02/13/08 Being a Cowboy

Being a Cowboy. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Being a cowboy is about a lot of things but mostly it's about the basic things. This weekends Cowboy Gathering in Ellensburg, Washington pays tribute to the basic things. Performer Waddie Mitchell says there are a lot of people who are discovering their cowboy. M ITCHELL: I've had a lot of people come and tell me that  they'll get very emotional that they didn't know they were looking for this but thank God they found it. I've had people come up and say it's just like going to a family reunion only everybody like each other. I don't know what it is; it's just a bunch of like minded people that appreciated the slower, the simpler life and I think that's what we're all looking for especially at a certain age. Waddie Mitchell has become a staple at cowboy gatherings all across the nation but didn't grow up with the likes of Roy Rogers or Lash RaRue or Hopalong. MITCHELL: Well I was born and raised on a ranch, kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Never really had electricity which meant I didn't have TV and radio and stuff so living very remote like that with the same people for long periods of time, entertainment and entertaining each other was almost part of the deal. Mitchell began his career as a storyteller by listening. MITCHELL: It seems like every cowboy that worked for my dad had a poem or two in their memory that on certain times would come out and being a kid, when music isn't available when language sings like it does in poetry  Dr. Seuss as you know capitalized on that, I just fell in love with it. Nobody ever called it poetry and nobody ever called anything but that particular story so that's what turned me on to it and I've always been enchanted with it. The cowboy image has faded over the years but with the continued support of cowboy gatherings the cowboy remains strong. MITCHELL: I don't think we'll ever lose the cowboy because now their getting a dose of the real thing and they're still liking him. So will we ever have a resurgence of the cowboy like we had  I doubt it but I don't think we'll ever lose that image. Thanks to Waddie for sharing some insight on the cowboy. Tomorrow we chat with cowboy entertainer Don Edwards. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.