It's All Trew: Trip to the Old West as child vivid as ever

Among my cherished memories as a 12-year-old boy is a trip taken with my father, his cattle partner and his grandson, another boy my age, to New Mexico to receive cattle purchased. Just "going with the men" was a special treat, and being treated like a man made the trip special. I think the New Mexico rancher's name was Billy Brunson and the town where we stayed was Magdelena. But, as that was more than 60 years ago, I can't be sure. Anyway, I was excused from school, making it a long weekend. We stayed at the town in a wooden two-story hotel right out of "Gunsmoke," with the bathrooms down at the end of the hall. We ate at the local cafe and my first bar, as that was the only food in town. I just knew some outlaw was waiting around every corner. Out at the ranch the next morning, before daylight, we awaited the roundup of the cull cows destined for wheat pasture near Perryton. The "gather" was made at a set of railroad pens located in the middle of nowhere. Once loaded on the train, the cows would travel to Canadian to be unloaded and driven up the Canadian River bottom to the Parsell Ranch, where they would be branded and rested before driven to the wheat fields south of Perryton. The country around the cattle pens was covered in heavy brush and cactus. We waited a bit, then began to hear the cattle and cowboys coming through. It was quite a sight to see the horned Hereford cows burst from the brush and into the pens with the cowboys right behind...Amarillo.com