Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Cowboy psyche 

by Julie Carter

“I know it was probably a stupid thing to do, but it felt soooo good,” he said as he reported in after getting on his first ranch saddle bronc at the rodeo and getting his head pounded into the ground. Therein lies the heart of the male mentality, cowboy or not.

Psyche is the totality of the human mind, conscious, and unconscious. With cowboys, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

The aforementioned cowboy happens to belong to me as in I gave birth to him long enough ago that he’s perfectly sure I don’t know much about anything. My opinion regarding his lapse of sanity and reason fell on not deaf ears, but ones full of his own words in the planning of the “next time.” It is why mothers pray.

While I’d really like him to have the wisdom that comes too late to prevent injuries that will haunt him all his life, I have enough years behind me to know that’s not going to happen. 

Voicing my concern to my circle of acquaintances that have lived lives among cowboys brings only laughter and recall of an ageless proverb --“Bad decisions make good stories.”

There’s a cowboy I know who has had two surgeries on his wrist over the years in an attempt to make tolerable an injury sustained oh so many years ago under similar circumstances. Because this cowboy is a dedicated roper, he finds great need of mobility in his wrist that is at risk as Arthur-itis tries to take over.

But if you ask him about it he’ll tell you. “Hell yeah, I got on that bronc. And I’d have rode that S.O. B. with style and grace if I hadn’t been drunk at the time.”

I’d like to say it’s something unbalanced in the genetics that comes down through the generations of fun loving cowboys. It’s not. It’s just how they are and what they are going to do. Sometimes it costs them more than they ever planned to pay, but usually, thankfully, it ends up with laughter, teasing and a great base for stories for years to come.

“You remember that time we were on the mesa and that old bull decided he wasn’t gonna come out of the brush? You decided he needed roped and tied to a tree but the colt you were riding didn’t think much of the idea.”

And the story goes on from there regaling the moments that followed with a cowboy on foot with a rope in hand and bull staring him down. “Run or ride” was all he could think. So when the bull charged, he jumped on him and the wreck was on. It was a very long way from the house or the ability to call 9-1-1.

West Texas philosopher Summit Brady penned it well. “Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing you’ll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing you should try not being one right now.”

And by the way, take it from my experience. Saying to your resident cowboy, “Well now, I hope you have gotten that out of your system,” does not make it so.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com.