Wanna know what we need more of in America?  Cowboys.  I'm starting to figure out a few things in my old age, like realizing what's missing from our society.  We need more cowboys for one thing, and what I'm talking about here is the real deal.  I sometimes see where some eastern journalist has called George Bush a cowboy, and that really chaps my ass.  I understand why the term gets applied to him, but I hate the implication that cowboys are dumbasses.  Make up your mind on your own about Dubya, but don't think of him as a cowboy - 'cause pardner, he damn sure ain't one of them.  I know that for sure, being as how I used to be one.

Not many kids grow up wanting to be cowboys these days.  Back in my day almost all boys grew up playing cowboys, wanting to be one when they grew up . . . but with the Hollywood version in mind.  Even back then, hardly anybody knew a real cowboy, and if they had known one, they sure wouldn't have wanted to be one.  It's a hard life, but at the same time, it's a wonderful life because it's what we all should be like.  Known for their rowdy and reckless ways, cowboys turn out to be anything but that.  In my opinion, they're perfect examples of real Americana.  They are as individuals (friends) and as a group (lots of potential friends) the finest people I've ever known.

We're talking about modern day cowboys now, since that's the only kind I've had a chance to rub shoulders with.  I was a middle age man before I started making friends with working cowboys, the real cowpunchers.  Down here in Texas, that's what we like to call 'em - cowpunchers, or just punchers.  Out in the northwest they call 'em buckaroos, and up north in Oklahoma and Kansas it's just cowboys.  Some folks who don't know them at all have other names for them.  An old timer once told me that the thing about rodeos he hated most was that at any given one of them you ended up with more horse's asses than with horses.  I've been to hundreds of rodeos, maybe thousands, but I'd still put my rodeo friends up against anyone's.  When it comes to friends who'll stick with you when the chips are down, you can't beat a cowboy for a buddy.

It's coming spring round-up time down here in the south country - a time when cowboys will gather herds for all sorts of work.  Depending on the ranch and the round-up, most spring round-ups are for taking care of the calves that are new to the herd.  The fall round-up is usually for separating calves from mama cows and getting ready for the winter.  I don't like round-ups much, especially the ones that come in the fall.  I used to have a ranch foreman friend who got drunk after fall round-up, just to recover from seeing all the yearlings he'd taken care of shipped off.  He said it was a sad time of year for him.   This may sound strange, but I'm not a big fan of the cattle business . . . but I love cowboys.  Sometimes we love people not for what they do but because of who they are.

Spring round-up always left me a little green around the gills, feeling bad for all the things we'd done to the calves.  But it was work that had to be done, for the good of the calf and the herd, and for the good of the business of raising beef cattle.  When it gets right down to it, we'd all be well advised to conduct some round-ups in our own lives.  It's a maintenance level thing in the cow business . . . and it should be in our personal lives.  There comes a time when we need to bring in the herd, do some sorting, some doctoring, some tagging and all that.  Spring is as good a time as any to take care of this hard business . . . and that's what I've been doing as of late.

It's sort of like spring cleaning, this round-up business.  With the cleaning, we're throwing out lots of junk that's accumulated over the winter . . . stuff we need to get rid of.  And you've got to round it up before you can sort the stuff that needs throwing away out of the things you need to keep.  That's never an easy chore.  Yeah, things are going to be a lot different around here in a few weeks, or maybe months. 

Back in the 90's I had a little business called The Cowboy Chautauqua Company, a troupe of singers and poets who went around performing stage shows about cowboy culture.  Some of the best poets and singers in the country worked with us, and we did shows all over the place - Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Arizona, and even Montana and Nevada.  But my partner in that adventure died suddenly, and I lost heart in it.  But after a dozen years of being idle, I've started rounding up the herd, or what's left of 'em.  And I'm looking for new talent, folks who can fill in for what's gone from the old group.

And that's the way it should work, you see.  A round-up isn't just for what's old and already in place . . .  you have to sort through what's available to find replacements for what's missing.  Before long I'll have a new profile at Campo Madrone about the new Cowboy Chautauqua Company.  Keep an eye out.

D. Paz, 3/17/08