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Documentary, American Experience - S01E06 - Do You Mean There Are Still Real Cowboys (November 8, 1988)
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00:00you play hard and you work hard whatever if it has to be done you do it if i get on a horse i
00:12want something to do i want some cattle to work or i want to be breaking it or something like that
00:17as near as i can tell you it's in the blood you're too dumb to get any other kind of a job
00:22so you got to take next best and that's cowboying tonight on the american experience do you mean
00:29there are still real cowboys
00:59so
01:02so
01:06major funding for this series is provided by the corporation for public broadcasting
01:09and by this station and other public television stations nationwide
01:13major funding for this series is provided by the corporation for public broadcasting and by this
01:35station and other public television stations nationwide
01:39corporate funding for the american experience is provided by aetna insurance and financial services
01:47for more than 130 years a part of the american experience
01:53hello i'm david mccullough we americans according to the department of labor now have some 21 000
02:02different jobs to choose from one of them still is being a cowboy the great heyday of the old west
02:09cowboys was a century ago they were nearly all young tough and very low paid about one out of every
02:16three was either black or mexican the cowboy we know best of course is a stalwart fellow named luke or
02:22slim or rooster we've been with him on countless adventures in books and on the screen
02:28he's part of us he's been around as long nearly as the real thing the first western a novel called
02:34the virginian by owen wister was published in 1902 to understand life in the past it often helps to look
02:42at life in the present do you mean there are still real cowboys is a film about hard-working ways
02:48and old values that carry on generation to generation in one remote corner of wyoming
02:54where the antithubs of wyoming
05:03During my visits there, when I went with him on his rounds and met some of his patients,
05:08I became acquainted with people whose way of life seemed so fragile,
05:13poised as it was on the edge of 20th century progress.
05:16I became determined to try to record a small part of their life on film before it's gone forever.
05:23In a 7,000 foot high valley with the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop, 4,000 people living off 47,000 cattle.
05:42For this is cowboy country, and this film is about a year in the life of these people and their land.
05:49A people who have been the stuff of myths and movies, living in this, one of the least populated corners of the United States.
05:59Well, Big Piney got its name, they tell me, from these big pines.
06:12The trappers used to come through and they'd say, so far up from the Green River, they'd say, I'll meet you at the big pines.
06:20And they would maybe meet in the spring, in May, and then in the fall, maybe the latter part of October or 1st of November,
06:31why, they'd meet again, and then they'd go on south, back into the warmer country.
06:40By 1876, the first land-hungry settlers made this their permanent home.
06:46Dropping off from the Oregon Trail, they built their homesteads and grazed their cattle on the open range.
06:52Now the range is fenced in, but running cattle is still one of the few reasons for being here.
07:04Well, as near as I can tell you, it's in the blood.
07:08You're too dumb to get any other kind of a job, such as mechanic or electrician or whatever.
07:14You're too dumb to do that, so you've got to take next best, and that's cowboying.
07:18Or herding sheep.
07:22You have one or the other.
07:25But it's a good life, a wet life.
07:30You're out in the open all the time, if you understand the weather, you've got to have a lot of clothes.
07:37It sure doesn't pay very much.
07:39It sure don't, you bet not.
07:47What do you see?
07:48You see Clint Eastwood riding across the prairies, and he never has to really work too hard.
07:52But he's a cowboy, or you see the ranch is on Dallas, the TV program.
07:59Well, that looks pretty romantic to me, too.
08:01But when you're up to your knees and cow manure, and it's 2 o'clock in the morning, you kind of lose the romance.
08:10Your boot gets stuck, stays back behind you, and you step with your socks and feet in the next step.
08:15For a century, these people and their families have made a pretty good living out of cowboying.
08:21Now there's electricity and pickup trucks, but most of the fundamentals haven't changed much.
08:28It's always been a life dominated by the seasons, and strictly for the rugged.
08:35The long drives, the stench of the bunkhouse, the grease-filled plates, the broken leg with a doctor 50 miles away.
08:44From the beginning, Hollywood saw in this a rich vein to be tapped, but the celluloid romance was always a bit of a myth.
08:51Cowboying's a romantic life at times, but most of the time it's a lot of work.
09:01Riding out across there, you know, you feel the wind and everything, it feels good.
09:06That horse I was riding today weighs about 1,100 pounds, and you get that much muscle moving underneath you.
09:11It feels neat just to have a horse move underneath you, and there's something to go that fast.
09:16It's an animal.
09:18Like I was saying, it's dangerous just as easy as it is romantic.
09:22Gordy Bray, a 23-year-old fourth-generation cowboy, he works for the Mickelson clan, like his grandmother and grandfather did before him.
