I've never cared for cowboys, but the current
Weekly Standard reviews Dayton Hyde's just-published memoir,
The Pastures of Beyond: An Old Cowboy Looks Back at the Old West (subscription only for now). Hyde, now 80 years old, wrote 18 books about, and is a noted photographer of, the West. He's been a farmhand, rancher, rodeo performer horse trainer ever since, with time off only to invade Normandy with the Army Signal Corps. Hyde's essays are good, in part because his ilk is nearly extinct. As well as anyone, Hyde knows the cowboy dies with him:
Nowadays, with a normal human life span, an old cowboy like me will have said good-bye to about three of his favorite saddle horses or about five of his favorite cowdogs. One of the hardest things for a rodeo cowboy to accept is knowing that one day his body will give up. . . . Lord, be kind to this old cowboy. Don't send me to a land where there are no horses running wild and free, and no cattle to care for.
I'll report back after reading.
More:I repent! There's
still some good cowboys.
2 comments:
What the heck have you got against Cowboys?
Joel:
Other than the Dallas sort (that's never gonna change), I was a bit hasty and cryptic. I enjoy the cowboy story/genre, including the very first. But repetition and political correctness dried up most of the possible plots, even the spaghetti sort. You find me a new concept that avoids either an unsubtle anti-violence public service announcement or goo-goos intended as a "shining parable about hospitality, a human resource that seems to be underrated and in short supply in a world rife with hostilities between neighbors and nations." Both of which, I note, won Best Picture. Yuk. Think we can revive John Ford?
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