Got a Question? Ask a Cowboy Poet!
August 2023
This month, On The Edge poses a question at the heart of being a hand…and at the heart of being a human. In their replies, the old hands face an old adage and an older dilemma. From one hand to another, they share stories of balancing on the edge in life’s precarious moments.
"Don’t quit." These two words seem to be written in the DNA of any man or woman who’s ever made a hand. Still, there are moments in life when circumstances take each of us right up to the edge, and force us to question how or why we will keep going.
Describe a moment in your life when you found yourself on the edge, questioning how or why to continue. What inspired your actions, and what was the outcome?
–On The Edge
Dick Gibford:
Like any cowboy that has lived the life of a real cowboy, on outfits with a roundup crew and alone in line shacks and cow camps, I have naturally had several standout experiences where–in dangerous situations with broncs, wild cattle, rough remote country, and wild animals–a feller comes close to that edge and questions his very soul, about how or why am I even here! But for this question I have chosen a quite unique and personal story, a story that I have only shared with a few close friends. It is the time that I came close to death from severe alcohol poisoning at 9000 feet elevation in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains.
It was early June in the year 2000. I was riding to Nevada from my home range in south central California. I was following the same route I had taken in 1972 on my first trip horseback to Nevada. I was 50 years old and that was 23 years ago. I had become a pretty heavy drinker in my mid to late 40s and had tried to quit but couldn't, until this incident.
I broke camp that morning without having breakfast, unless a pint of whiskey would qualify. I had been drinking the night before with some horseback campers and as they were leaving the mountains they gave me some of their canned goods and a big unopened bottle of whiskey. I think it was a half gallon! Long story short, I was very drunk and couldn't find the trail going north along the crest of the mountains and began riding in circles, when during a partly lucid moment I realized I was crossing over my own tracks and was somehow smart enough to see that I had to tie up near a stream of some sort and wait until I sobered up before even attempting to go on.
I did so at once when I hit a little stream, tied my saddle horse and pack horse in the deep shade of some pines and threw my bedroll down under the shade of a tree only 15 feet from my horses. My heart was beating at a rapid rate from all the alcohol and I was near to panic but knew I had to try and be calm and lie down on my bedroll until my overtaxed heart had pumped all the alcohol out of my system. I lay there for two days and nights as weak as a sick cat and only had enough strength to lead my horses to the stream 20 feet away and tie them back to the pines.
After two days passed I broke open a can of sardines, ate ’em with crackers and rode on to Nevada, and I have never taken a drink of the vile stuff since. But during those two days I prayed to god a couple times and told the old boy that if I lived through this detox experience I would never drink again. And I have kept my word!
DW Groethe:
Interesting question. We've all gotten in a few situations where the thought of quitting seemed like the only way out but you plow on through anyway.
About fifteen years ago or so, in April, we were in the middle of calving when a blizzard hit. What was weird about this storm was that it was more wind than snow, tho’ there was plenty enough of that too. The temperature went from a mid-30s nice spring day to somewhere below zero with wind chill in just a few minutes. We had separated the nears, so we decided to take care of them first. By the time we got them to the barn and calving pens, the snow had turned to sleet and the pens had turned to muck and mire. The cows were riled up and losing track of their calves while others were dropping their newborns in the mud and corral sludge. We worked our tails off trying to keep babies with their moms and into the calving sheds while still trying to get the rest in from half a mile out. It went on for a good hour or so while we progressively got wetter and colder.
We finally got to the point where we had done all we could so we called it a day and hoped for the best. I was shaking so bad from being cold that I could barely drive my pickup back home. Took a hot shower, wrapped up in a quilt, and sat next to the heater for a good two hours. It was the coldest I've ever been. Some of those calves never did end up with the right moms but eventually they all got mothered up with somebody and by the next day it was spring again. We lucked out as we had trees for the main herd to shelter in. Some outfits lost big time as the wind and cold pushed their herds into stock ponds and drowned a bunch of them. I suppose we coulda quit when the storm hit but that's not what we're about. Our first thought was to get the cows in so that's what we did...rain or shine you do what needs doin'.
