The Real Deal

Preservation

The Real Deal

Photographs and Memories

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            I came to town after I finished “running waters”.

            With black widows in every valve box, it was time to get some moth balls. The clerk asked me what I was going to do with them and I told her I was going to drop some in my fuel tank and boost the diesel octane. That was met with 500 acres of open space in her eyes which prompted me to feel a bit guilty of my flippant remark. Retreating to the truth, I informed her I was going to wrangle some black widows and change their pastures.

            With her look of complete incredulity, I thanked her and left with my moth balls.

            Preservation

            The Westerner sent me a link to an article about a Jordan Valley corral project. He knew I’d be interested in the story since we have debated variously how ranches and ranching infrastructure have as much historical significance as any objects in the federal West.

            The story described how the BLM was going to host a “two-night car-camping trip” in the wilds with the intent to rebuild a set of old pens at the Birch Creek Historic Ranch. A group called Friends of the Owyhee are going to attend to the repairs. The BLM is going to provide the necessary equipment. The news release didn’t say anything about gloves or sun screen nor did it mention any pre-work safety orientation, but surely the agency wouldn’t sanction this without a training session into the use of crowbars, shovels, hammers, saws, and 32 penny nails.

            What it did mention was that the corrals were going to be preserved so future generations of urbanites can see the cultural significance these structures were to the history of the landscape of Malheur County. It didn’t say anything about current cultural significance so one must assume the permitee who built those corrals without the provision of federal tools is no longer in the picture.

            The article brought up the racial aspect of the “historical” ranch with a reference to the “significant role of Basque immigrants. I thought immediately about our friend, Mayie and her great Wool Growers restaurant in Bakersfield. Her lambchops, pickled tongue and French Pyrenees bread washed down with short glasses of hearty Burgundy are worth driving nine hours for, but she would be the first to agree with me. After a cowboy has worked in a pen of calves all morning, it is impossible to determine if he was Basque, Scotch, Irish, Okie, Mexican, Italian, black, Indian, or plain old American by the smell of his countenance. It wouldn’t matter, either. If he was worth his salt among his peers, the whole crew would be color blind.

            The reference to the “historical” nature of the ranch was troubling. How did this ranch gain such significance? Is there some agency model that scores historical versus non-historical? Is there a distinction from a Basque ranch from that of an Okie? Each of them created historical places by their actions and their sacrifices.

In short, the political correctness of this little camping adventure into the wilderness, into the domain of a past steward who labored under inconceivable constraints without even suggesting a name, isn’t surprising, but it is … tedious.

            Photographs and Memories

            Sitting and looking out onto the ocean at McClintock’s at Pismo on California’s central coast one afternoon, a bit of an epiphany struck me. Into the crowd walked an American rancher. He was easily identified. His dress and his demeanor gave him away, but perhaps only three or four people in the whole place could have made that deduction.

            McClintock’s is one of the great steak houses in the world. It is made that way not just by the food that is prepared and presented, but also by the décor and the ambience. It is a trip back into old California, the haciendas, and the ranches. People of all walks go there to enjoy the experience, and those that have no ranch connections certainly outnumber the few that do. Why do ranch experiences through that kind of venue create such fascination while the real thing gets relegated too often to public scrutiny and disfavor? Put in another way, why does it take the disappearance of the rancher to regenerate the interest in his way of life and customs?

            Other restaurants present the same cultural phenomenon. Jocko’s down at Nipomo offers a glimpse of that same mysterious past. Guadalupe’s old Far West Tavern with its steer hide curtains and that incredible bar mural was a favorite place for cowmen who came to town to ship calves at the railhead and has since become a place for urban tourists. As noted above, Mayie’s place with the pictures of working men and families is a tribute to that same culture. The display at the entrance to Cattle Baron’s here in Las Cruces is not different. Walking around looking at the historical pictures on the walls has become far more inviting than ever before. Immensely interesting those places have become and the visitors accept them and embrace this rich history.

            The most important thing in McClintock’s that afternoon, though, was that old cowman. His hands, his dress, and the way he presented his heritage without pretense was breathtaking. The trappings hanging on the walls and the ceilings were the things that he and his predecessors created from need and curiosity. There is no doubt in my mind he had built corrals like that one in the Jordan Valley that will be repaired by those people, but he had built them through actual experience in working cattle and adjusting those lessons into something better and more efficient.

             He was the one that shaped history. He is the one who put steaks on the tables. He was the real deal, and he has … a name.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “I am blessed to reside amidst living history.”