The devil is in the details

Cowgirl Sass and Savvy

By Julie Carter

Dan and his roping partner Monte, are about as diabolically calculating as ropers can be - fine-tuning every facet of their sport and always looking for an edge that promises more frequent and lucrative trips to the pay window.

Last fall they decided they were a little weary of winning just enough at the local jackpots to almost get their fees back and were intent on setting their sights on any number of bigger, tougher ropings.

You know the ones. Thousands of ropers all vying to win a purple pickup truck with flames painted down the side. Prestige doesn't always partner with dignity, which, by the way, is usually hard to find at a team roping.

The duo practiced day and night and in all kinds of weather. When the early spring rains turned the arenas into rice paddies, they drove as far as they needed to find a covered practice pen.

No team roper has ever been accused of getting his priorities out of order as long as you agree his first priority is roping.

When the first "big one" rolled around, they entered up and arrived feeling skillfully prepared and confident. All things in order, when their names were called they backed their horses into the box with hats pulled down tight and minds focused on the task at hand.

Their first steer left the chute like a scalded dog headed for cool water. The cowboys traveled a good distance down the arena before they got him roped and turned, making their time a little long in the first round.

Their plan for the second steer involved Monte pushing the barrier a little harder and determining he would not play catch up this time.

Of course, this steer broke from the chute and promptly came to a complete stop.

The judge culled that steer and gave the team another one who happened to be of the Nascar-bred Corriente line. They caught him but, again, their time wasn't anything to be too proud about.

The day progressed in much the same pattern. Another steer ducked under the heading horse's neck and made a beeline to the arena wall like he was on his way to the hot dog stand.

They caught him "long" but it qualified them for the short round.

In the short round, with a last shot at making some money, their steer moseyed out of the box like an AARP member looking for a Furrs cafeteria.

The ropers pulled their horses up hard, flailed a couple loops at the gawking steer and in spite of the odds, managed to get a qualified time. It wasn't pretty but they had four steers down clean.

Their hard-earned, fine-tuned calculated efforts had put them pretty close to the bottom of the list of qualifiers. With no new money in their pockets, they loaded up and headed home.

The return trip, as it often does, offers enough miles and time for serious introspection.

It was during this analytical survey that the duo realized there was a critical element to roping they had neglected to factor into their program.

Sure enough, they needed to go home and work on practicing the luck of the draw.

Visit Julie’s Web site www.julie-carter.com


The Cowboy Manifesto

By Christian Probasco

Part I: Control

Our instincts evolved in tribes which have grown into corporations, armies and cities devoid of communities. Once upon a time, the rewards for our hard work and loyalty went to our families and to friends who might become part of our families, and now they go to strangers. In return, we get the illusion of security in the form of wages and benefits. What we really need is control.

Control of the means of production would be wonderful but I think most of us would settle for more control over our lives. To achieve it, each of us would need to be secure in his or her immediate environment. The problem is that the very space our bodies occupy in the city is usually partly or wholly owned by somebody else. The other problem is that we don’t have the freedom to act as we should within the spaces we don’t own.

When I say “freedom,” that’s exactly what I mean: freedom from coercion or the threat of coercion. Everybody is in favor of this kind of freedom, of course, as long as it’s balanced by everybody else’s security. To use a classic example, you’re not supposed to exercise your freedom to yell “fire” in a crowded theater even if there is a fire because the patrons will trample themselves to death in a rush to escape. Fair enough. But the “balance” goes too far in the wrong direction these days.

The “New West” phenomenon is really cities of the intermountain west filling beyond capacity with people from the rest of the world. As our cities grow, we will all have to find a new “balance” between our own needs those of our society. In other words, we will have to get used to being stuck in traffic, and we will have to develop thicker skins and become more tolerant of each other’s foibles and aberrant behavior. We will also have to conserve energy and water, and recycle, and drive economy cars. And eventually, we should expect to get piled on top of each other like New Yorkers.

While we are being compressed, we should expect more laws, guidelines and regulations concerning our behavior. Every time a criminal misuses a gun, somebody will suggest taking everyone’s guns away. If someone runs his motorcycle into a wall and vegetablizes himself, the law will require all of us to wear helmets. If somebody misreads a label on an over-the-counter medication and comes to harm, it will be suggested the drug be made available by prescription only. If doctors could get their way, we’d surely need prescriptions for aspirin.

Part II: The Manifesto, In Two Parts

The first part of the manifesto is refusing to allow further encroachments on our lives in the name of balance or even reasonableness. In order to do this, we must become less civilized. We must become less tolerant, on an individual basis, of pushy cops, politicians and the lobbyists they work for, lawyers and other criminal types, rude clerks, overbearing bosses, inconsiderate neighbors and moralists of every ilk.

We must, in other words, become more like the cowboys of the Wild West. Let me give you an example. A law was passed a while back in Florida which makes it clear that nobody has a “duty to retreat” in a public place when threatened with deadly force. Apparently that was the policy lawyers down there established on the backs of law-abiding people who had acted “reasonably” once too often; that if they were being assaulted, they had an obligation to run away instead of facing their attackers. Opponents of the bill warned that the new law would lead to a “Wild West” mentality. That is precisely the point. We Westerners, in turn, should worry about adopting a “Domesticated East” mentality.

The larger the cities of the intermountain west grow, the blander they will become. The more Las Vegas expands, for example, the more it will look and feel like Los Angeles, with its strip malls and big box retailers, convenience stores, clogged arterial freeways, smog, crime and cookie-cutter suburbs. The only difference, beyond the Strip will be the slot machines in the convenience stores and the vegetation growing through the cracks in the asphalt. As individuals and communities, we have an obligation to find our own way.

The second part of the manifesto is to disallow anyone coming between us and the country that keeps us wild. The open spaces beyond our cities are the common collective of freedom and nobody should have a monopoly on their use; not environmentalists, not the government, not corporations, not even cowboys. More importantly, nobody should restrict our access to them.

You might be thinking that this is all irrelevant to you because you are not a cowboy or a cowgirl. You don’t herd cattle, after all, and maybe you’ve never been able to sit through a John Wayne movie and perhaps you don’t even like country music, so how could you participate in any political movement involving cowboys? Excellent question. The fact is, you don’t have to be involved with any of these things and you don’t have to feel obligated to uphold some old “code of the West” to be a modern cowboy. You just have to have a healthy disrespect for authority and a desire to do things your own way and be left to your own foolish devices. In this sense, rock stars can be cowboys. Truck drivers can be cowboys. Bikers are the modern descendents of cowboys. Even pencil pushers can be cowboys on occasion. But if you’re really bothered by your lack of credentials, here’s what I suggest you do. Find a friend who espouses a coastal ideology, or better yet, find any European. Tell him your thoughts about the downsides of city life. Relay your feelings about bureaucrats, our sluggish legal system, meter maids, the lone prairie and instant Karma. Chances are, he’ll call you a cowboy, even if you’re a woman. Congratulations, you’re a cowboy. Now start acting like one.