09:31It's one of many branding days this spring here at the Mickelsons, formidable ranch owners with more than 3,000 cattle to their name, and 35,000 deeded acres to run them on.
09:50The Mickelsons, five generations of cattlemen whose founding patriarch came here penniless from Denmark in 1882.
09:58Land then was $1.25 an acre.
10:02By 1915, the Mickelsons had become Piney's largest landowners.
10:10Everyone is roped in to help with the branding, and if you don't have it in the blood, you certainly will learn it the hard way, at the rear end of a struggling calf.
10:22Today branding, people don't think that's hard, but you get a 200, 210,000.
10:28You get a 10-pound calf down, and those calves have a lot of muscle in them, and you don't realize it until you really get one on the ground and start husking that thing around.
10:37And I've seen a lot of stout kids, football players, college football players and athletes try to wrestle a calf when I was 15 years old, and I wasn't that stout.
10:46So I had to use finesse to get those calves on the ground, and they were using brute strength, and I could get them on the ground easier with finesse than they could with brute strength.
10:55So there's a lot of...
10:56You've got to really pay attention to what you're doing because you can get hurt.
11:00There's just no ifs about it.
11:02That's good.
11:03I'll hold the back of this ground.
11:06Right there.
11:09Most people have trouble worrying about what they're going to be and what they're going to do and how they're going to make their life and mold it into what they want it to be.
11:20But I never had that problem.
11:21I always knew what I was going to do.
11:23I was going to be a rancher, and I loved the work.
11:26And when I was a kid, we used to ride calves off of this hill out here, and my dad would run along behind with a rope, and if they couldn't buck us off, he'd jerk them out from under us.
11:35He'd show us how.
11:36And I don't know.
11:37I just grew up in that vein, and I've loved it all my life, and I intend on staying here the rest of my life and do the same thing.
11:44It's a very satisfying, very gratifying life.
11:47I don't know.
11:49You can communicate with nature.
11:52You can communicate with the Lord.
11:54You can communicate with about anybody you want to out here.
11:57It's just very interesting, and it's a wonderful place to raise a family.
12:01We've raised seven kids, and none of them have been in jail.
12:05They've all done well, and we're proud of them.
12:08That's about it.
12:17They're changing officers again at Big Piney's Job's Daughters.
12:26The Masonic Order's secrecy is temporarily lifted for this public ceremony, as Masons and their womenfolk meet to celebrate with their freshly scrubbed and polished offspring.
12:36In Stalling Guide and Stalling Marshal, you will conduct the Stalling Officers to their respective seats.
12:43Job's daughters have been part of the Masonic Order since 1920.
12:48Since then, from age 11, girls like these have been taught to respect their elders and to honor God and country.
12:55I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
13:15It is with pleasure that I introduce to you, Mae Mickelson, who is past Most Worthy Grand Matron of the General Grand Chapter.
13:25Grandma Mickelson.
13:27As Grand Matron of the Eastern Star, she was once the highest-ranking officer in the world of the group formed by wives, widows, and daughters of Masons.
13:36Masonry and cowboying may seem strange bedfellows, but even 90 years ago, these girls' forebears would ride up to 130 miles for the fellowship of the regular Masons' meetings.
13:52Just next door to the Masons' Hall, the Waterhole Saloon offers a different kind of fellowship.
14:02Waterhole Days, one of Big Piney's more recently created rituals.
14:06Gary Lozier, a Mickelson Ranch foreman, who's been here for two days.
14:18Old Paul Granson's ex-son-in-law, Clint Johnson, Nita Johnson.
14:23Oh, yeah, right.
14:24That Clint's up to the Bronx Riding Pool.
14:26Yeah.
14:27Sitting in a sack of girls, all in on, they want some fun with you.
14:34You play hard and you work hard.
14:53Whatever, if it has to be done, you do it.
14:55You get a little slack time, you go to the saloon and hoop and holler and squeal and beller and whatever you got to do.
15:00I got married to a nice little gal, and I got married.
15:04Like today, I've been drunk two days, screwing around, hooping and holler and having a good time.
15:08But Gordon won't say shit to me until, or excuse me, whatever he said.
15:13This is the way I talk all the time.
15:14And he won't say nothing to me, but when work has to be done, I get it done.
15:19I probably see my boss maybe five times a year, unless I go over to the home place at the 67.
15:25And other than that, I never seen him, because he trusts me.
15:27Cowboys and alcohol have enjoyed a long and event-filled friendship.
15:33Many is the drinking session that would last for days on end,
15:37as men who had labored for months without a break headed into town when times were slack,
15:42or at the end of a long cattle drive, to drink until their money gave out.
15:47Times haven't changed much, it would seem.
15:49This is my spring break, is what it amounts to.
15:51You feed 11, 1200 head of cows with a pitchfork, and then you get a day or two break.
