SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

What I don't know about golf

By Julie Carter

I've learned to do a long list of jobs since becoming associated with news writing.

Small newspapers require "Girl (or guy) Friday" kind of employment and everyone does many jobs to get the newspaper to the newsstand.

A new and recent jewel in my crown is photographing golf. The sports editor went on vacation and yours truly was drafted to shoot golf tournament photos.

I'm willing, but not sure if I'm able. Surely it will add to my sports photography resume that covers basketball, football, volleyball, track, rodeo and political races.

The sports guy and I made a little practice run before he disappeared off into the California sun. Crash course is a better description.

If you know Todd, you know he rattled off the particulars of the sport at warp speed like he thought I was going to remember it all AND recall how to find four or five particular golfers in a "pasture" stocked with 75 guys in khakis and polo shirts.

He herded the golf cart down the winding paths like a NASCAR driver, pointing at green spots between little hills, peering right, left and back to find a certain golfer. All this while waving a little golf course map in my face assuring me it was not a hard assignment.

I was holding on to the cart, my camera and my concern for my safety as trees flashed by. We met other carts and the rapid U-turns indicated we were headed the wrong direction. Like I would know.

I'm certain none of this is out of the ordinary if this is your world. For me, it was a foreign land.

Mark Twain said, "Golf is a good walk spoiled." I know now why I've never heard anyone say, "Hey, let's go watch golf."

If you are a golfer, you love the sport. If you are not a golfer, you will yawn. But be sure and do it quietly. Even TV golf teaches the protocol is to be very, very quiet, as indicated by the wimpy little "golf clap" that is eventually allowed.

I'm a rowdy sport kind of girl. I like sports where, as a spectator, you can cheer, yell and holler a little to release some exuberance for what is happening on the field, track, floor or arena. If I spent very much time on the greens, I'd undoubtedly be asked to leave.

Bogeys, birdies, putts, tees, par, chip shots, in the rough, on the green, fairway --all a foreign language to me. Fortunately, I don't have to write it, just quietly and unobtrusively take pictures. Watch for me on "America's Most Un-wanted" after I've been escorted from the premises for forgetting not to cheer.

There are some similarities to this sport and my cowboy world of roping and rodeo.

Both use handicaps to give the less skilled competitors a better a chance. It brings in more entry fees for the really good guys to win a bigger pot. It just isn't polite to call it what it really is -- "Sucker, come donate your money."

Both have tours, pro's, am's, champions and hot shots with big egos.

Even the name of one of the tournaments in town, Tight Lies Tour, could just as easily be announcing a team roping event.

I know where to stand, sit or hide when I'm taking pictures at a rodeo, roping or on the ranch. It is basic instinct for me to not get hurt by the livestock, the action of the event or an irritated competitor.

I've never been whipped with a catch rope. I just hope I can always say the same about a golf club.

© Julie Carter 2006

Doomsayers

by Larry Gabriel

The news media seems to love doomsayers, based on the amount of coverage given to catastrophic forecasts like overpopulation, starvation and bird flu.

Just recently I saw a headline that read, "Global Food Supply Near the Breaking Point". Sources in the story claimed, "In five of the last six years, global population ate significantly more grains than farmers produced."

In the first place, if that sentence were actually true it would mean the world had enough grain stockpiled to meet the consumption level. In the second place, people don't eat all the grain consumed. The consumption reported by USDA in its May 2006 report on world grain includes many uses of grain in addition to grain used for food.

The story concluded by laying the finger of blame on us with this quote from Darrin Qualman, research director for Canada's National Farmers Union, "North America's industrial-style agricultural system is a really bad idea and maybe the worst on the planet."

Qualman claims we can't increase production significantly, that there is little land left for expansion and new technology will increase production by only about 5 percent.

Let us assume for a moment that those alleged facts are true (which they are not), and then consider other doomsayers who claim half the world is about to be wiped out by a new mutant bird flu that does not yet exist.

What is the result? For sure one of them is wrong. More likely both of these doomsday predictions are wrong.

Population predictions have never been right over extended time. Remember the 1968 book by Paul Ehrlich entitled The Population Bomb? Our college professors sometimes scared students of that decade into believing that uncontrolled reproduction by people would destroy the world as we knew it.

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now," Ehrlich predicted.

Well, guess what! He was wrong. We made big gains against starvation and world hunger in the last quarter of the century, and we did so despite the hundreds of government programs designed to stifle or reduce production.

American farming does not cause starvation in Africa. A recent news item from South Africa said three men who stole wheat worth $320 million received sentences of only one year in jail. That explains why some people are always starving despite our efforts to help them.

Bird flu is real. All human flu viruses are thought to come to us from birds. Almost certainly the next one will also.

Every prediction which assumes things will not change will eventually be wrong, because change is the only certainty.

Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture

Two items received via email:

Crow Flat Cowboy and the Rattlers

By Lola Gentry

Growing up on cattle ranches in the southern most part of Otero County, New Mexico, and parts of West Texas, Travis Lewis is a product of the 'old breed of cowboys'. His Dad, the late Clark Lewis, a seasoned ranch hand, taught Travis and his older brother, Scott, everything he knew about breaking broncs, roping, branding, and just about everything else a cowboy should know.

Travis also learned to watch for prairie dog holes when ridin’ the range. Holes those little critters make in the ground can break a horses' leg, or, worse yet, a fall could break a cowboy’s neck.

