A Cowboy is Like That

Life is hard for a would-be cowboy. When a western soul inhabits an eastern body, fate has been crossed. The cruelest trick that Chance plays on a man is to bring him into existence some hundred years too late. And he's doomed! Doomed to a life that imprisons his soul--binds it in the unbreakable chains of the 21st century. And his life manifests that hopelessness that only comes to the man who wanted nothing more…than to be a cowboy.

How do I know this? Because I, too, wanted to be a cowboy. I, too, wanted the thrill of being a hero in chaps. I wanted to sing with Roy Rogers, swagger with Dean Martin, and shoot it out with John Wayne.

And why a cowboy? Because they have sand—grit—backbone. Besides that, they have fun! Life is just one big party for the cowboy—standing watch in the freezing rain, eating beans and bacon cooked over a campfire, playing the gee-tar for the cattle, breaking wild broncs—nothing but fun, fun, fun. And they can yodel, too! As we all know, one of the fundamental longings of humankind is to be able to yodel. Yodeling is, for the average Joe, what swinging through trees is for Tarzan. It brings out the elemental in us. Everyone wants to yodel. Somehow cowboys are born with that ability. Yes, the True Cowboy must also ride before he can crawl, shoot before he can talk, and rope a moving object by the age of three, but yodeling is a prerequisite. When all is said and done, there are only two types of people in this world—those who yodel, and those who don’t.

Cowboys do.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be an adventurer; wandering as your fancy takes you, here and there, thither and yon? Well, the cowboy doesn’t have to wonder. He’s a born wanderer. He inherits his wanderlust by the age of five, and by the time he’s fifteen, he’s on his own. His resume is impressive—he works in cow-camps, rounds up mavericks on the side, breaks broncs for three dollars a day, and generally has a new job every three months.

That’s just the cowboy style.

Have you ever wanted to be a dead shot with a pistol? Look no further—any cowboy can shoot the eye out of any fly at 300 paces. What more can you ask of a man? And besides this, the cowboy is notoriously handsome.

Every girl is desperate to marry a cowboy—probably this is what scares him away from matrimony. Even though every good cowboy story ends with a clinch between the handsome cowboy and his blushing gal, the gallant lover never becomes the gallant husband. I think perhaps there is a rule against marriage in the Essential Cowboy’s Handbook. Every cowboy is forever single, forever handsome, and forever twenty. If he were otherwise, he wouldn’t be a cowboy.

So why do I want to be a cowboy? Because they live life with a zest! They are eternally young, eternally noble, eternally chivalrous, bold and daring. And they wear cowboy hats! A cowboy’s hat is the third most important thing to him. The first is his horse, the second is his gun. He’s never found without all three…and if by chance he does lose his gun and his hat, and finds himself tied hand and foot to a tree with hostile bandits advancing with torches…well…then he can always call Trigger. Because the cowboy may get into scrapes, but he always gets out of them too. He’s incorrigible. He never says die, and, of course, he never does, either.

A cowboy…is just like that.