Blog 507 – 12.27.2016

Tribute To A Little Cowboy
When I received the attached picture of a dear friend’s grandson, Isaac, I knew I wanted to share the picture along with a blog about this handsome young cowboy. Like many of you I grew up wanting to be a cowboy and played a being a cowboy for as long as I can remember. I suppose that a great part of the appeal that the great northwestern part of the United States has to me is this cowboy business. Wyoming, the Cowboy State, is one of my favorite places in the wide world with its plentiful wide open spaces and vistas the remind one of a John Wayne movie.

Little Isaac looks like he is ready to ride range with Randolph Scott, Roy, Gene, and all the other famous cowboys. Bobby Goldsboro, a nineteen sixties light rock singer recorded a tribute to his own young cowboy that was an antiwar song:

“Dream on, little broomstick cowboy,
Of rocket ships and Mars
Of sunny days,
And Willie Mays,
And chocolate candy bars

Dream on, little broomstick cowboy,
Dream while you can
Of big green frogs,
And puppy dogs,
And castles in the sand

For, all too soon you’ll awaken
Your toys will all be gone
Your broomstick horse will ride away,
To find another home
And you’ll have grown into a man,
With cowboys of your own
And then you’ll have to go to war,
To try and save your home
And then you’ll have to learn to hate
You’ll have to learn to kill
It’s always been that way, my son
I guess it always will

No broomstick gun they’ll hand you
No longer you’ll pretend
You’ll call some man your enemy
You used to call him ‘friend’
And when the rockets thunder
You’ll hear your brothers cry
And through it all you’ll wonder
Just why they had to die.

So dream on, little broomstick cowboy
Dream while you can
For soon you’ll be a dreadful thing
My son, you’ll be a man.”

I does not have to be that way. It never has. I hope before Isaac is grown that we will find a way to avoid war and learn to solve our disagreements in a more people friendly way. Real cowboys carried guns for protection against snakes, or wild animals, not for shooting other cowboys. Have a wonderful adventure, Cowboy Isaac. Happy trails to you.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White