Cowboy Image

[Col.Will B.Havoc]

I wasn't sure exactly where to post this, since it's a little after the CAS time frame,but I thought it would be worth
a few smiles. We all grew up with the western movies and the image of what a cowboy, even a modern cowboy should look like.
My mother was born in Jerome Arizona and grew up in the Verde Valley.(near Sedona) We were discussing family history.
She was describing her cousin Todd. A working cowboy(among other things). This was about 1928. She said came to visit and was riding, She said he had a standard working saddle and cowboy boots but other than that blew the image all to hell. he wore
khaki work pants, a blue flannel shirt and a WW1 campaign hat. His rifle was a military bolt action(probably a 1917 enfield by my mother's description) and a Luger in a cut down holster.!

[Dr. Bob]

Was he a slodier in the Great War??

[Col.Will B.Havoc]

Yes,he was but I don't know what unit. My mother never said. Only that he did serve with the AEF.

[Dr. Bob]

His service would probably explain the enfield, campaign hat and the luger with the cut down holster!  Things he brought home with him!!

[Don Nix]

What are working cowboys supposed to wear?
Many  wear overalls  and work boots Caps especially in winter . khaki pants and work shirts blue jeans gum boots.
Yesterday i was on a tractor feeding stock and wading water .Last week I had on knee high  boots with a riding heel.
My dad always rode in shoes in his later years he couldnt wear boots on his feet.
My grandpa always wore overalls. was working cattle at 85 when he separated a cow and calf and the ole mama cow got him down and stomped on him pretty bad. She was an ole muley cow and she just wallered him in the mud until some one came along and shoo'ed her off.
When we got him to the hospital the nurses wanted to know what happened. They thought he was injured in a nursing home. He kept telling them a cow did it but they thought he had altzhiemers.We had to convince them that he was allright mentally just too slow to out run a muley cow.
The point is that cowboys are working folks and they wear work clothes. Notice I said folks rather than men. Both my girls started drawing cowboy wages at an early age riding horses for other folks and working cattle.
We wear hats and chaps and boots and spurs when its needed but sometimes its steel toed boots (you ever have a Percheron with borium on the shoes step on you toe?) an gimme caps.

[Gun Butcher]

  Amen Don. back when I was earning my pay as a cowboy we wore what we had or what was best at the time. I don't think I "looked like a cowboy" two days out of five. Fact is none of use could really afford all the fancy boots and hats and such. Course most of use had some of that stuff just so we could dress up for the townfolk when we were there once a month. Never seemed to have two nickles to rub together back then but I sure do miss it sometimes. Life was a lot simpler. Mostly it was just trying to figure out how to stay warm up on the weather deck of an ole bronc that didn't like you very much or hoping that a piece of shade would showup once in a while.
I worked with an old gentleman like your Dad, he was 82 and still living the life. Had to get next to a fence just to get on a horse but he wouldn't quit. He always said "freeze your A** off in the winter ,burn it off in the summer, wear it off on an ole saddle,bust it up when some ole bronc gets a hump in his back, but love every minute of it cause their are people who will pay to do what we do.

[Forty Rod]

I'll see if I can locate the picture of Dad about 1930 when he was working on a ranch in Oregon or Idaho.  Light color (tan?) jodhpurs with lace-up high top boots, a flannel work shirt and a tin coat, a beat up fedora and the .35 Remington Model 8 autoloader that is now hanging on my wall.  It belonged to his boss and Dad bought it from him later. (1941) 

There's a horse in the picture, but Dad's foot is on the running board of a roadster he described as an Apperson Jackrabbit.

Nobody ever said Dad wasn't a real cowboy and a terrific horseman.