07/01/08 Cowboy ethics

Yesterday we revisited the Code of the West, the ethics that make up ranching life. Today I invite you to stay tuned until after the break and I'll share more insights on being a cowboy. Susan, as a follow up to yesterday's Code of the West program lets share a few reflections from notables on cowboys. Jeff, author John Erickson, a well known western writer wrote that "the heroism of the working cowboy isn't a joke&. It isn't something that has been cooked up by an advertising agency, and it isn't something that cheap minds will ever understand. Cowboys are heroic because they exercise human courage on a daily basis. They live with danger. They take chances. They sweat, they bleed, they burn in the summer and freeze in the winter. They find out how much a mere human can do, and then do a little more, they reach beyond themselves" . And on that note, here's an excerpt from the Texas Livestock Journal, written in 1882 that said; "A man wanting in courage would be as much out of place in a cow- camp as a fish on dry land. Indeed the life he is daily compelled to lead calls for the existence of the highest degree of cool calculating courage." It's that cool courage that reminds me of a line John Wayne had in the Shootist, The Duke defined cowboy ethics when he said "I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I require the same from them." I do believe he meant it & I'm Jeff Keane.