Bill Lowman:
On The Edge:
It was beer and basketball that kept my balance at the edge of the cliff.
Coming into Sentinel Butte High School after eight years in the one-room, remote, rural western North Dakota badlands, Westerheim Grade School, I found myself "on the edge" of the cliff. Rather than boarding us kids out, our parents bought a little two-room shack from the county after the old bachelor passed. I batched there alone my junior and senior years, being the youngest of the batch. I was extremely bashful and shy. I mean severe! It hurt. I couldn't wait for weekends to come to get back to cowboy life at home. I hated school, I couldn't read. Since then they've had "No Child Left Behind." I was "slow child left behind." I had to memorize lectures to get by. I was well into my forties by the time they diagnosed me with a bad case of dyslexia.
Then my survival instincts kicked in. I was gifted in the sports fields and spent all my free time in the basketball gym, baseball field, and high jump-long jump in track and field, achieving all-conference in all. It also "helped my grades."
My little bachelor haunt, the "Shanty," became the "party capital" of social events. There was always some older youth hanging around that could purchase booze, plus in the dead of winter in the remote little towns of western North Dakota and eastern Montana most any high-school boy could buy a case of beer if they were big enough to reach a ten-spot up over the bar. It helped the proprietor pay the heat and lights.
Had it not been for "beer and basketball," I would never have gotten to where I am today. I'd still be "peeking out from under a rock" in the backcountry.
Annie Mackenzie:
You asked me to describe one experience where I found myself on the edge, questioning how or why to go on. Well, I have more than one–this lifestyle demands a cowboy lives on the edge. You cowboy long enough you will find yourself broke down, stuck, hurt, lost, or just scared of the treacherous trail ahead. But there was not a “quit” option. Quitting would mean a night out on the desert with nothing more than the clothes on your back, or worse…waiting for someone to show up. Someone, who not only have been inconvenienced and worried, but they’ll probably never let you live it down. That is if they can even find you.
Quitting doesn’t just mean letting yourself down, you hold the lives of all the critters you care for in your hands. If you quit, it means suffering or death for them. This lifestyle provides opportunities to test yourselves to the very limit. You will find out just how much you are capable of. You will put in all your effort–refusing to “quit” unless it is truly and absolutely impossible to do because you’ve no other option but to keep trying until you make it back home.
When you put the rest of the hard things you have to do in the perspective of the damn near impossible things you have done, there’s not a lot that can stop you. Why don’t cowboys quit? Because there’s a job that needs doing, somebody’s got to do it, and they know they can get it done.
Waddie Mitchell:
THAT “NO QUIT” ATTITUDE
WHILE GATHERING CATTLE NEAR THE RUINS
OF A LONG ABANDONED HOMESTEAD,
IN THE SHADOWS OF THE MOUNTAINS,
QUESTIONS SWARMED AROUND MY MIND
OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAD CLAIMED THERE,
MOST FORGOTTEN NOW AND LONG DEAD,
STILL, I WONDERED WHAT HAD PROMPTED THEM
TO LEAVE THEIR WORLD BEHIND
SEARCHING FOR A LIFE UNCERTAIN
IN THIS VAST AND RUGGED REGION.
UP AND LEAVE THEIR HOME AND KIN
FOR OPPORTUNITY TO FIND.
TAKING LITTLE MORE TO START WITH
THAN AN IDEA AND A REASON
AND THE DREAM OF THEIR SUCCEEDING
IN A FUTURE YET DEFINED.
SOON THESES QUERIES LED TO MORE LIKE
WHY IT IS THAT SOME FOLKS ALWAYS
NEED TO PUSH THEIR BORDERS OUT BEYOND
THE FURTHEST MILESTONE
ON SOME NEVER ENDING QUEST TO FIND
NEW WAYS AND TRAILS TO BLAZE
AND, IN THE PROCESS, STRETCH THE REALM
OF WHAT IS BUILT AND DONE AND KNOWN.
