Me Playing Cowboy

It’s Oklahoma. We not only got to play cowboy, we really could be one if we wanted. I had lots of relatives with farms. It was pretty common for me to be on a horse before I was an adult. When I was in high school, my folks had a place outside of town where they had horses. My brother had a lot of ribbons and trophies for his horsemanship. I think my mom was more than a little disappointed that I didn’t want to ride bulls for a living. She never really understood me, but that’s okay. I like this photo because it shows a fairly typical scene in the life of a youngster who was raised in rural Oklahoma. Yes, there was a time in my life when I went home from college and rode the tractor into town to pick up the mail from the post office. Even after forty years I still think that’s cool. Significance? Oklahoma isn’t like Boston, L.A., Tokyo, Paris, London, Cairo or Istanbul. We all get what we got, whatever that was. I got Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo, Marshal Dillon and John Wayne. Oh, and I got to be a little cowboy. Sometimes.