A Cowboy’s Most Distinguishing Mark
Without a doubt, a cowboy’s most distinguishing mark is his hat; the kind of hat, the crease, the color, the way he wears it, and so forth. My mother used to tell stories about the way her father wore his hat. My grandfather was never a slave to fashion, especially when it came to wearing his hat. My mother said that when he bought a new hat, he never had it creased. And she said that when he picked up his hat to put it on, that he always just grabbed it by the crown and jabbed it on his head, totally unaware if it was frontward or backward or whatever.
Certainly, for my grandfather, his hat was his most physically distinguishing mark. My mother said, she never had a hard time picking him out of a crowd, all she had to do was look for his hat. …
Most drovers on a trail drive didn’t have much to call their own. They may have owned a saddle, some tacking and a bedroll. Many did not even own a horse. On a trail drive, they would draw one, usually green broke out of the remuda.
When I think of a local functioning church, I imagine an old-fashioned branding. At a branding, everyone has a job to do. There are no by-standers; no observers–everyone has an assigned task to do: