At the tender age of 22 I left a cowboy job paying $650 a month to take a job as a field editor with a major livestock newspaper. I was hired in October to work ring at purebred auctions, take photos, write sale reports and sell advertising, which I hated and was not good at. I couldn’t sell tofu lasagna to a starving vegan.

My territory included southern California, Arizona, Utah and Las Vegas, Nevada. I was a contract worker which meant I got 33% of all my ad sales but I had to pay all my own expenses. My two best accounts were an auction yard and the 26 Bar Ranch in Arizona. That’s how I found myself over Thanksgiving weekend in Stanfield, Arizona, at a cocktail party standing ten feet away from The Duke himself, John Wayne.

I’ve met a lot of personalities at cattle sales over the years. I had a great conversation with Mel Gibson, traveled with Mrs. David Rockefeller, worked Wayne Newton’s Arab horse sale and met dozens of professional athletes whose financial advisors had told them what a great tax write-off purebred livestock were. But the highlight was attending John Wayne’s Hereford Sale for several years. Adding to the special feeling was that we always stayed at a resort called Francisco Grande which had been a Spring Training camp for the San Francisco Giants. Keep in mind this was only the second sale I’d attended so I assumed this is what it was going to feel like being a field editor.

When you mentioned the name 26 Bar everyone thought of The Duke but he had a partner in Louis Johnson who was one of the shrewdest people I’ve ever met. Legend has it that The Duke had been investing in cotton farms but everyone he partnered up with took him to the cleaners, so he asked around, “Who is the best cotton farmer in Arizona?”

The name Louis Johnson kept popping up so he partnered up with Louis on farming, a huge feedlot that was named the Red River Feedlot after one of The Duke’s biggest movies, and a purebred Hereford operation that quickly became one of the most prominent and successful in history. Their annual bull sale topped the list of having the highest sale average in the country.

I gotta admit I was not blown away by my first impression of The Duke. He always seemed to be holding a cocktail glass (which I never saw him drink from), he had undershot heels on his boots that made him walk a little funny and he wore high water pants. But the more I observed The Duke the more I felt sorry for him because everybody wanted a piece of him whether it was an autograph or a photo with him after the sale. The sale was held in a huge quonset hut with 26 Bar painted all over it. The Duke stayed on the auction block for the entirety of the sale and I once asked my friend Skinner Hardy what it felt like to be auctioneering with John Wayne looking over your shoulder? Skinner admitted that it was a bit intimidating… and I’ve never known Skinner to be intimidated by anything or anybody.

Louis Johnson was a great businessman and marketeer but he wasn’t the only person responsible for the success of 26 Bar. When you arrived at the sale sight all the bulls were tied up like they were at Denver or Fort Worth and every animal was beautifully groomed with their horns and hooves polished to a bright luster. And keep in mind most of these bulls were range bulls, not herd sires. The man responsible for how perfect all the bulls looked was Marvin Meek who was the 26 Bar herdsman for 20 years.

Marvin worked his magic on all livestock. He trained some of the best cowdogs I’ve ever seen, was a bonafide, surefire cowboy and possessed an ability to prepare cattle for sale that was unmatched. I remember walking the outdoor stalls at 26 Bar with a friend who looked at the beautiful lineup of bulls and uttered these timeless words I’ve never forgotten: “Fat is always the prettiest color.”

To me Marvin Meek will always be the real John Wayne.
www.LeePittsbooks.com

These are not the best of times In America. Our country is in tatters. It feels like the greatest experiment in Democracy the world has ever seen is dying a slow and ugly death. Perhaps it cannot be helped because great societies flare and flame but their soaring flight has always been fleeting.

Sadly, great societies are never born again.

But let it be remembered that there was once a time when we could grow our own food, make our own clothes, cars and tools; when the words “Made in USA” meant something. During the throes of World War II when over 291,557 American soldiers died on foreign killing fields, five million American civilian women were helping to produce two thirds of all the Allie’s tanks, planes, ships and armaments. We won the war because we suffocated the Nazis and Japanese with a barrage of production the likes of which the world had never seen before, or since.

Now we can’t even produce our own baby formula.

There was a time in this country when kids could walk to school safely or parents could drop them off without having to worry that they might be massacred by a deranged classmate that day.

Believe it or not there was a time when we could live without cell phones, there were no robo calls, you could get a cup of coffee for a dime and refills were free. When criminals went to jail, socialism was disavowed, comedians could be funny without being filthy and you didn’t go in debt to go to college but got a job instead. There was a time that when you went to work you worked, and you didn’t talk on the phone while getting paid. When kids did not sit indoors all day texting imaginary friends on the Internet and playing video games, most of which involved shooting things.

There was a time in this country when grandma or grandpa got old and needed help we didn’t warehouse them but they came to live with us. We knew that climate changed but we didn’t shut down our economy to “fix” it. There was a time when there were two sexes males and females. Sure, we’ve always had our share of loafers, deadbeats, oddballs, tramps and misfits but for Heaven’s sake, we didn’t elect them to Congress.

There was a time when we said the Pledge of Allegiance every day in school and ALWAYS stood for the national anthem. We left our backdoors unlocked and a middle class family could live off one income even if it was driving a truck, owning a small business or being a cowboy. Kids weren’t “gravitationally challenged” because they played baseball in the street all day, dug in the dirt or climbed trees. We were allowed to have heroes. Admittedly, we were a melting pot and that pot sometimes boiled over. Sure, bigots lived amongst us but never forget that 360,222 Union soldiers, 94% of them white, paid the ultimate price and died violent deaths so that black people could have their inalienable right to live free.

There was a time when immigrants came here LEGALLY by the boatloads. They worked and studied hard, learned our language and took a test to become citizens and on that day as they stood with their fellow new American citizens and took the oath they often cried, and said it was the greatest day of their life.

There was a time when we read books by Twain, Steinbeck, Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson. I wonder, how many Tweets or Facebook posts will be remembered or quoted 50 years from now. Where will our inspiration, sense of adventure or knowledge come from, Instagram? Remember when we listened and sang along to songs with melodies, notes and soaring choruses instead of rapper’s hate-filled speech and F-bombs?

There was a time when whole families uprooted themselves in the dust and depths of The Depression, loaded up the old jalopy with four bald tires and headed out across the country with little else but hope for a better future. Where did all that faith and hope go?

Yes, there was a time when we thought our country was at least headed in the right direction. We weren’t always perfect but we were proud to be this once noble, hardworking and creative creature called… “AN AMERICAN.”
www.LeePittsbooks.com