How to Be a Cowboy
Page 1
How to Be a Cowboy
A Compendium of Knowledge and Insight, Wit and Wisdom
Jim Arndt
How to Be a Cowboy
A Compendium of Knowledge and Insight, Wit and Wisdom
Digital Edition v1.0
Text © 2009 Jim Arndt
Photographs from shutterstock.com: second photo in Cowboy Code section; image with There's a High Cost to Low Living; photo with Cowboy Lingo; first, fifth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and eighteenth photos in Denim and Duds section; fifth and eleventh photos in The Spur section; fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, tenth, and eleventh photos in The Rodeo section; tenth photo in The Ranch section; and fourth photo in The Buckle section.
All other photographs © 2009 Jim Arndt, unless otherwise noted
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except brief portions quoted for purpose of review.
Gibbs Smith, Publisher
PO Box 667
Layton, UT 84041
Orders: 1.800.835.4993
www.gibbs-smith.com
ISBN: 978-1-4236-1274-2
To my friend Johnny, who is a cowboy.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to all the cowboys and cowgirls who helped with the gathering of information and images in this book:
Nathalie Kent, Clint Mortenson and Wyatt, Johnny, Manuel Cuevas, Dave Little, Bob Sandroni, Marty Johnson, Tara Kent, Reggie Jackson, all the boot makers, buckle makers, hat makers and the craftsmen of all things western.
To my riding buddies Gary and Monique, Lelek and Jasmine, Amado and Ricardo.
Thanks to Suzanne and Madge for wrangling together the book.
A huge thank-you to my sister, Kathy Graves, who made all the words happen . . . I couldn’t have done this without her.
And the inspiration to be a cowboy and live the western style.
Thank you to my cowgirl Nathalie, who is dedicated to keeping our Western heritage alive.
—JA
How to Be a Cowboy
Table of Contents
The Cowboy Code
Lesson 1: Boot Camp
Lesson 2: The Shirt
The Cowboy Way
Lesson 3: Denim & Duds
Lesson 4: The Hat
Lesson 5: The Spur
Lesson 6: The Rodeo
Lesson 7: The Ranch
Lesson 8: The Music
Lesson 9: The Buckle
Advice from Will Rogers
The Cowboy Code
In sun and shade,
be sure by your friends.
Never swing a mean loop.
Never do dirt to man nor animal.
—Texas Bix Bender
How to Be a Cowboy
It’s Easy. . .
Lesson 1: Boot Camp
Cattle drives to rock and roll. Dusty boots to couture. The evolution of the cowboy boot from fundamental to fashionable corresponds to the settling of the American West, the birth of Hollywood’s silent films starring cowboy Tom Mix, and Roy Rogers and Gene Autry riding across the 1950s television screen.
Rear View
Since the mid-19th century, the American cowboy, the Mexican vaquero, Texas Rangers, and cavalry soldiers have worn high-topped boots as protective gear. Boots were originally strictly utilitarian, and today’s museums display well-worn, plain cowboy boots. Because these boots needed repair or replacement as cowboys worked the trail, boot makers opened shops along the cattle drive trails. Over time, cowboys suggested customizations for a better personal fit and later requested designs in stitching and inlays. Even after the last big cattle drives out of Texas ended, cowboys and their boots remained a part of Americans’ image of the West.
When Buffalo Bill opened the era of the stage cowboy in his western extravaganzas in the United States (1883) and Europe, he outfitted his performers in dazzling fringed and beaded costumes, and the bright-colored, fancy boots they wore enhanced their garb as well as enabled them to perform rodeo feats such as bull riding and cattle roping.
Easterners were awed and yearned for the look, attitude, and lifestyle of the West. Even city slickers like New York’s Teddy Roosevelt went west (and still do) to experience rodeos, dude ranches, and the aura of towns like Santa Fe and Jackson Hole. Their desire to head back East with their own western gear gave birth to a new industry in western wear that continues to grow.
Boot makers became creative and artistic. Cowboy boots in both tall top and shorty styles became flashier and more ornamental, with new stitch patterns, inlays, overlays, initials, wing tips, collars, mule ears, and outrageous patterns and colors. To show off their flashy designs, boot wearers frequently tuck their pants inside their boots.
In addition to recalling the legends of the West, cowboy boots reflect the personalities of those who wear them today. The ultimate in cowboy footwear today is a pair of custom boots measured and made by hand to fit the customer’s form and taste. It is true that boot aficionados push boot makers to be more creative. And it’s also true that boot makers push the envelope themselves to design new works for art’s sake. Whatever the case, the cowboy boots pictured on the following pages are works of art—some by today’s most dedicated, artistic boot makers and others from vintage collections.
Superstition
It’s bad luck to step into your left boot first.