15:57You get a few cattle scattered out on the BLM, and they say,
16:00Oh Christ, let's go to town and party with your friends.
16:06Spring is calving time, but not every cowboy around here is a hard-drinking, hard-living son-of-a-gun.
16:12I used to ride in my dad's lap from the time I was about two days old until I was about two years old,
16:17and then I had my own horse and started riding all the time.
16:19And I'm not the type of person that can go out and do a lot of pleasure riding.
16:23If I get on a horse, I want something to do.
16:26I want some cattle to work, or I want to be breaking it, or something like that.
16:36I was a business administration major in college,
16:39and it just didn't seem like it was something I really wanted to do the rest of my life.
16:45And I was raised here, and I was really anxious to come back.
16:48Surprisingly, perhaps, Wyoming was the first state to let women vote back in 1869.
16:56But women here have always had to be hardworking and resourceful, independent and strong.
17:02Today, it may be more common to find a young single woman trying her hand at ranching,
17:07not simply the dutiful wife of a cowboy.
17:09But a woman with ambitions of her own must still confront old attitudes.
17:15I think they have a tendency to be kind of...
17:19I won't say chauvinistic, but they have a tendency to want to...
17:23to think I can't do it until I prove I can't.
17:27I guess that's the way to put that.
17:29You've got to prove to them that you can do it
17:33before they're really willing to give you a chance.
17:36You're going straight?
17:38Yeah.
17:46The veterinary techniques may be basic, but they're effective,
17:50as Kathy and her stepbrother Mike ease the way for a new addition to the Miller herd.
17:55It's certainly not the ideal way to enter the world.
18:25But within hours, this stunned newly-born was in perfect shape.
18:29You're right, man.
18:31That's right.
18:50Water is our lifeline up here.
18:52If we don't have water, we don't have anything.
18:54And our rainfall isn't enough to do you any good.
18:58A rainfall helps you, but it won't make your crop.
19:02We irrigate.
19:04And if we didn't irrigate, why, we'd be out of luck.
19:08A hundred years ago, they didn't irrigate.
19:11They just kept the cattle out on the range.
19:14They would have range riders.
19:15They would go out and ride and find out where the snow wasn't so deep and then push these cattle over to these places where there wasn't too deep of snow and leave them and hope that they could winter.
19:26And that's the year that they could walk on carcasses from Sublet County clear to Green River City.
19:38They never made that mistake again after 1890.
19:41Even 77-year-old John Chrisman, whose father lost his entire herd that winter, can still be found digging his ditches.
19:49Now this land is irrigated, but once Wyoming was called the Great American Desert.
19:55The only trouble we ever had with anybody over there was over water.
20:00We had to irrigate, and it seemed as though the first fellow on the ditch got the most water.
20:05So we had a little trouble that way.
20:08But people cared a lot.
20:10If anybody was sick, everybody came and took care of it.
20:14And when people died, everybody came, and they all mourned with them and grieved and brought them food and took care of them that way.
20:24You know, people were just people.
20:27All through the years, people are just people.
20:32And in those days, we didn't have all the dope, all that stuff, but people drank.
20:41We had drunks around just like we have now.
20:45And we had law enforcement officers.
20:48They were pretty lenient and pretty careful.
20:51But they took very good care of us all.
20:54And as I remember, everything was very judiciously and very humanely handled.
21:02Memorial Day, the official end of spring, and four generations of Mickelsons come together to remember and honor the dead and to tidy up the family plot.
21:20Well, those porcupines really make a big deposit here.
21:28Yeah, they do.
21:29They really like this spot right here.
21:31Yeah.
21:31You know why, don't you?
21:33Yep.
21:33Got some trees here.
21:34On account of those pine trees.
21:36You can see under the hill here was where my folks lived.
21:42And this year, about 1902, my mother had a baby that was stillborn.
21:47And my dad said to her, she was in pretty bad shape at the time.
21:53She was almost died from childbirth.
21:56My dad said, well, now, where do you want me to bury this baby?
21:59And, well, she says, just bury him out where I can see the grave out of the bedroom window.
22:04This was on his land at the time.
22:06And he brought the baby up here and buried it.
22:10And that was the starting of this cemetery.
22:13That was the first grave that was put up here.
22:15You see, Mr. Jensen, here, Jimmy Jensen, hasn't anything on his...
22:21We have numerous fellows buried over there that had worked at the ranch, you know, for 20, 30 years.
22:27And you think of them just like they were your own when you go out for on Memorial Day.
22:32As far as I'm concerned, I've tried to treat everybody in a fair way.
22:39And wherever I could, I tried to help people along.
22:42And I'd like to think that after I'm gone, that they'll have a sort of a kind feeling toward me anyway.
22:59You were an old sagebrush rider.
