recently gotten killed out in Montana) had taken apart to fix, and built it up and installed it into an old Plymouth body. He fixed up the front cab and made a flatbed for the back. They loaded up all their possessions and headed to Colorado. Stopping at dark and throwing a mattress down on the ground to sleep.

Upon arriving in Colorado, he soon learned they weren't paying $0.25 an hour, but there wasn't any work in South Dakota besides cutting timber, so he stayed. He found a job clearing irrigation ditches for 4 hours (after 4 hours they'd cut on the water and he'd have to climb out or be drowned). Eventually he got a job with the railroad as a candy dancer (maintenance workers on a rail line with the very long headed hammers that pounded ballast around ties to keep the rails level). He worked his way up to brakeman. One cold, rainy, sleet, snow filled New Years Eve he was in one heck of a foul mood when his buddy came to pick him up for work. He was told to bring his bag because they were headed to Rock Island. Who is, he asked. We are, was the reply. They were hiring 3 brakemen for the Rock Island Illinois line, so they headed off. He worked the line for a while before moving up to the main line in Galesburg.

20 years on the railroad before a hernia operation that wouldn't heal kept him from working as a brakeman. Out of a job, he found they were hiring building inspectors. He took the test, passed, and for 20 years was a building inspector for the city of Galesburg.

At 80, he rode a horse bareback with no halter or bridle from the field to the barn. All was fine until the other horses came running. He quickly found himself without a way to stop the runaway animal. To get to the barn they'd have to go through a grove of trees where a branch was within reach if he jumped, or he could hold on and take his chances. He held on.

I think I'll hold on too.

Like the song goes:

We ride and never worry about the fall
I guess thats just the cowboy in us all