The Legend of the Cowboy

The mythic cowboy emerges from pages of storybooks and flashes on the big screen as the true American superhero. He is the lasso-sportin', heat-packin', tough-as-nails son-of-a-gun who can break any horse and woo any girl. He wears spurs and leather chaps and his horse's name is Midnight Mayhem, Blackhawk's Tomahawk or some other invincible name that could cut steel. Of course the cowboy himself is invincible, too: world-weary and wise to every sound and danger in the wild and bonified veteran of at least five, no fifteen, gunfights where the other guy dropped like a fly. This is the cowboy that children dress up as on Halloween. This is the cowboy famous in campfire stories all across the West because he is the one who made being an everyday cattleman sound legendary.

The life of the real cowboy, in the past and today, was filled with adventure, yes, but also backbreaking work, little pay, and many lonely, monotonous days and nights on a prairie somewhere, counting cattle or cacti or days until a homecooked meal and a bath. According to cowpuncher Jo Mora, the cowboy was "just a plain bowlegged human who smelled very horsey at times, slept in his underwear and was subject to boils and dyspepsia." When he wasn't mending fences he was searching for a lost calf, and rarely was he engaging in gunfights with dirty horse thieves. In fact it became the policy on many ranches, namely the 3-million acre XIT in western Texas, that no cowhand was permitted "to carry on or about his person or in his saddle bags, any pistol, dirk, dagger, sling shot, knuckles, bowie knife or any similar instruments for offense or defense." Perhaps the scenes in paintings by Russell and Remington of boisterous gangs of cowboys exchanging gunfire and storming saloons were fewer and farther between than is commonly believed.

These myths and legends have been vital to keeping even a vestige of the American cowboy alive. It certainly helped in the 1950's when a heyday of Western films reignited a widespread interest in the Western lifestyle, and it helps now, in 2006, in the country music sector. What was once a smattering of old Appalachian fiddling and Wild West poetry set to some banjo-picking has converged into a business and cultural force to be reckoned with. According to a very recent national survey conducted by CBS News and its new web feature "Showbuzz", country is now tied with rock for America's favorite style of music. Not every country song is about the West, but the genre as a whole strongly endorses the legend of the cowboy. Of course one truly Western diversion that gets people's hearts pumping every year and is regularly aired on ESPN, is the rodeo.

The first rodeo is believed to have been a way to settle a cowboy dispute in Deer Trail, Colorado during the West's boom in 1864. Now thousands of rodeos are held every year, from the small-town get-togethers to the Super Bowl of rodeo, the National Finals in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tickets go fast, stakes are high, and somebody always gets hurt. The fans love it. When it's showtime, the stars of the rodeo, from podunk to hall-of-fame, all embody the mythical image of the cowboy, whose days are filled with adventure, untamed animals, and good old-fashioned pride. I say more power to them and to the mythical image. Not everyone can be a rancher or bronc rider, but every American can have an appreciation for the cowboy in both his larger-than-life and horsey-smelling, bowlegged incarnations. The West is evolving into who knows what, but I do hope the cowboy lives on.