I pity the poor people who should probably be rich but aren’t. Like the first person who discovered that jiggling the handle on a toilet would make it quiet down ought to be richer than Elon Musk. Ditto the inventor of the Lazy Boy® recliner and chocolate chip ice cream. But no one is more deserving of riches beyond their wildest dreams than the cowboy (or cowgirl) when you consider all the tasks they must master. I’m talking real cowboys who know everything from how to sew up a prolapse with a pocket knife and a hair from their horses tail, to welding up a recalcitrant squeeze chute or breaking a bucking bronc.
When I became a cowboy after graduating college I learned real quick that I would never live long enough to master all the tasks that a good cowboy must perform so I chose an easier and safer path and became a writer.
J. Frank Dobie called the cowboy, “The aristocrat of all wage owners,” but I don’t really know what he meant by that because I think the cowboy has always been the most underpaid and underrated of anyone who ever worked for a living. I’ve got great respect for anyone who decides to punch cows instead of a clock because they’re willing to work seven days a week, 10 hours a day in terrible conditions without getting overtime or time-and-a-half.
Because I’ve always been one to welcome a challenge one of the things that appealed to me in becoming a cowboy was the work never got boring because of all the skills a good cowboy must master. Just consider his medical skills alone. He must be able to recognize immediately with two legs sticking out a cow’s rear end with two dewclaws facing up is not good. Cowboys must be able to recognize small little things about how an animal acts or hangs its head and know that such an animal belongs in a sick pen. He or she must also be able to diagnose a disease and how to treat it all without the aid of a cat scan or MRI. Heck, most medical M.D.’s can’t do that any more and they are driving Porsches and Ferraris while the cowboy is driving an 18 year old pickup.
Many cowboys know how to preg check, A.I., float a horse’s teeth and pull a calf. They can shoe a horse and castrate a bull. They also know how to tube a calf and get it down the right pipe so the medicine doesn’t flood into the calf’s lungs instead of its gut. A cowboy must be an instant learner of a ranch’s geography, be a good nutritionist and be able to speak cow pen Spanish.
It used to be that a cowboy wasn’t interested in anything of a mechanical nature and they refused most jobs that involved him dismounting his trusty steed but these days he or she must be able to drive a cattle truck, put up a hay crop, work a hydraulic squeeze chute, fly a drone, operate a Bobcat® or work a beaver slide. He must be a mechanic and know how to replace a water pump, fix a windmill, or heaven forbid… drive a tractor.
A good cowboy must also master the art of horsemanship, knows how to drive a feed wagon, train a colt and ride a bad bronc. He must be able to rope a wild steer in a patch of dense brush, milk a cow, shoot a coyote munching on a calf, repair his own tack, weld a good bead, and fix a leak in a water line. Have you tried to hire a human plumber these days? They can get paid as much in a day as a cowboy earns in a month. And have you ever tried counting cows or calves as they stream by you at a lightning pace? I haven’t found a computer that can do that!
Cowboys have to live close to nature, get up before daylight, sleep on the ground if need be, live an hour or two from town, reside in a single wide trailer and do it all without a union, minimum wage laws or DEI.
That’s why we’re facing a shortage of good cowboys these days… so appreciate them now while you still can.
