Stories

Stories, here I go again…we all carry stories with us, family, friends, our own, his-(and her)story—cultures—there is that messy place (that I reside in) where so much comes together. In my own family, we have the mythic story of my paternal grandfather, who ran away from home at age 12, made it to Texas and came to Montana on a cattle drive. Was he enamored with the cowboy and western stories, as was Charlie Russell, such that he was bent to follow that route?

My understanding is that many of the early cowboys, were indeed boys, and young men. Rough living and riding would be more a young person’s game—broken bones, bowlegs and creaky joints often the tell-tell mark of an aging wrangler.

Teddy Blue Abbott writes a tale of cowboy life, adventures on the open range, and the changes that came as homesteaders and others tied up the range, We Pointed Them North. He eventually settled down to a small ranch and married life, maybe partially because those early “wild west” days had passed, and age puts a certain sensibility to our heads, if only because our bodies protest the exuberance of our past youth.

Chalie Russell titled this Cowboy on Horse Talking to White Woman. MHS 1980.19.01