(from dimlights.com)
Chatty Kathy
The Strong Silent Type
“People just feel different when they’re wearing cowboy boots.
Your stance is taller. You make noise when you walk, and it’s a powerful, ominous sound.
Nothing gets attention like a great pair of cowboy boots.”
—Jennifer June, from “The Most Expensive Cowboy Boots,” Forbes.com
How to Select a Pair of Cowboy Boots
Step One
Decide on a general style you want. Are you going to wear them for everyday with a pair of jeans, or will they peek out from underneath a pair of suit pants? For this kind of wearing, a basic black or brown would be a good choice.
Step Two
For the line dance floor, you want a little more flash, more colorful tops. These are boots you might want to tuck your pants inside so the boots can do a little showing off.
Step Three
Look at the heels and try on some different heights and styles. You’d be surprised at how a higher, undershot heel (angled in from the back of the boot) affects your walk.
Step Four
Choose a toe shape, from round, square, or a variety of pointy ones. If you’ll be kicking cow pies in the pasture, you probably don’t want arrow-slim pointy. And keep in mind that a pointy toe will add about an inch to the length of the boot, because your toes stop before the point does.
Step Five
What kind of leather suits your personality? Choose your material from tough cowhide or softer calfskin if you want to be a regular cowboy. But if you have a bit of the exotic in you, alligator, elephant hide or ostrich might be just the thing.
Step Six
Determine how much you want to pay. Prices of cowboy boots run the range from $150 for lesser quality to thousands of bucks for a custom-made pair. If your budget is $500 or under, you’re an off-the-rack shopper. If you can spend $1,500 and up—way up—you might consider a custom boot maker.
Step Seven
Try on the boot. It should be tight enough that you struggle a bit pulling it on. When your foot slips into the shoe, it should still be snug but you should be able to wiggle your toes. Walk around in the boots a couple minutes. If they hurt or pinch, or if your foot goes to sleep, try another pair. Keep trying until you find the fit that’s perfect for your foot.
Once you own the boots, wear them confidently. They’ll put a little swagger in your walk, and that alone will tell everybody that you’re a confident cowboy.
Flutterby
Yee-haw
The Most Expensive Cowboy Boots
When someone orders a pair of custom boots, it usually takes a number of months before their order is filled. The reason? Making boots by hand is time-consuming work, and the fancier the design, the longer it takes.
A basic pair of dress boots with foxing on the toe, a few rows of stitching and a simple overlay or inlay on the shaft might take the boot maker only about a hundred hours to complete, though how long you have to wait for them also depends on how many orders are ahead of yours. But once you cross into the realm of complicated overlays and inlays, leather carving and dying, those hundred hours can easily double or triple.
Such is the case with this extravagant pair of hand-carved boots tracing the history of Mexico. Tres Outlaws in El Paso, Texas, was the genius and craftsmanship behind them. It took about 100 hours to create the intricate design and another 500 hours to execute the hand carving, coloring and dying that resulted in a very expensive pair of cowboy boots. (And when you count the cost of life experience, ages of development, sacrifice, war and commerce that gave the boots their historical foundation—this price is unlikely to be topped). Oh—the inlaid historical gold coins cost a cool $18 grand. Total for the pair: $75,000!
Purty Boots
Like Father, Like Son
Cowboy boots are the only socially respectable way for men to wear high heels and bright colors.
—Lisa Sorrell, custom boot maker
from “The Most Expensive Cowboy Boots,” Forbes.com
Well-loved companions
Cowboy Curio
Lesson 2: The Shirt
Swap a few buttons for snaps and you have a cowboy western shirt. This is what Jack Weil of Rockmount did when he introduced snap-front shirts, not only creating a new style of western shirt but also blazing the trail for a new fashion industry—with H Bar C, California Ranchwear, Ben the Rodeo Tailor, and more following in his path. These became the roots of western wear and western fashion in America. Fashion fades fast, but style sticks forever—and this new western style stuck.
If the shirt fits . . .
. . . Wear It!
For a great selection, and to explore more about the roots of the western shirt, visit rockmount.com. You can even buy a copy of the bible of the western shirt, and the shirt featured on the cover from Rockmount Ranch Wear, the originator of snap shirts. This art deco design, first introduced in the 1950s, is a special numbered edition.
From the era of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows through decades of rodeos, country and western performers, and rock ’n’ roll stars, cowboy shirts and western wear have become flashier and fancier.
Lookin’ Snappy
While the bib-front shirt may have been the original cowboy shirt, over time shirt designs went beyond denim into the realms of cotton, gabardine, satin and silk. Rayon gabardine became the material of choice in the 1940s. Designers of western clothing added piped yokes, colorful and detailed embroidery, fringe, sawtooth, fancy cuffs, and, of course, smiley pockets with arrows. In Hollywood, Nudie embellished western shirts with rhinestones to create some of the original rhinestone cowboys, with the exclusive help and flair of Manuel Cuevas, the king of western couture. And Manuel pushed it even farther with more flash, giving style to a beautiful voice. He also put Elvis in a gold lamé rhinestone jumpsuit and made Johnny Cash “the man in black.” And who can forget Dwight Yoakam’s RCA cowboy creased hat, skin-tight pants, and embroidered shirts?