23:01You rode for to stay.
23:03You didn't ride for prettiness.
23:04You rode for stay a long time.
23:07That's a mistake I made when I pulled his tail.
23:10I left it long.
23:12You wouldn't switch, got the rope under his tail.
23:14Yeah, that's right, Ari.
23:15Yeah, yeah.
23:16He could buck a fair lick, too.
23:18Yes, he could.
23:22There wasn't a lot of cattle in the country then, Ari.
23:26Three times more than there is now.
23:27Yeah, and sheep to boot.
23:29Oh, yeah.
23:29Yeah, there was a lot of sheep.
23:31A lot of cattle.
23:33But you had a lot of good help, too.
23:36Oh, hell yes.
23:37You didn't have no guns since then.
23:39They was all cowboys.
23:40That's right.
23:40That's right, Ari.
23:41I get so damn bad at Bill McGinnis.
23:44The help you'd send me out on the roundup, I had to do my riding and theirs, too.
23:48When white settlers first came here, they didn't have to fight the Indians for this land.
23:55It was theirs for the taking.
23:57Millers, Mickelsons, Fears, Buds, they dominated this valley.
24:02And when they and their neighbors moved here, there was maybe only one person for every ten square miles.
24:08Enough land for the most land-hungry.
24:11For the first time in over 50 years, 92-year-old Inez Finnegan, together with her grandson Chris, visits the place she once called home.
24:28We had a cabin on that when we were first.
24:31In 1912, she moved here to homestead this land everyone now calls Inez's bottom.
24:37So we just lived in that.
24:40She and her husband built this cabin 75 years ago before he went off to the First World War, never to return.
24:47And it was here that her son Clifford, now 73, was first raised.
24:52Clifford was, he was just a baby then.
24:54We all, we, the first cabin we had, it had a dirt floor and one time there was a fella come by and he was stealing horses.
25:09And I watched him and he scared me because I saw him ride down here and then he come back.
25:16And I took Clifford and went up on that side hill and got where he couldn't see me and stayed there till I saw him go down and he went and stole the horse from my father-in-law on that ranch down there.
25:31What's your fondest memory that you'd like all of us grandkids to remember?
25:37Oh, just that I got you, I guess.
25:42Well, I wished we could come up here and do that.
25:51Just like you did, but they won't let us.
25:53No.
25:55I don't think we could do it like you did.
25:57We're not as tough as y'all were.
25:58Yeah.
26:00July 4th, high summer in small town USA is putting on a show.
26:08For these Americans, words like independence and freedom reflect a way of life, a cowboy way of life, with no bosses breathing down your neck, on the open range, under the open skies.
26:25In the afternoon, the annual Chuck Wagon Days Rodeo, a tradition since the 1930s.
26:31John Christman's daughter, Pam, is the flag carrier, accompanied by a taped heavenly choir.
26:37John Christman's daughter, Pam, is the flagcam
26:56And yet, if you're not on your own town, let us know.
27:02This is a time for cowboys and cowgirls alike to show off their skills, skills normally
27:25used to earn a living. I don't really feel like the West is male oriented. I think that women
27:33here are very liberated. You know, I've never had any trouble, anything I want to do. Men
27:37have never tried to stop me. I enjoy men a lot. I really enjoy working with them. I love
27:48to ride with the cowboys. In fact, I always wanted to be a cowboy all my life. That's
27:52one reason I married Mike is because of my gender. I couldn't be one, so I just, the
27:57next best thing is to marry one.
27:59He took the hard way down. Give him a big hand. Because that's all he's going to pick
28:05up from us. Sooner or later, when you ride bulls, you're going to get hurt. All it takes
28:08is one to step on you and you're hurt. Bad. Broken bones wherever bull steps.
28:12Who is this guy? Mike's bull riding never used to scare me, but it does now because
28:17he's past the age. You know, he's, he's 32 now and usually guys only ride to about
28:22their mid-twenties. And it's just kind of concerned me lately.
28:25Mike Miller!
28:27For risking his life on top of three quarters of a ton of heaving, pounding killer, Mike
28:33takes home a hundred and fifty dollars prize money.
28:36He's got himself up over the top, reaches down, grabs the tail, gets away, and that is.
28:39Mike Miller is your captain. We'll give him a big hand!
28:43It's not the money, though, that draws them here. It's their culture. And it's in the blood
28:48that flows through their western veins.
28:50Special thanks to our clown out in the arena.
28:52Well, you know, you think about them now and they call them the good old days, and I think
29:16if we'd known there were the good old days, we might have enjoyed them a little more.
29:20Because everybody worked.
29:23Yeah, you couldn't need anybody to ride forty miles horseback a day.
29:27They'd have to put a horse in the trailer and hauling.
