Authors: Denis Boyles
Cowboy Wisdom
Copyright © 1995 by Modern Man Books
All rights reserved.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
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New York, NY 10017
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www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: September 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56667-4
To the lady who wears many hats
.
T
ERRY
H
ALL
To Ann Stebben—a true rodeo cowgirl
.
G
REGG
S
TEBBEN
W
e would like to thank the following people for their assistance: Claudia and Mike Riordan; Susan and Bill Streaker; Hal Cannon
and Cyd McMullen of the Western Folklore Center of Elko, Nevada; C. J. Hadley and Benny Romero of
Range
magazine; Kathy Gangwisch; Kathy Lynn Wills of the Cowboy Country General Store; Charlotte Thompson; Jennifer Lyons; Judy
Andreson; Rib, Pat, and Wylie Gustafson; Harry Rinker; Ted Hake of Hake’s Americana & Collectibles; F. E. Abernathy of the
Texas Folklore Society; and Heather Bach.
Grateful acknowledgment is given for permission to quote from the following:
Selections from
Great American Folklore
by Kemp P. Battle. Copyright © 1986 by Kemp Battle. Used with permission of Doubleday Book & Music Clubs, Inc. “The Coyote:
Animal and Folk-Character,” by Lillian Elizabeth Barclay from
Coyote Wisdom
, edited by J. Frank Dobie, Mody C. Boatwright, and Harry H. Ransom, Publications of the Texas Folklore Society Number 14,
1938; “Fifty Thousand Mustangs” by Frank Collinson (originally published in
Ranch Romances
, March and November 1936), “Mustanging on the Staked Plains, 1887” by Homer Hoyt (originally published in
The Colorado Magazine
, March 1934), “Black Kettle” by Frank M. Lockard (originally published by R. G. Wolfe, 1924), and “A Mustanger of 1850” by
J. W. Moses (originally published in the
San Antonio Express
, April 1888) from
Mustangs and Cow Horses
, edited by J. Frank Dobie, Mody C. Boatwright, and Harry H. Ransom, Publications of the Texas Folklore Society Number 16,
1940; “Ranch Remedios” by Frost Woodhull from
Man, Bird and Beast
, edited by J. Frank Dobie, Publications of the Texas Folklore Society Number 8, 1930. All reprinted by permission of the
Texas Folklore Society.
Grateful acknowledgment is also given for use from the following:
A Son of the Frontier
by John Abernathy;
Calamity Jane and the Lady Wildcats
by Duncan Aikman;
Vanishing Breed
by William Albert Allard;
Captain George Ash
by George Ash;
Back in the Saddle Again
by Gene Autry;
The American West
by Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg;
Cow by the Tail
by Jesse James Benton;
Riding the Mustang Trail
by Forrester Blake;
Cowboy Life on the Western Plains
by Edgar Beecher Bronson;
Wondrous Times on the Frontier
by Dee Brown;
An Old Time Cowboy
by London Brown;
Muggins, the Cow Horse
by Charles Camp;
Stunt Man
by Yakima Canutt;
Arizona Cowboys
by Dane Coolidge;
Old California Cowboys
by Dane Coolidge;
Range Rider
by Bud Cowan;
Cow Country
by Edward Everett Dale;
Cowboy Culture
by David Dary;
The Autobiography of Will Rogers
by Donald Day;
Cowboy Fun
by Frank Dean;
The Flavor of Texas
by J. Frank Dobie; A
Vaquero of the Brush Country
by J. Frank Dobie and John Young;
Cattle Kings of Texas
by C. L. Douglas;
Great Trails of the West
by Richard Dunlop;
A Corral Full of Stories
by Joe M. Evans;
Out West
by Mike Flanagan;
Once a Cowboy
by Walt Garrison and John Tullius;
The Cowboy Encyclopedia
by Bruce Grant;
An Overland Journey
by Horace Greeley;
Box-Office Buckaroos
by Robert Heide and John Gilman;
The Bad Man of the West
by George D. Hendricks;
The Humor of the American Cowboy
by Stan Hoig;
They Went Thataway
by James Horwitz;
The Drifting Cowboy
by Will James;
Cowgirls: Women of the American West
by Teresa Jordan;
Rodeo: The Sport of the Cow Country
by Max Kegley;
The Official John Wayne Reference Book
by Charles John Kieskalt;
Long Lance
by Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance;
Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads
by J. A. and Alan Lomax;
Women of the West
