Goin' Down the Road...

There are many roads__and many more ways of following them. Few however ever leave the comfort of their "local, familiar, safe__neighborhood". (i'm not just talking a physical place here... think about it)

Long term RV'ers have a flavor of what drives them that chase Rodeo. But__while RV'ers are restless souls that have the urge to wander, The Rodeo Bum is Driven.

Compounding that irresistible hunger__ those in Rodeo have dual passions, addictions really. Following the paint stripes to the next big Rodeo is only one; and the miles and far horizons is the smaller of the two.

The great passion which fuels that fire inside is Rodeo itself. Understand this; It isn't something they enjoy. It is not a thing they like-- It is what they NEED. It is a consuming passion. They live it. They breathe it. Without it they will suffocate. It is an element required for survival as much as is water and air. It is their reason for being.

It s a throbbing passion within them that few souls on this earth are blessed to know. Those in Rodeo are profoundly fortunate to be possessed by such an addiction__and the majority, in one manner or another, know it.

For those outside of it__and for those who lack any such passion__I am profoundly sad.

I have always been a person of great and fiery passions. I go all out, to hell with consequences and the rest__or nothing.

When I look around around me in this world I see the grey existence of the masses. I see a world of people who lack a passion for which they would risk all. I have tried, but I cannot conceive of living a life of agonizing tedium void of such exhilaration.

I can only imagine it would be like being so thirsty for__something__that your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth... so hoping for some relief from that ache in your guts, for you know not what, you lift an imaginary glass of cool water to your lips__ and __ Nothing. Your hand is empty. There's nothing there and your soul goes on starving.

The difference between the two is Fear. What holds people back from reaching out and taking a grasp on LIFE is, and always will be, Fear.

Most have been taught to submit and subordinate their lives to Fear.

A fortunate few grew up amongst double rectified Cowboys!  They were taught to despise and confront Fear. To grab it by the throat and squeeze all the juice out of it.

Life was never created to be spent grinding it away in a cage of social convention and approval. That is simply allowing your spirit and soul to be converted into an obedient and colorless machine.

It is akin to foaling Secretariat in a dark barn; Then keeping him imprisoned from birth to death in a windowless stall... walking mindlessly on a treadmill to power... social convention and approval.

What an OBSCENITY that would have been! And... What It Is!

Some feel that void inside created by the absence of Passion. But, they don't know the source of the ache. They focus their intellect on hunting down the cause, but all they know is what they've been taught. They search without knowing what it is they're looking for.

How-some-ever... what they've been taught, for some reason, rings false in their ears and so they quietly, and some not so quietly, spend years hunting for the cause before they discover it.

They reach blindly for what they've always been taught to avoid.

We are much taught by those around us who hide behind their own fears. If they can convince us to surrender as well and hide with them; they avoid being left cowering alone.

Most will never summon the cajones to lift their foot and step off into unknown space.

Those that do persevere with their hearts reaching for that missing "piece" of their souls, in defiance of their Fear__ will discover a world of Joy beyond compare__ and the one true purpose of life...

Joy__ and __ LIVING!

 Brian

Crackin' Up Cowboyin' Up and Crackin' Out

Cowboy Up is when a guy is all busted and muddy. Having just got his brain pan stuffed into the sand by some sunfishin' bronc... he stands up, brushes off and gets on down the road.

Crackin' Out is a Rodeo Term... It's what you do when you climb in the rig and take off on a wide circle... Chasin' the Dream.

With my personal life in tatters... head spinning in a fog... I feel like I'm chasing cows, racing through a thunderstorm at midnight, blindfolded, straddling a blind horse, jumping gullies in the dark with my hands cuffed behind my back.

All that confusion is compounded by the only thing clear to me in this life... I am caught between two worlds.

I exist in 2015... all I ever truly wanted... was Horseback in another century. Another culture. The only one I've ever understood.

That brings a man to choices... He can say "I wish", and wait... or He can say "I will", and do.

Most of the questions a man asks in his life there's no answers for or understanding of. There's gonna be far more people ripping on his choices and character than those backing his play. He's going to be cursed as selfish and worse.

Ok... whatever...

All he can do is get up of a morning and drink his coffee as the sun glows yellow just below the horizon. Then Saddle his horses and let 'er buck.

It's a slow summer... thought I had a plan. You'd think that as many plans as I've made and seen blown away like dust in the wind, I'd quit carving 'em out..

That's one benefit of bein' Cowboy; The only critter more stubborn than a cow... is a cow__boy.

And if you just leave yourself blowin' in the wind with no rudder of hope or ambition to guide you; you quit being a man and truly are just dust in the wind. No more useful to yourself or anybody else than trash caught in a whirlwind. Little different than a slave.

I started right here to detail my latest convolutions with the VA... but I'll just cut to the chase...

Made the mistake of letting them talk me into a couple "Tests"... you know... the "Lets do this just to be safe" malarky. That slick sales pitch that tips a guy over onto the slippery slope of fear.

That's what the medicos (pushed by big Pharma and the Madison Avenue boys) are really selling. The FEAR of what might kill you.

So many, a majority, spend so much time and treasure worryin' about what might blow out their light; that they Fear their Whole Lives... to even ever light the candle!

