The New York Times (as only it can) just ran an article on the evils of raising cattle. I forget the details but I think the gist of it was that if all the cattle in the State of California were laid end to end it would b the equivalent of eating one full sized Prius and would have the same effect as taking 450,000 incandescent light bulbs off the highways.

As usual feeding humans is bad—and feeding people meat is almost as bad as liking America. Cattlemen are the new boogie men. It wasn’t always thus.

There was a time when “Spin and Marty” was the current “Sex in the City.” Only on that show, the promiscuous ones plied their trade behind white fences on a Dude Ranch out west.

Spin was the real McCoy and Marty was the rich poser who was trying to fit in with the other boys on the ranch. One could rope. One could fix Martinis. The tension between their rivalry created the drama in the weekly series.

Every boy under eighteen could identify with that show. Long before Froggie and 92.9 we all longed to be cowboys. The nighttime TV fare was nothing but a list of “Westerns:” Cheyenne, Bonanza, and Rawhide— it never ended.

Cattle were an integral part of each show. Cowboys were heroes. They wore the white hats. They succored the helpless, righted wrongs, aided dance hall girls in distress and (in almost every episode) turned stampeding cattle just in time as they were about to devastate the town or trample to death the heroine and her orphaned son as they hid under an overturned Conestoga wagon.

Cattle were an essential fabric of our society, culture and history. As I read the New York Times about the evils of cattle and beef, I tried to picture some modern day Maasai historian criticizing the act of hunting lions, or an Apache putting down today’s buffalo.

Of course, I’m prejudiced. Unlike almost every other American city kid who couldn’t wait for Thursday night’s new episode, we got to become Spin and Marty. In 1957, Jim Pop (the stupid city slicker who would pay $1,000 for 12 acres, out past the dump and a mile from the closest people) bought and named “The Lazy J.”

It had a barn, fences (of sorts), and grass, just like on TV. We immediately bought the white cowboy hats, boots and chaps. All that was missing were some calves.

On the advice of a friend, we bought our first bull—a drop calf from a local dairy farm. Jim Pop gladly paid $35. (We were later to learn that most farmers gave a way drop claves for free—but like I said, we were from the City).

Why Jim Pop named him Jupiter, I can’t recall. But it soon became apparent that he needed a pal. So, we hopped in the back of the ’50 GMC pickup (no, no one wore seat belts) and Jim Pop drove us down to the auction.

Even with our hats, bolo ties, belt buckles and new boots, a live cattle auction is not the most hospitable place for city folk. Especially ones who’d never seen a cow up close and thought that if they had horns they were bulls.

The smell of manure and hay was almost aromatic. The spitting of tobacco juice, d’ rigueur.

The auctioneer spoke so fast and rhythmically it sounded like a catcher chatting up a hitter, but instead of “Hey battah, battah, battah,” he was upping the price per pound from an eighth to a quarter to a half—in a staccato code which only the initiated could understand.

Each time he looked our way, Jim Pop would raise his hand and (pretending he knew what he was doing) and the price would go up another eighth of a cent. All they had to do was look at us, and Jim Pop’s hand would go up and he’d bid against himself, until the hardened old pros (having had their sport) took pity on the interlopers and mercifully ended the bidding.

Well, we bought, and named Geronimo (after all, he was our first sitting bull). A white faced Hereford with broad shoulders, we’d raise him for slaughter, just like real cowboys.

Alas, he became Jupiter’s pal and another family pet. We fed him oats from a coffee can, rode him like a donkey with only a halter on, and they both ran in from the fields when their names were called.

They were like dogs, but had been purchased for beef. Finally, Jim Pop told us Bulls don’t make for good meet. How do we make them steers?

He had to be joking. So this is what real cowboys do?

We called them. “Lassoed them--then held them down. Dr. Talcott pulled out his knife and a clipper which looked like pliers.

Grandma Beeb explained that this is what they did in the old days to boys to ensure their voices wouldn’t change in the Vienna Boys Choir. Never was I happier that I was tone deaf.

When Dr. Talcott was through, it occurred to me, Geronimo and Jupiter might not come next time they were called.

I’m not sure they ever forgave us our trespasses. We tried to make it up to them by getting them more friends. We added Charlie Brown, Lucy and Orlando—drop calves who had to be fed milk from a bucket. Babe the Milk cow followed. We were building the herd and providing lots of laughs to the real cowboys at the auction. (Next Week: Today’s real Cowboys).






















Jeffrey Earl Warren
James Warren & Son
1414 Main St.
St. Helena, Ca.
94574
707-963-2748





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape in the new year.