What the Blazes – Everything’s Big in Texas

by Bennett Owen

Feel the heat: The Texas Forest Service undertook controlled burns on April 17 near the McDonald Observatory. CREDIT: Frank Cianciolo/McDonald Observatory. Image from TheAtlantic.com

As I write this, death tolls and damage estimates are still being calculated from the weekend tornados and firefighters in West Texas are still waging combat against some 8000 wildfires that have charred an unbelievable 1.6 - million acres… a chunk of real estate twice as big as Rhode Island.  Officials say some of the infernos are traveling 100 yards per minute. Yes, you read that right. And there’s plenty of fuel left to burn thanks to a prolonged drought in the region. Add those fierce West Texas gales and it’s a recipe for disaster. 

Shot near Strawn, TX, Monday, April 18, 2011. Credit: (Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Max Faulkner)

One rancher in the northwest part of the state said the wind was so strong over the weekend it blew pasture gates right off their hinges. The loss of land, possessions and livestock is truly staggering and statistics don’t even begin to tell this story. See the video here.

A charred motorcycle and car sit near the burned home of Linda and Bobby Lanter. Credit: (Star-Telegram/Ron T. Ennis)

The Texas Cattle Raisers Association is taking donations that will be used to buy feed and fencing supplies for the ranchers hardest hit. To help out, go to TexasAgriculture.gov. Or call 512-475-1615.

Cody Tillery, 17, carries donated water inside the Red Cross shelter  Graford, Texas Tuesday April 19, 2011. Credit: (Star-Telegram/Ron Jenkins)

We’ve been poking some good-natured fun at West Texas lately but this is no laughing matter and our prayers are for courage steadfastness as the Lone Star State faces down yet another daunting challenge.

Elementary Code of the West – Let the Little Shavers Grow

By Bennett Owen

It’s the brainchild of our favorite hometown that we’ve yet to visit, Ellensburg, Washington. A program to instill the next generation with the same qualities as their cowboy grandfathers. Words mean things, whether scribbled in crayon or chiseled into granite:

1. Respect Parents
2. Lead a Healthy Lifestyle
3. Work Hard in School
4. Be Nice to Others
5. Be Kind to Animals
6. Set Goals for Yourself
7. Say no to Drugs, Tobacco and Alcohol
8. Do Something Nice for Another Person Every Day

It’s the "Cowboy Way," as envisioned by Leann Adams, a local parent eager to make a difference. She’s the driving force behind the children’s code, based on the works of James Owen.

Cowboy Ethics: A Life Changing Approach to Character Education from Center for Cowboy Ethics on Vimeo.

Leann’s daughter, Dakota, was chosen queen of this year’s Spirit of the West Cowboy Gathering in Ellensburg. In that capacity, she’s been visiting school assemblies, awing the Cowgirls and dazzling the young Bucks.

Image courtesy of EllensburgCowboyGathering.com

She’s a powerful role model for the youngsters and judging by her bio, embodies the “Cowboy Way.” 

Of course, all the codes of the west, east, north and south won’t stop kids from being kids.

Image courtesy of Montana Heritage Project

Consider the following event at a one-room schoolhouse in Polaris, Montana. It’s taken from my Uncle Jules’ journal…recorded around 1940:

“The older boys trapped a packrat in the barn and what better place to put it than in the teacher’s desk? ...After about an hour as the schoolroom became quiet Miss Kelly heard a noise in her desk drawer and upon opening it the packrat jumped out. She literally had a heart attack!  Aunt Wilda was summoned for first aid. The teacher survived but I don’t know about the fate of the two boys.”

Child Psychology, by Norman Rockwell. Image courtesy of Art.com

For all that’s been written about rearing children, it still boils down to a few simple ingredients…love, direction and discipline…and hopefully never apply the latter two without generous doses of the former. But about 90 percent of parenting is leading by example. As if ranching isn’t a fulltime job, my uncles were on school boards, even though the schools had one room and never more than 15 kids. They’re members of 4H and the Farm Bureau and the Stock Growers Association and are fiercely proud of their heritage.

Image courtesy of Gordon Berry Collection.

And they’ll readily admit that their wives are by far the better half.

Walter Bruening – I’ve Been Working on the Railroad

By Bennett Owen

Walter Bruening, Great Falls, Montana

Walter Bruening, the world’s oldest man, has died. He visited earth for 114 years and spent 97 of those in Montana. In the year that he was born in Minnesota, scattered Indian skirmishes were still being fought on the Montana plains.

On the War Path Atsina Edward S. Curtis, c. 1908. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Flathead Camp on the Jocko River Edward S. Curtis, c. 1910. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

That same year a contingent of black soldiers gathered in Montana...they would soon embark on a cross-country bicycle trip from Missoula to Saint Louis…testing the efficacy of bicycles in mountain combat.