FROM THE LITTLE DRAW ABOVE ME
IN MY PARD RIDES WITH HIS FINDIN’S,
THROWING HIS BUNCH IN WITH MINE
NOW SHADED UP AND SETTLED DOWN.
I COULD SEE HE’D GONE THROUGH BATTLE
FOR HIS PONY’S SPORTIN’ LATHER
BUT HIS SMILE CLAIMED HE’D MADE IT IN
WITH EVERYTHING HE’D FOUND.
THE SWEAT AND DUST AND BRUSH STREAKS
ON THAT PAIR DONE HEAPS O’SPEAKING
AS HE PULLED UP NEAR, DISMOUNTED,
LOOSENED LATIGO A BIT.
SAID, “WE JUMPED ‘EM IN THE ROUGHS
AND WOULD’VE LOST ‘EM HAD WE WEAKENED
BUT, I SWEAR, THIS HERE CABALLO
AIN’T GOT ONE HALF OUNCE OF QUIT.
AND THAT “NO QUIT” PHRASE SPEAKS VOLUMES
ON ONE’S CHARACTER AND MAKIN’S
TO THE COWBOY DRAWIN’ WAGES
RIDIN’ RANGES OF THE WEST.
THOSE WHO HAVE IT, YOU’LL FIND, USUALLY
CONQUER MOST THEIR UNDERTAKIN’S
FOR THE BEST IN THEM IS DRAWN OUT
WHEN THEIR SPIRIT’S PUT TO TEST.
THEN, I SPOT MY COWDOGS BRUSHED UP
STAYIN’ WELL HID FROM THE CATTLE
KNOWIN’, WITH A CUE, THEY’D GIVE ALL
TO DO ANYTHING NEED DONE
AND I THOUGHT THEN HOW THE MOST OF US
WILL OPT TO SHUN THAT BATTLE
NEVER KNOWING FULLY WHAT WE COULD
ACCOMPLISH OR BECOME.
STILL, I BELIEVE, LIKE DOGS AND HORSES
WE’RE ALL BORN WITH RESOLUTION
AND, LIKE MUSCLES AND GOOD HABITS,
IT NEEDS USE AND EXERCISE.
WHEN LEFT DORMANT IT’S IN JEOPARDY
OF LOSS TO EVOLUTION
FOR EVENTUALLY IT SHRIVELS UP
IN ATROPHY AND DIES.
BUT WHEN FLEXED IT BLOSSOMS HEROES
AND A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION
FOR WE ALL RECOGNIZE THE VIRTUES
IN A “NO QUIT” ATTITUDE.
AND IT PROVES ITS ATTRIBUTES
IN COMPETITION AND VOCATION
WHICH EVOKES APPRECIATION
AND A SHOW OF GRATITUDE.
AND SINCE MANKIND STARTED WALKING
IT’S BEEN SWIFTER, HIGHER, STRONGER
AS IF PUSHED BY SOME DEEP NEED
TO KEEP THEIR LIMITS UNCONFINED.
ALMOST THRIVING, ALWAYS STRIVING
FOR THINGS BIGGER, BETTER, LONGER
IN SOME UNRELENTING PURSUIT
OF PERFECTION REDEFINED.
AND IN THIS WORLD OF SOFT COMPLACENCE,
THERE’S STILL A FEW AMONG THE MASSES
WHO WILL READILY GIVE ALL
TO SEE A JOB OR DREAM FULFILLED.
IT’S A TRAIT THAT’S VOID OF PREJUDICE
TOWARDS RACES, SEX OR CLASSES
JUST DEMANDING ITS POSSESSOR
BE OF VALOR AND STRONG WILLED.
THEN, AS WE POINT OUR CATTLE HOMEWARD,
LETTIN’ DOGS BRING UP THE REAR,
AND WE LEAVE WHAT’S LEFT OF, ONCE,
SOMEBODY’S HOPES AND DREAMS BEHIND,
I’M CONVINCED THAT “NO QUIT” ATTITUDE
WILL ALWAYS PERSEVERE
AND THAT’S THE ESSENCE AND THE PROMISE
AND THE CROWN OF HUMANKIND.
WADDIE MITCHELL ©