29:30We used to have to ride forty, fifty miles and then work cows all day and then ride home.
29:35Maybe you'd get back midnight.
29:38One guy told me, he said, God damn, I couldn't sleep all night thinking about that horse.
29:47I've got to ride in the morning.
29:50And when you got bucked off up there, it wasn't just somebody come pick you up.
29:55You don't want that rain in spite of hell, because you may be thirty, forty miles from getting back home to the camp.
30:03They were cowboy horses, Ari.
30:12You know that.
30:13You couldn't turn those horses over to a greenhorn.
30:16They'd kill them.
30:17Sure.
30:18And that's why I think back, boy, go out and crawl on those horses in the morning when it's frosty and cold.
30:27If they bucked all right, if they didn't all right.
30:30A good cowboy was a man that could, he could handle any kind of a horse.
30:36And he was always watching to see if he could, if somebody else was in trouble, he could give them a hand.
30:43And if the day wasn't long enough, he'd put in what part of the night that he had to, to get his work done.
30:49And he was an easy fella to get along with.
30:52As long as you left him alone and you minded your business, he'd mind his.
30:58But don't cross him.
30:59I'd like to see a lot of people that work in town come out and take my place for a week.
31:07You're sitting on that horse, you think the horse is making all the miles and everything, but by the time you get done riding back and forth across that herd, hollering, jumping up and down, just doing anything to make those cattle go, it's a lot of work involved into it.
31:26Eighteen hours in the saddle, looking up the backside of a cow can certainly take the romance out of the cigarette commercial.
31:33But at least today, no one has to sleep out on the open range.
31:38Thirty years ago, it took five days to herd the cattle 70 miles to market.
31:43The train doesn't stop here anymore.
31:58Opal, once the railhead for the county.
32:01Every year, tens of thousands of cattle were brought here by cowboys from hundreds of miles around.
32:08The supply of beef was great, but demand was even greater.
32:12So the Union Pacific Railroad would take the cattle to far off places like Omaha, Kansas City, or even Chicago.
32:21Now, it's done by road.
32:28Opal, they called it, because as each shipping season drew to a close, the cowboys said farewell to each other with,
32:35see you next year, old pal.
32:39I went into the saloon in Opal, and Mrs. Wade was in there by herself.
32:45This was long about nine o'clock one morning.
32:47And I said to her, I said, Mrs. Wade, I says, I've been out for a night or two here, and I'm getting pretty tired.
32:54You got a place I can have a little rest?
32:57She says, oh, sure. She says, pointed to the bedroom.
33:00She says, you can go in there and lie down on my bed and take a little rest.
33:04I'll shut the door and the people won't bother you.
33:06So that's what happened.
33:08In about 30 minutes before I got to sleep, good, here come my wife.
33:11She come busting in that sloon.
33:13She said, have you seen, said to this lady bartender, have you seen anything of my husband?
33:18The lady kind of hesitated and she looked around.
33:21She said, yes, yes, he's in there on my bed.
33:24So that didn't leave me in very good straits.
33:30I had a lot of explaining to do.
33:32The storms of time, of rain and sorrow, the mines of soot and sand, have worn away your faces glow, and oh, the flame above your hand.
33:46America looked and saw your need, all wind-worn and forlorn.
33:54For 60 years, the Sublette County Artists Association has been bringing the Ladies of the Valley together.
34:00At their twice monthly summer meetings, the members read offerings they've written for the occasion.
34:05Isn't this lovely?
34:07Today's topic, freedom and liberty.
34:10Frances makes it live.
34:12She is a colossus, huge and beautiful.
34:16Can you believe that her index fingers are 8 feet long, her nose is 4 feet long, she is 151 feet tall,
34:25and standing on the pedestal, she towers 300 feet from sea level to torch.
34:30May she be with us forever, 8 foot fingers holding the torch on high, and leading us on.
34:39One morning, I perched myself on the tiny wooden porch of the old wooden building that used to house the printing presses of the now extinct Big Pine Examiner.
34:48And this is what I heard as I posed this question.
34:51Tell me, Mr. Russell, what is liberty?
34:54Well, it means you can choose, and it means you can own land.
34:59No place else in the world can you own land as we do in America.
35:09We spend all four seasons of the year working on hay.
35:14We're either irrigating it, or we're fencing it, or we're putting it up, or we're feeding it out.
35:19It's one continual round of pleasure just trying to keep your haying operation going,
35:24where you can raise enough feed to feed your cattle in the wintertime.
35:28After all, all we have to sell really is the grass that we raise off the land.
35:33That's all we've got to sell.
35:35The only way to sell that is to put it into beef and sell the beef.
35:43There was lots of work.
35:45You worked on the ranches.
35:47You could work in the hayfield.