by Cathy Luchetti and Carol Olwell;
The Life and Legend of Tom Mix
by Paul E. Mix;
The Book of the American West
by Jay Monaghan;
Honky Tonk Angel: The Intimate Story of Patsy Cline
by Ellis Nassour;
Fifty Years on the Trail
by John Young Nelson as described to Harrington O’Reilly;
Wild Bill Hickok
by Richard O’Connor;
The Outlaw Trail
by Robert Redford;
The Roll Away Saloon
by Roland W. Rider as told to Deirdre Murray Paulsen;
The Cowgirls
by Joyce Gibson Roach;
The Cowboy
by Philip Ashton Rollins;
The Book of Cowboys
by Francis Rolt-Wheeler;
The Open Range
and
Bunk House Philosophy
by Oscar Rush;
The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill
by Don Russell;
The Settlers’ West
by Martin F. Schmitt and Dee Brown;
El Rodeo
by Charles Simpson;
The Kaw
by Floyd Streeter;
Clint Eastwood Riding High
by Douglas Thompson;
Cowboys of America
by Sanford Tousey;
Queen of Cowtowns
by Stanley Vestal;
The Cowboy at Work
by Fay E. Ward; and
Dodge City
by Robert M. Wright.
CONTENTS
6: GREENHORNS, TENDERFEET, & OTHER AMUSEMENTS
T
his is a little collection of this and that and other things a cowboy knows, but that other folks might not. The things in
this book have been learned the hard way, and I hope they help. Sometimes, a fellow will get out alone on the trail and get
too hot or too wet or too dry and just plain go stupid because there’s not a smart cowboy around to make him see straight.
That’s why this book has been designed to fit in a standard-sized saddlebag. It’s what you call your basic Cowpoke’s Companion.
There’s not much in here from guys who talk cowboy, but aren’t, or from guys who dress cowboy, but aren’t. Cowboys think people
who act like cowboys but aren’t are a pain in the behind, probably the same way proctologists can’t stand being around guys
who talk and dress like proctologists, but aren’t. To get in this book, you either have to be a cowboy, or you have to be
somebody a cowboy would like to be.
There are also some things in here from women we call cowgirls, since that seems like the right way to call a person who does
everything a cowboy does, but looks better doing it. Nowadays, these people are also called cow-women or cowpersons—but only
by people who aren’t cowboys or cowgirls. Nothing like a good bounce on a hard saddle to knock the political correctness right
out of a person.
Anyway, if you’ve eaten enough dust to recognize where it came from by taste alone, you know who you are. Hope you and all
your friends enjoy this little ride.
—T
ERRY
H
ALL
Hastings, Nebraska
LIFE
A
man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
—A
LAN
L
ADD
Hollywood, California in
Shane
1953
- All you have in life is your word, your handshake, and the image you portray.
—D
USTY
R
OGERS
- Civilization has taught us to eat with a fork, but even now if nobody is around we use our fingers.
—W
ILL
R
OGERS
- Give 90 percent and take 10 percent on both sides. That’s the way to get along with your horse or your wife.
—R
OY
R
OGERS
I
contend that a year spent on the hurricane deck of a cow pony is one of the most useful and valuable pieces of experience
a young man can possibly have in fitting himself for business of almost any kind; and if I were educating a boy to fight the
battle of his life, I would secure him a cowboy’s situation as soon as he was through with his studies at school. A term of
service on a frontier cattle ranch will take the conceit out of any boy; it will at the same time teach him self-reliance;
it will teach him to endure hardships and suffering; it will give him nerve and pluck; it will develop the latent energy in
him to a degree that could not be accomplished by any other apprenticeship or experience that I know of. Many of the most
successful businessmen in the Western towns of today served their first years on the frontier as “cow punchers,” and to that
school they owe the firmness of character and the ability to surmount great obstacles that have made their success in life
possible.
—
Tribune-Republican
Denver, Colorado 1886 quoted by Clifford Westermeier in
Trailing the Cowboy
