Panhandle Cowboy

Name: Panhandle Cowboy
Brand: UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS PRESS
Price: 57.75 AUD
Availability: BackOrder

By: John R. Erickson

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Hardcover | 28 September 1999

At a Glance

Hardcover
226 Pages

Edition Type
New edition

Dimensions(cm)
24.13 x 15.88 x 2.54

Hardcover

RRP $57.99

$57.75

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Available for Backorder. We will order this from our supplier however there isn't a current ETA.

First published in 1980, this classic description of the cowboy life by master storyteller John Erickson is now back in print. His observations about the Crown Ranch in particular, and the cowboy lifestyle in general, are filled with humor as well as pathos. Erickson describes the ranch, individual cowboys, roundups, wild cattle, and horses.

"Along about five o'clock in the afternoon, when we were so sore and exhausted we wanted to drop in our tracks, we kept ourselves going with nothing but pride and stubbornness and will power. We taunted each other. We teased. We invented and bellowed lunatic songs at the top of our lungs. I offer the following as an example of our doggerel. This verse, one of many which spring from our fogged brains, celebrated the villain for whom we were working, ranch owner and 'trail boss' Lawrence Ellzey:

The trail boss's orders inspire us with fear. He don't pay no wages but he furnishes beer. Two six-packs a month and a kick in the rear, Yippie-ti-yi-yo, what am I doin' here?"

Industry Reviews

A wry, altogether likable account of the four years Erickson spent single-handedly running a neglected 5,000-acre cattle ranch in the Oklahoma sandhills. ("I could call myself either the hired man or the manager. I functioned in both capacities.") As a working cowboy, Erickson is concerned chiefly with cattle', horses, and the weather - and all three give him a powerful lot of trouble. His cattle are wild and ornery ("The primary disadvantage of cattle is that they are alive"); his uppity horses throw him, drag him, kick him, and roll on him in a series of "wrecks" he seems to regard as just part of the job; and the weather, turning sour every time he summons help for a cattle drive, gives him a bad reputation for staging "north pole roundups." In the end the ranch owner, bedeviled by falling cattle prices and government policies responsive only to urban interests, sells out; and Erickson's favorite old horse narrowly escapes the meat-packers to provide a happy ending. Erickson himself notes with resignation that "A cowboy is one who breaks another man's horses, feeds another man's cattle, digs another man's postholes, lives in another man's house, and occupies a piece of earth that belongs to someone else"; and then he moves on, leaving this informative, captivating yarn about the backbreaking labor, good-natured camaraderie, and rock-bottom line of the business of being a cowboy. (Kirkus Reviews)

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