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In reply to the discussion: Why Do Conservatives Love Cowboy Culture? [View all]hunter
(38,311 posts)My last immigrant ancestor was a mail-order bride to Salt Lake City. She didn't like sharing a husband so she ran off with a monogamous guy and they established a ranching homestead that's still a long ways from the nearest WalMart. My mom's cousin still owns the ranch.
Other ancestors of mine were the sort who jumped off the boats in San Francisco and hit the ground running. They weren't especially seeking any golden opportunity here, they were escaping worse shit.
None of my ancestors spent any time in East Coast or Civil War U.S.A.. Many were cowboy religious pacifists and dissidents.
The cowboy traditions in our family continue. By the time they are ten years old the girls in my family will be bossing horses about. It always strikes me incongruous that a giant animal can be told where to go by a little kid. By the time they are sixteen they'll be taking on horses that make grown men nervous. I've got three nieces whose childhood bedrooms were filled with ribbons and trophies for horsemanship. All the girls in my family are fierce athletes. In my generation they started graduating from college too.
The woman in our family tend to be the hunting-fishing knives-and-shooting sorts, and their men dreamers. My dad learned hunting and fishing from his grandma. Fools and their guns are soon parted. Most men are considered fools.
One of my great grandmas, a rancher, was still complaining about rural electrification when I was a kid. My great grandfather had been an enthusiastic supporter of rural electrification, mostly because it made his radio habit a whole lot easier. He later had some supplemental income as a lineman, both telephone and power, especially in the winter snow and ice. But I remember my great grandma arguing with my mom's cousin when he decided to buy a Sears well pump for the big house so his wife could have running water in the kitchen. My great grandma thought such extravagance would ruin the family. My great grandma lived in the small, older house with no indoor plumbing. She was deeply suspicious of the two forty watt electric light bulbs and the damned radio she had never forgiven her husband for. As kids we were not allowed to touch the light switches or the radio.
My wife's Wild West traditions are even deeper, since she has Native American ancestors, Southwest U.S.A. and Northern Mexico. Her family also has strongly matriarchal traditions.
My wife's grandma's family had been forced into Mexico by the U.S. Army. My wife's grandma later brought her Mexican husband back into the U.S.A. and they were farm workers. My wife's dad was born in a tent camp near a small farm my parents once owned.
That rural place is long gone. It's all been turned into million dollar mini-ranches where affluent white guys driving expensive cars can pretend to be cowboys. They're not all that different than the pickup truck driving WalMart gun shooting talk radio cowboy hicks of the modern Wild West. That New York city slicker Donald Trump sure pulled one over on them.