They end up dying, it's been said many times in many places... Having never truly lived

I won't live in that world of worry. One more test I got "maneuvered" into and then it's Adios fear mongers!... I'll live until I die. (and here's a News Flash; No matter how good those boys are we all end up in the same place)

And that's the real deal. Like one of my Favorites said; "It ain't dying I'm talkin' about... it's LIVIN'!!!"

Well... it's time to go and Do... even if the where-with-all for doin' is kinda puny... But Hell, it's not the first time I'll have stepped off on a journey without the financin' to see it to the end...

Brian

Sorting Out the Future As I Go...

... life goes on whether we go with it or not... so... just take what comes and do the best with it...

Kind of a last minute thing, I've contracted out my October with the sugar outfit up in Montana again. That job will carry me into the winter well. And those funds will be sorely needed if I'm to keep this "back to horse" goal moving...

Till then, I'll be pulling out of here shortly, now that the latest repairs are done and the first steps of the tribulation of separation have been taken. My current need, to ride along with the beet harvest is to get this book I've been laboring on completed and published. Excuses don't pay the bills and feed my scrawny butt. Time to quit with that and just get it done.

My camera has not seen near as much use lately... The first three are actually from my phone on a lil' unexpected walk I took yesterday...

 

Truck went in the shop Tuesday for several hundred bucks worth of shocks, steering dampers and alignments to correct the tire scrubbing that started to get bad in the last few hundred miles...

Then Friday...

The truck in the past couple months has started getting a lot "warmer" pulling grades. When I got back from Missouri and took that time up to Steamboat it was getting warmer yet. Close inspection revealed a pretty good bug load down in the radiator.

So...  figured to just blow 'em out at the car wash...

Bad choice... turns out, that carwash wand had the power to fold over all the radiator fins it got too close to... That carelessness cost me a few hundred dollars for a new radiator... Maybe.

Buuut first... I dropped the truck off first thing yesterday, thinking it would only be a couple hours that I could kill at a coffee shop and/or people watching... wrong... they'd need it all day.

Since I'd not lined up a ride that left me with that unexpected walk I mentioned. Yep... a 7 1/2 mile stroll!  Dodging trains, trucks and liquor bottles. Seem like somebody does some pretty heavy drinking along those tracks. Every two steps there was one of those lil' "Shooter" bottles of some variety... just my luck of course - they were all empty! :-/

Google maps claimed I should get it done in two and a half hours... took me two hours and forty minutes to hoof it... what a wimp!

But then... when I found a ride back in the afternoon I got informed that the radiator I'd got put in back in 2010 was the wrong one! That was for a gas engine... not my diesel. It was maybe 1/3 less "Thick" so with less fluid and cooling surface... which is a wonder it worked as well as it did for a hundred thousand miles!

But on the way back to the Lakota I captured those three pics above. ;) so all's good.

Those below are just what's been passing by around me in the past few weeks...

He'd been running around and wading in along the shallow bank of this big pond... then came running down that lil' point behind him and jumped high... thinking he'd land in water six inches deep... only to find that there was a hole 'bout six FEET deep right there... he learned to swim right quick.

Talk about "keeping on"... This Plane is something on the order of 70 years+ ... and still flying... Circled over me several times... Makes a guy wonder what action it might have seen... and about the men that flew her...

... Which tends to dwarf our own sorry problems in comparison...

I'll head to that little patch of Arizona dirt I did a deal on in November; as soon as the beet harvest is done... and start putting a winter horse camp together...

That's how it's all laid out just now anyway.

Brian

Promises and Failure and Somehow You Keep Going

My silence is rude. I know... but when the words won't come, there's little a man can do.

I've tried to write this several times... and it just keeps coming out wrong... So I guess I'll just have to accept wrong.

I grew up in a cowboy world where you kept your word... or you were worthless. The world of a bunch of old cowboys lost in the wrong damned century. One of the few places I've "fit".

The only thing they had was a saddle, maybe a battered old pickup and their word.

Life wasn't gentle with them but they didn't quit. Day after day they put one foot in front of the other and kept moving. Cowboy Up! It's got me through life.

But the unending struggle has me wore down.

When I was five maybe six, I attacked a man with a rock. I thought he was hurting my mother. They were playing out in the water of Lake Erie... I nailed him in the head with a rock from the beach.

On to the army... for which I continue to be chastised for my weakness and the inability to "forget" the scars of memory.

Lost count of the scraps after that... when the values by which I must live ran head on into __ those of this "modern" world... or maybe rather... their absence.

My whole entire life has been one unending fight...

Roll in marriage... with all it's layers of complexity, confusions and parts that cannot be understood or explained.

Then the day comes... you get up to put one foot in front of the other and the bastard won't move. The tank is empty. You simply can't lift that foot again. There's no sorrow. No pain... no... anything... simply... empty.

You gave your word but there's nothing to push it on... and the shame swells.

You are done. Toast. Finis... and you think... It would have been so much easier to have just gone under so long ago... but... honor dictates you keep going. They couldn't so you have to.

You cowboy up... You close your eyes and reach down deep. You put one foot in front of the other and you keep going...

I Am Still Going
- Brian