Petersen: Cowboy, let your spurs ring out
Big Timber, Mont.
February — the month when love blooms, cards with sugary messages fly around like confetti at a big-city parade and sweetheart dances sprout in gymnasiums, lounges, schools and community halls.
Hearts go pit-a-pat, especially at the Swamp Creek Community Hall where cowboys and cowgirls gather. The gals wear their fanciest finery and the boys wear their best goin’-to-town shirts, wild rags, hats, boots and shiny, big-rowel spurs that clink when the Casanova cowboy goes galloping around the dance floor.
If you’re familiar with the old folk song “Sally, Let Your Bangs Hang Down,” you can warble the following verses to that tune. Or make up a ditty of your own.
Valentine Cowboy or Cowboy, Let Your Spurs Ring Out
Met a cowboy from Montana
Wore a fancy red bandana
(Cowboy let your spurs ring out)
He called me his honey bunny
Which I thought was kinda funny
(Cowboy let your spurs ring out)
Cowboy thinks all girls are gems
How he loves ‘em, then he leaves them
(Cowboy let your spurs ring out)
I’ll find out what this cowboy’s got
That makes the gals think he’s so hot
(Cowboy let your spurs ring out)
Cowboy caught me while horseback
Dropped a loop and pulled the slack
(Cowboy let your spurs ring out)
Cowboyed up and hugged me tight
I did not try real hard to fight
(Cowboy let your spurs ring out)
Cowboy, he’s a handsome dude
And he’s always in the mood
(Cowboy let your spurs ring out)
Cowboy called me his cute sweetie
Cowboy said that I am pretty
(Cowboy let your spurs ring out)
Well, I have to be confessin’
Cowboy surely had me guessin’
(Cowboy let your spurs ring out)
Loosened up his snuggly dally
Then he danced away with Sally
(Cowboy let your spurs ring out)
Thought he was my Valentine
But he was not at all inclined
(Cowboy let your spurs ring out)
From his head, his hat he doffed
Waved goodbye as he rode off
(Cowboy let your spurs ring out).❖