Being a cowboy on open range does have its problems, but, Dad and big brother prepared Travis to always keep a cool head, a strong hand, an open mind, and to be watchful at all times.

Now, Travis, G R Walden, and a couple of other young men were much in demand by the ranchers in the wide open spaces across Crow Flat and Otero Mesa. They became known as the Crow Flat Cowboys. Ranchers within a hundred mile radius hired them for roundups, branding, dehorning, breaking horses, fixing fences, and any other chores required of cowboys.

In the old days, a cowboy on the open range would often find a six foot rattler coiled up inside his bed roll at night. He would shake it out, use his pistol, and hope the intruder didn’t have a friend nearby. The cowboy would then use his grass rope to form a circle around his bed roll, assuring himself that he could enjoy a good nights' sleep under the stars.

The Crow Flat Cowboys, no different than the cowboys of old, liked keeping the open sky tradition by sleeping under the stars. But, times have changed. Most of these lucky guys have a good pickup truck or horse trailer to throw their bed rolls in.

What these modern day Crow Flat Cowboys really needed was a place to hang their hats after a hard days work. Lady luck smiled on them and they moved into an old ranch house on one of the ranches. Sharing cooking and cleaning chores was okay and they took turns.

Their cowboy'ing was done, and it was late afternoon on Saturday. G.R. decided to go to town for a while. Travis stayed home to rest and watch television. He quickly succumbed to a short nap on the sofa. Upon waking, he felt hungry and went to the refrigerator, took out sandwich makings, and made a couple of sandwiches for himself.

Back on the sofa to devour the sandwiches, Travis felt the cool air of fall creeping in. During the summer when they moved in to their abode, they pushed the sofa against the built-in wall furnace to make more room. Now, with winter coming on, Travis would have to re-arrange the living room furniture!

"No problemo" Travis thought….

Getting up, he wedged him self between the sofa back and the wall-- pushing it toward the middle of the room.

Suddenly, a deafening 'rattle' that no cowboy ever wants to hear was sounding off right in front of him!

Fear gripped Travis as he looked down. He was face to face with a huge Diamond Back Rattler rearing its ugly head with its protruding venomous fangs, and beady eyes, from within the sofa cushions! Its vibrating rattlers sticking up behind another cushion sent even more chills down Travis's spine.

His heart sank clean down to his stomach!

When asked, "What happened then?"

"You ain't never seen a white man jump as high as when I vaulted over that couch!" Travis replied.

Items for removing intruders of this sort aren't usually found lying around the house. Travis' long legs took him quickly outside to his pickup. A pitchfork would have to do!

Back in the house, the sound was as though an entire den of rattlers had moved in. To his surprise, Travis found that the rattler did in fact, have a friend--almost as large, and just as violent, squeezing its way up from between the sofa cushions!

The common question was, "What did you do?

Travis' uncommon reply was, "I kept a cool head, strong hand, an open mind, and rolled those suckers onto that pitchfork like spaghetti on a fork, tossed 'em outside, and went to town!" --



Dear Westerner Blog,

I just wanted to let you know about a unique writing workshop that I will be teaching in July which may be of some interest to you and your blog readers. The workshop will take place at Granite Creek Ranch, a guest ranch in eastern Idaho that also has a working cattle component to it. The workshop participants will spend their mornings writing and discussing literature of the "new west" and in the afternoons we will ride horses through the Idaho Tetons. The schedule will be intensive, and I see this inter-change of communal outdoor activity and private, reflective writing time as central to the ethos of the workshop.

Could you perhaps print an announcement for this workshop on a community events listing or calendar?

Thanks so much, I think it's going to be a very unique opportunity. Please email me if you have any questions or need a shortened announcement.

-Reif Larsen
Columbia University


Writing the High Country: A Fiction Workshop Intensive on a Western Cattle Ranch

Have you ever wanted to spend the morning on horseback and the afternoon writing about the quiet pull of a mountain range?

Here’s your chance: a week long fiction workshop intensive located on a working cattle ranch near the Snake River in the Idaho Tetons. We will read a selection of classic and contemporary western writing, discussing both the legacies of the mythical “old west” and the realities of the “new west” as they play out in literature. Ranching activities (trail rides, round-ups, camp fire yarns) and a rodeo will be interspersed throughout the workshop schedule. Each participant will emerge from the week with a piece of short fiction. Readings from Wallace Stegner, William Kittredge, Richard Hugo, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas McGuane, Richard Ford, Barry Lopez, Annie Proulx among others.

The Location: A working cattle ranch, Granite Creek Ranch is located in the Snake River valley in Ririe, Idaho, halfway between Jackson Hole, WY and Idaho Falls. The ranch is on a five-acre lake, surrounded by magnificent mountain vistas. Yellowstone & Teton National Parks are nearby. Accommodations are in rustic cabins. The cost of the workshop includes all meals, lodging, and activities. Participants are responsible for their own transportation to the ranch. For more info go to: www.granitecreekranch.com.

Dates: July 9-15th, 2006. Space is limited to twelve participants.

About the Instructor: Reif Larsen is a writer, filmmaker, and teacher. He has taught writing workshops in South Africa, the UK, and New York City, where he currently teaches writing at Columbia University. He is working on a novel based in Montana about cartographers, cowboys, and scientists.

For more information and an application, please email: ril2104@columbia.edu.