The western-style shirt has been worn from the early 1900s to the present by legendary performers such as Tom Mix, Porter Wagoner, Hank Williams, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, Marty Stuart, Alan Jackson, Toby Keith, Bonnie Raitt, Mark Chestnutt, Vince Gill, and Yoakam, who are famous not only for their music but for popularizing western wear and taking it to the ultra-fancy level. Even star-powered folks like Jay Leno, Matthew McConaughey, Eric Clapton, and Nicolas Cage caught on to the style.
Roy Rogers. Photo from Singing Cowboys by Douglas Green.
Lasso Up!
Steerin’ some luck
Shirts that cost more than a week’s worth of groceries are like horseshoes that cost more than a horse
You gotta stop & wear the purty flowers
Bolo Ties
A bolo tie is simply a string (often made of braided or twisted leather) for hanging around one’s neck in place of a necktie. The two ends of the string are held together with a bolo, which is an ornamental clip that slides up and down the string to make the look and fit tighter or looser. A bolo tie can be worn with the shirt either buttoned at the top or left open, and women are nearly as likely to wear a bolo tie as a man.
The two ends of the string are tipped in decorative silver or some other material. A Western-style bolo—the slider itself—is often silver and can be designed in any shape the maker imagines—a flower, boot, animal, or star, for example. Bolos are decorated with etching and also cabochons (shaped and polished gemstones). In the West, turquoise is a popular stone for bolo ties.
Both Arizona and New Mexico have named the bolo tie the official state neckwear. So if you don’t have one yet, you’d better pick one out for your wardrobe, along with your boots and hat. Otherwise you risk being branded as a city slicker, and that’s not the cowboy way!
For the real cowboy, whose shirt eventually became a legend, the beginnings were much simpler.
Starting with a simple cotton or wool shirt, worn every day, it had to survive the rigors of a working man.
So he didn’t have to wash or mend his shirt every week, he wore leather cuffs to protect his shirtsleeves and a wild rag to protect his neck from the blazing sun and keep the sweat from dripping down his shirt.
And his wild rag, otherwise known as a scarf or kerchief, was usually silk. It had many other uses. He could use it to keep his neck warm, tie down his hat, or as a washcloth, bandage, water filter, or flag, or just to cover his mouth and nose during a windstorm.
A cowboy wears his bandana for the same reason he wears his pants: he ain’t decent without it.
—Texas Bix Bender, Don’t Squat with Your Spurs On, Vol.2
Sparkly Sidekick
Avoid flasharity, foofaraw, and fumadiddle
in dress, speech, and conduct.
Leave the Peacocking for the peacocks.
—Texas Bix Bender, Don’t Squat with Your Spurs On, Vol.2
The Cowboy Way
Favorite Sayings
by Texas Bix Bender, from Don’t Squat with Your Spurs On Volumes 1 and 2
Cowboy Lingo
by Lawson Drinkard, from Riding on a Range
Just like any other group, cowboys have their own special language. If you hang around the bunkhouse, the rodeo, or anyplace else cowboys gather, you may hear some of these words being used. See how often you can use them while talking to your pards.
Boot Hill: cemetery
Dude: city slicker
Broke: that a horse is gentle and ready to ride
Hand: a ranch worker
Bronc: an unbroken horse, or a horse that, though broke, is still a bit wild
Hightail: to run off or get away fast
Hoss: horse
Buckaroo: cowboy (from the Spanish word vaquero )
Hung Off: a foot caught in the stirrup of the saddle
Bunkhouse: living quarters for the cowboys working on a ranch
Maverick: a stray, unbranded calf
Mustang: wild horse
Outfit: a ranch worker’s or a cowboy’s pickup truck
Catch Pen: a corral for holding cattle or horses
Pard: partner, friend
Ride the Line: check the fences to fix any that are broken
Rig: saddle
Corral: fenced-off area for livestock
&nb
sp; Spread: a ranch
Cowboy Up: mount up and ride out, or grin and bear it
Stove Up: hurt, injured, or crippled cowboy
Critter: cow or other animal
Try: effort (“Bill has a lot of try in him.”)
Crow Hop: a mini-buck; the horse rounds its back and hops
Wrangler: the cowboy who takes care of the horses
Dogie: an orphaned calf
Draw: a lottery that matches riders and animals at rodeo events
Wreck: a riding accident
Gene Autry’s Cowboy Code