35:49And all my kids worked in the hayfield when they were just little.
36:01Haying the old way with loose stacks, horses, and children died out 25 years ago.
36:06It just took too many people and too much time to do it like this.
36:10And although machinery is expensive, he doesn't get drunk, demand higher wages, or move to the cities.
36:20Better to deal with machines than to try to find reliable help.
36:25A specific example today, the two hired men are often drunk,
36:29and we had to do the work of five cowboys with two of us plus a motorcycle.
36:33And it's not unusual.
36:37We get some people to help us sometimes.
36:39We use a lot of people that my boy knows in the oil field.
36:44On their days off, they've all got horses, they want exercise.
36:48I pay them a little money and they help us, and we get through it that way.
36:52Getting good, reliable, hired help is almost impossible right now, and that's what makes it difficult.
36:58Reliable help may have been more plentiful once, but few cowboys were ever by their nature 100% dependable.
37:09Cowboys and ranchers have always had their share of bad times, ever since people first pushed cows in these parts.
37:17Whole herds were lost to rustlers, disease, flood, or drought.
37:21But with almost biblical regularity, good times have followed bad.
37:27Times are hard once again, but this time the ranchers may have been the source of their own problems.
37:34And the fear is that the cattle business may never spring back.
37:38We got unheard of prices for cattle in 78 and 79.
37:43I personally didn't think I'd ever see them go below a dollar again.
37:48And the next year they didn't get below a dollar, but then they started dropping rapidly.
37:53Well, while this was going on, a lot of people thought,
37:57well, I can run that ranch next to me just as cheap as I can run this one.
38:02So I put the two of them together and I'm going to make it twice as fast.
38:05And that was part of the problem.
38:08The banks were completely in agreement.
38:11They wanted to loan money.
38:12They had lots of money to loan.
38:18This is payday.
38:21650 steers are off 1,000 miles by road to a feedlot in Little Sioux, Iowa.
38:28The thing that bothers me the most in the fall when we're getting the cattle into ship is
38:32something would scare them like a dog run out or somebody drive up in a car and they run back and lose weight.
38:39They can run off up to 10 pounds in 30 minutes or 15 minutes.
38:44And that all costs money.
38:47Every pound weight matters now as the rancher's income for the whole of the next year is weighed in the balance.
38:53You better call us on the commission to tell them to fix that bridge.
39:00What, from that one down there?
39:01Yeah, he went off, broke it.
39:02Okay.
39:0412,000.
39:06360.
39:08360 pounds.
39:10We get one payday a year and other businesses get paid every month or every three months.
39:15And if we have to borrow money to operate on, your interest just eats you up.
39:20That takes all your surplus and any profit you could make, the interest will eat it up.
39:26And it makes for a very disturbing situation.
39:29We can't hardly make ends meet that way.
39:31Even 100 years ago, paying the bills and the interest on loans was a delicate balance.
39:41But now beef consumption in the United States has dropped 17% in the last 10 years.
39:48What's worse, there's the new threat of foreign competition from Mexico, Argentina and Australia.
39:54Let's go cattle.
39:56It's a lethal combination.
39:57Every check we get, we run and pay the bank.
40:02We pay on the interest, we pay on the principal if we possibly can.
40:06We constantly hope that by the time we're done shipping, we have made enough money to pay all the interest and take some of it off of the principal.
40:16Some years you do and some years you don't.
40:19But we have no cash flow, we start borrowing money.
40:21If we pay our bills on the 1st of November, we start borrowing money on the 2nd of November.
40:29It's just that kind of a business.
40:32Mike, have you had a measurement on the hay this fall?
40:37No, we don't have an accurate measurement yet.
40:40There's a saying around here, hay in the field is money in the bank.
40:43As fall draws to a close, Mike Miller and his grandmother inspect their stacks.
40:50During the coming winter, each cow will consume a ton and a half of hay.
40:54There's sure a lot of good hay in it.
40:56She won't know about the pasture either until you find out if it's going to be in early winter.
41:02Yeah, that's right.
41:03Because we have enough pasture for usual, don't we?
41:06Yeah, until January.
41:08That's what I thought.
41:10We'll just have to wait and see how the weather turns, I guess.
41:24It was a habit with everybody in the country that knowing that they were going to be snowed in all winter,
41:31why they'd better make their preparations in the fall.
41:34And so by October, the latest, why we would buy all of our groceries that we figured would last us through the winter.
41:42And I mean at that time, why you figured pretty close because you didn't want to run out,
41:47especially sugar or something of that kind, flour.
41:49And then we'd buy our potatoes and carrots, all the vegetables,
41:54and flour by the hundred sack and sugar by the hundred sack.
41:58We had to figure that that was going to last us until practically the last of May, at the very earliest.
