Tales of the O-NO Ranch

Gentle readers, as most of you know I have always been and still am a cowboy purist in body and soul. I often think about the “lifers” (as I once was), out almost every day doin’ their job from the back of a good hoss and the thought of changin’ careers almost never enters their minds.

I was always an admirer of the late Tom Blassingame, the 91-year-old cowboy they found out underneath the Texas panhandle skies where he had died and fallen from his horse. He was a cowboy’s cowboy!

I penned the poem below called “A Cowboy’s Lament.”

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From sunup to sunset,

It’s mostly the same.

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A ridin’ these hills

Fer wild cattle to tame.

To mother up babies,

Keep salt on the ground.

Keep shoes on my pony

and hope for Saturday in town.

I’m just a cowboy

All thru and thru.

The grass is always green

The sky always blue.

I keep a’hopin’

Fer a place all my own.

So I keep a ridin’

This ole strawberry roan.

The life of a cowboy

It don’t change all that much

And days in the saddle

Beg a good woman’s touch.

I ain’t complainin’

‘Cause it’s all that I know.

Seen grass stirrup-high,

Seen it buried in the snow.

Maybe some day

They’ll say “It’s a shame

They found ‘im stone cold

Like ole Tom Blassingame.”

What better way to

Say yer goodbyes

Than flat on yer back

A lookin’ up at the skies!

Stay tuned, check yer cinch on occasion, and I’ll c.ya.