Image Courtesy of "Montana's Buffalo Soldier's Bike Ride to Missouri"

It would be decades yet before his life would be touched by the wonders of electricity, running water, radio and automobiles. At age 16 he went to work for the Great Northern Railroad, laboring 12 hours a day, seven days a week to earn $25 per month. If the song were about Bruening it would go, “I’ve been working on the railroad all the live-long century…” for he spent the next 51 years of his life doing so…a job that sustained him and his wife through the great depression and two world wars.

Image Courtesy of AllPosters.com 

Courtesy of the PTA Transit Authority

It would be pretty hopeless for a man to live so long and not acquire some wisdom along the way. Here’s some from Bruening and it’s worth pondering:

• Embrace change, even when it slaps you in the face
• Eat two meals a day because that’s all you need
• Work as long as you can
• Help others
• Accept death

Now do yourself a favor, but be careful, it may take up your whole weekend. Follow the link to the Great Falls Tribune page documenting Bruening’s 114^th birthday. You’ll find an amazing timeline, historic photos, videos…in all a fascinating 20^th century history lesson worthy of a Pulitzer.

Exceedingly strange that but for his longevity we would never have had the honor of seeing a glimpse of the extraordinary life and times of a simple man.

Image Courtesy of joseflebovicgallery.com, (c) David Plowden
Great Northern Railway Freight Train, West Of Havre, Montana, 1968/later printing. Silver gelatin photograph, titled, dated and signed in pencil verso, 24.1 x 31cm.

Montgomery Ward – The Wish Book

By Bennett Owen

Photo courtesy of eBay.com

"When you live 90 miles from town a Montgomery Ward or Sears catalog gets read more than the Bible or Shakespeare...

…We had been getting the Montgomery Ward catalog since 1885. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the part played by this book of wonder in the children's lives. They pored over it endlessly; before they could read, the pictures were there to dazzle them...the catalog is well named the "wish book" by country people...They (the children) never went to school until we moved to Miles City (Montana) ...all they knew up to that time was reading as taught by Montgomery Ward, and printing block letters, which I taught them.”

From the Diary of Nannie T. Alderson        

Photo courtesy of eBay.com 

In its day it was a revolution every bit as momentous as the Internet…a link between civilization and the outer fringes of the American Frontier. Aaron Montgomery Ward was a traveling salesman who saw the need to cater to a vast, untapped reserve of rural consumers. In 1872 he released his first ‘catalog’, a single page listing fewer than 100 items. A decade later it had grown to well over 200 pages with 10-thousand products including:

• Opium (yes, opium!)
• Ear Trumpets
• ‘Sweet Spirits of Nitre’ * (Oh my God, pay attention to the asterisk!)
• Bust Cream
• Violins
• Winchesters

Photo courtesy of eBay.com

Photo courtesy of eBay.com 

No, we’re not going to list all 10-thousand items, so consider these your Montgomery Cliffs Notes.

“Our mail order methods meet many wants,” wrote an enthusiastic copywriter in 1885.  And one of those was entertainment while using the outdoor plumbing. When I was a kid there was a stack of ‘em in every outhouse at the ranch and, yes, the women’s lingerie section got pretty dog-eared in those days.

Image courtesy of Etsy.com

Montgomery Ward also came up with the slogan “satisfaction guaranteed or your money back,” and it also launched the concept of “rural free delivery”…aka RFD for all you Mayberry fans.

Photo courtesy of eBay.com

This brings me to another edition of Luddites R Us, where my perfect track record of predictions remains unbroken:

• E Books have no future
• No one will buy stuff on the Internet
• 24-hour television news channel? Ridiculous!

So how would I have felt a mere 130 years ago if someone had an idea that a customer in the wilds of Wyoming, 90 miles from the nearest post office could place an order for a chuck wagon and that order would somehow make its way to Chicago, Illinois and that chuck wagon would somehow be delivered to their outfit? Preposterous!

* Check the comments at  http://www.finishing.com/324/13.shtml and bring a Kleenex because you will laugh yourself silly.

Find this commodious book here.

Soon to be A Major Motion Picture – The Most Elusive Outlaw in the West

By Bennett Owen

His mother’s name was April. His father’s name was trouble.  Their only son would earn his disgraceful place in history as a vicious road agent who took what he wanted and suffered no Fools gladly. His blood-filled crime spree struck fear into the hearts of even the most hardened cowboys of the Day:

We can only be thankful that the sterling character of the true pioneers won through and that the enduring and ennobling legacy of the west lives on to this day in the spirit of brave and sturdy men who saddle up and ride off onto the lonely prairie…in search of cats.