42:06In the winter, we were snowed in, all the roads were closed,
42:10so the only way to get around was either on skis or snowshoes, horseback or the sled.
42:15Well, I forget what winter it was. What winter was that heavy snow? Do you remember?
42:20Well, we had quite a few heavy snows when you were here.
42:24When you was using four head of horses?
42:26Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did most every winter.
42:28Yeah, yeah.
42:30But anyway, we brought those cattle in and I told my brother
42:34I wanted him to scatter that hay in the upper field.
42:36But he had to put it down here on account of the snow.
42:38The next morning, we put on four and started up there and the snow was over the leader back in places.
42:50There was days like today, it's overcast, but it's warm.
42:55There were days when the sun's shining, it can be like this.
42:58You can go along, going into the house, you always take hay in for your horses.
43:01I'd lay down on my rack on the hay and I'd take my shirt off and get a suntan on the way in.
43:08And then other days, the wind's blowing and it's cold and snowy.
43:12I'd take my bales and just build a little kind of a house at the front of my sled
43:17and crawl inside that to get in and out of the wind.
43:19You learn all kinds of tricks after you do it for a while.
43:26Enjoyable.
43:27If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't do it, I guess.
43:34What people don't see up here is you have to respect Mother Nature.
43:38It's been here a lot longer than we have and it's still going to be here when we're gone.
43:43So you always got to be thinking about what could happen.
43:45So you've got to dress warm, you've got to respect things.
43:49And right now, I can tell you right now, those horses are a lot smarter
43:52at what's going on up here than I am.
43:54So they're teaching me a lot.
43:56Let's get the spots up here.
43:57Over by the beach or place.
43:59We ran it for 45 minutes before we ever got it caught.
44:04Are you talking about something that's quick?
44:06Yeah, they are.
44:08Tony got one down there on the bench.
44:09Dear Heavenly Father, bless all the family gathered around this table.
44:16For all these and my many mercies and blessings we thank thee. Amen.
44:21Amen.
44:23Okay.
44:24We work hard all year long to produce and raise all of these vegetables.
44:30Champagne and chandeliers, the rewards of a century of successful ranching.
44:37Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.
44:39Beef has provided a kind of old world elegance as four generations give thanks for the success of their dynasty.
44:46It's been one with long hours in the saddle, smart deals, and strong family bonds.
44:53All of these people that really believe in preparing themselves has got wood piled up against their doors.
45:00How much wood have you got piled up against your door?
45:03I don't have a door that's that low enough to pile it to.
45:06Being married into the Mickelsons is like being married into a dynasty.
45:09Tradition, demands, devotion, allegiance, and hard work, and the organizations that the family feels you should belong to, such as the Masonic affiliated organizations, the political organizations within the county government or state government.
45:28All these organizations are part of the things that make a production like what a big family like this comes from.
45:36Jimmy just told me it was a hooky-thompson place, that's all I know.
45:39I think you're a pretty good provider, Jimmy.
45:41How about this? It never did get started around.
45:44That was your r-do's.
45:53For generations, providing food for the herd in winter has dominated life here.
45:59Gordon Nicholson helps one of his brothers-in-law clear a trail through five feet of snow to a different feed ground nine miles away.
46:12It's an all-day enterprise beginning at sunrise.
46:15These harsh winter months that can last as much as half a year are an unforgiving time for beast and man.
46:26We got up at 50 below that one morning.
46:29They took two little boys, brothers, and put them on this one horse and gave them a lunch pail to carry.
46:40That's all they had.
46:41And, of course, their coats and things were strapped on.
46:45Marvin was in the front and his face was frozen.
46:49It was all frosted, pure white, and poor little Henry was sitting behind having to hold that foolish old lunch pail, and that froze his hand.
46:57I couldn't hear anything at first, but the second time I went to the door, it was about five minutes to nine, I thought I could hear crying.
47:08And I went back and listened again, and sure enough, I could hear these little boys crying.
47:13They were coming on their horseback, Marvin in front and Henry in the back, coming into school, and just frozen.
47:27I rode in there just a little bit before dark, and it was 56 below.
47:37Oh.
47:39I never will forget that, I'll tell you.
47:41I thought I was going to freeze to death.
47:43That's right.
47:45Riding in a good fast trot all the time.
47:47Yeah.
47:48The next morning I left there, it was about 10 o'clock.
47:51Waited to have warmed up a little, and I wanted to come on to Charlie Noble's.
47:54Mm-hmm.
47:56And that done me that trip, I'll tell you.
47:57I swore then I'd never go again, but I did.
48:00You bet it was tough going, and that was cold riding, Harry.
48:02Oh, hell.
48:04And you didn't have any of this insulated...
48:06Hell, no, you didn't.
48:07...carbon.
