Louise Carroll: Proud to be a cowboy's 'little lady'
I believe there is a little bit of cowboy in every man.
Perhaps they catch it from a speck of prairie dust flying around while watching the Lone Ranger or from the gleam off a Red Rider BB gun. I've never been able to prove it, but I know it's there.
I know from living with my husband, Don, for 45 years, a western Pennsylvania mill worker, farmer and beekeeper who had more than his share of cowboy in his soul.
He knew the name of Hopalong Cassidy's horse (Topper) and Red Rider's Indian friend (Little Beaver). And he remembered the goofy sidekicks such as Gabby Hayes, Smiley Burnette and Lucky.
He had watched all Randolph Scott movies and was always ready to tell about them ― in great detail.High Noon" with Gary Cooper was a favorite.
It wasn't his fault. He grew up when the movie cowboys were real heroes. Tall, lean cowpokes like Lash LaRue not only rode fast and straight (and never killed anyone), they saved women and children, wounded the bad guys and made things right. All of this was bound to have an effect on young minds.
After being thoroughly indoctrinated into the cowboy mystique he grew up and read all the Louis L'Amour books and soon got on a first-name basis with the Sacketts. Since L'Amour died in 1988, his books, 89 novels and 14 short story collections, have continued to sell, proving that cowboys are alive and well in many people.
Don grew up in a time when Cowboys tipped their hats and called ladies "ma'am," which was very romantic for a man in a time when they only kissed their horses in the movies.
Don would refer to me as "little lady," which was a misnomer, but I loved him for it. I'm glad I was married to a man with a cowboy's heart because a cowboy is faithful and true blue ― "a man to ride the river with."
Some of you might think that a man of the Old West wouldn't like a liberated woman, but Don did, perhaps because of Roy Rogers' attitude toward Dale Evans, who not only kept her maiden name but never rode sidesaddle either. She was the liberated woman of the Old West.
We didn't have grandchildren; we had little buckaroos. Before they were born he suggested names from L'Amour's books like Hondo, Jubal Sackett, Bendigo Shafter and Milo Talon. Are you smiling? My sons smiled, but they didn't take the suggestion. They loved him, but they weren't that silly.
Speaking cowboy lingo came naturally to Don. When he said, "Gotta ride" it meant time to go. When he said, "Cut 'em off at the pass," it meant someone was coming up the driveway.
He would say he had to check on the North 40 even though we only had 12 acres. When the bees swarmed out of one of his hives, he would say, "There's a big herd, I gotta round them up."
Being surrounded by American Indian names Shenango, Neshannock and Connoquenessing felt right at home to him. And of course, we lived on Snake Run Road in Wampum. It doesn’t bet much better than that for a cowboy at heart.
When we watched TV in the evening occasionally he would say, Listen to the coyote call." I would give him disgusted looks but sometimes I thought I heard ― something.
Don did not always do things the easy way, but he did them the cowboy way, which is always fair and decent. He didn't have a horse or saddle, purple sage or chaps and spurs. But somewhere in his soul, tumbleweeds tumbled and the deer and the antelope played.
I know my husband wasn't the only cowboy at heart.
Today "Wagon Train," "Gunsmoke" and other old westerns are still playing on the TV and some friends have told me their husbands watch them regularly.
At Don's funeral in 2004, a friend read a piece I wrote, "I'm a Cowboy's Little Lady," and I was.
This article originally appeared on Ellwood City Ledger: Carroll: Proud to be a cowboy's 'little lady'
