Customer Reviews

Panhandle Cowboy

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This is a solid 5-star book for any reader interested in the day-to-day, season-by-season work of cowboying and running a ranch. The author describes in this well-written book his four years (1974-78) of single-handedly managing a cow-calf operation on 5000 acres of sandy grassland in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The writing is precise and informative, full of love for the life he has chosen, admiration for the hard-working men who are his friends and neighbors, and a deepening understanding of the ranch's four not-always-cooperative horses.

There's also a good deal of humor in the book, much of it owing to the particularly unmanageable nature of the cattle on the ranch. An episode of fruitlessly chasing two wild cows through a series of pasture fences made it into a collection of cowboy humor called "Horsing Around," by Lawrence Clayton and Kenneth Davis. We also read how the author gets a reputation for picking the worst weather for fall roundups. The book ends on a soberer note, as Erickson is told that the ranch is being sold and that he's out of a job. While he's happy enough to clear the ranch of the hateful cattle that have tried his patience, there's a bittersweetness as he parts with the horses that we've come to know so well.

This is the first, and maybe best, of a series of books by the author about his ranching experiences. It was followed by "Cowboy Country" and "LZ Cowboy." As in the others, the text of this book is illustrated with a number of nicely selected black and white photographs. Larry McMurtry has some interesting words to say about cowboys by way of introduction (he's usually not so appreciative). Thanks to the University of Nebraska Press for keeping this fine book in print. Readers will also enjoy Ben K. Green's "Wild Cow Tales" and Thomas McGuane's "Some Horses."

Anyone who still thinks the cowboy life is one of great romance - man and animal working in harmony under a blissful sky in wide open country, free and independent, the epitome of Jeffersonian democracy at work - had better read this honest, eyes-wide-open account of ranch life today. Although cowboyng was never really like the myths made it out to be, for some reason the myths took firm root. John Erickson worked for four years in the 1970s on a ranch in the Oklahoma panhandle, and this is his warts-and-all account of his experiences. Unlike in the myths, herding cattle is hard, sometimes brutal work, made even worse by harsh weather conditions, unpredictable animals, unending routine (read tedious) tasks, and cut-throat business practices (this last might be the cruelest of all). Not to say there aren't good times - close friends, favorite horses, handsome views when the wind lays down and time permits noticing - but Erickson makes clear that these good times are only oases in a Sahara of hardships. Not that he's complaining about that - just making an observation. But even Erickson can't resist the mythologizing and romancing completely, and where the book apparently ends at a livestock auction where he sells his favorite horse to (he assumes) a meat-packing plant, the horse is miraculously saved at the last minute and sent to a ranch in Montana: "I can see him now," Erickson writes, "standing in a green meadow with the Montana mountains blue in the distance." Myths, thank God, do not die easy deaths. A well-written, informative, and honest account of punching cattle on the open range.