48:08Mm-mm.
48:09You used to wrap newspaper around your legs for insulation.
48:11I've done that.
48:12Around your feet.
48:13Mm-hmm.
48:14Yeah.
48:22You have everything in your hands.
48:29You have everything under control.
48:34Oh.
48:37In the Congregational Church, the newest Mickelson is being baptized.
48:41I praise you.
48:44The clan is assembled to welcome this fifth generation son of the West into the fold.
48:50They are very strong-minded.
48:52They are hard workers.
48:54They're egotistical.
48:57They probably drink and play just as hard as they work.
49:02Most men, and frankly, every man, needs God's outlook on life.
49:09They're very gentle, very caring, very cultural men.
49:13They aren't just farmers.
49:15They aren't just cattlemen.
49:17And the smartest thing that women can remember is not to cross them.
49:21That's the most important thing, I think.
49:23To dedicate, Bill Alexander.
49:26In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
49:29The great three in one, the one in three.
49:31Okay.
49:33There he is.
49:34There's an ex-president of the United States.
49:38Beautiful, isn't he?
49:41Lord bless Bill Alexander.
49:43Make him a special instrument of my feet.
49:45Make him a special instrument of my feet.
49:46Make him a special instrument of my feet.
49:49with the new season new problems the economic climate has failed yet again
50:19to provide the regeneration that the ranchers require people are going broke those who have
50:28borrowed heavily are in serious trouble there isn't going to be a bud herd anymore the buds were
50:42one of the founding families of the valley 100 years ago they moved here with their cattle but
50:48now every cow calf and bull has been sold to keep the land from being repossessed
51:01it's a tragedy in which traditional ways and traditional methods have failed good solid
51:07people as the man who has overseen this particular calamity has found I have some real emptiness you
51:15know it was like you know ripping my whole innards out you know when we loaded those cows and sold
51:22them and I guess to be very realistic about it I'm you know I'm not blaming myself I don't think we
51:32made too many bad mistakes and if we did we didn't do it twice and it's just it's just the times have
51:40changed and we have to address that we're not trying to get rich we're just trying to make a living
51:47as a hundred years of tradition is trucked away to another state many ask is this then the end of an
51:54era the end of the West as we know it I think the chances are are high that maybe it is the end of an era
52:02sad as it may be it's a tough thing to swallow believe me that same conservatism and pride and
52:11individualism that once built the West is now ironically the main obstacle to change we haven't
52:18changed we haven't changed our method of operation we haven't changed our way of marketing we haven't
52:23changed anything I can go through my diaries and find it within one week I'm doing the same damn thing
52:33every year branding or haying or moving cattle or what have you
52:50is this perhaps then the future for the modern American cowboy man and horse and nature gives way
52:57to man and machine covering thousands of acres at a time Ken Gaio his three sons and a friend can ride
53:06this sixty thousand acre field in a matter of hours until just recently it would have taken many men many
53:13days it's hard to accept a new change like it isn't any type of business and I feel that the older rancher
53:22did have a problem accepting the motorcycle the same way as they did have accepting the car from
53:31over the buggy in this area progress rolls on and I think you have to utilize the tools that you have to
53:37even make somewhat of a living and a goal in this age what we've all got to face is to condense be more
53:44thrifty in our operations try and curtail our living standards that we've let get out of hand for the last 20
53:51years it's awfully hard to go back or it's a simple matter of arithmetic you're going to go down the drain
54:03oh of course we used to have lots of good times are we like these barn dances they used to have
54:10they'd come and they'd uh dance all night and then sleep all day and then maybe they'd get up and dance
54:15again tomorrow night and if somebody come by with a fiddle there's going to be a dance tonight
54:30i was always told uh if you're dumb and you know it you're all right but if you're dumb and think
54:36you're smart there's no help for you unless you surround yourself with smart people
54:40if you're my neighbor and you're making a million dollars over here i'm going to come over and see
54:48what you're doing maybe i can get a little of that too and i'll throw in with you you bet you
54:56well the best memory that i have of it would be a lot of good horses to ride and uh a lot of your
55:04friends and after you get old and kind of crippled up why you can't do it anymore why it makes you want
55:12to go to thinking back the friends that you've had you know the cowboys they're kind of a breed of their
55:18own
55:18the way i look at it that there'll be a certain amount of our present life carry on through the
55:30younger generation but when the old ones are gone and the big part of it will be all changed completely
55:38when that has happened we may have lost a small part of ourselves for with their passing we might
55:45finally have witnessed the death of a kind of innocence in america and only hollow myth and rhetoric
55:52will remain but the paradox is that to survive these people must change and in changing they lose that
56:01very quality of life they would wish to preserve thank you very much thank you
56:31so
56:39so
56:45so
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