Ted's Ramblins'
How does a cowboy dress? By
Ted Garcia
This Ramblin’ introduces I. Ted Garcia,
our Ranch Driver and also one of our Reservations Wranglers. He’s
a very special guy! I know you’ll enjoy getting to know him.-- Boss Lady
When the Boss Lady first approached me about driving our guests
out to the Ranch, I was a little bit more than worried. Upon first
glance, you probably wouldn’t think, “Now, there’s a cowboy.” You
see I didn’t grow up riding horses, or doing much around any ranch.
That’s not to say I don’t consider myself a good working hand. Besides,
my heart has always been that of a cowboy.
You see, I grew up in a west Texas barrio sandwiched between a dairy
farm to one side and cotton fields to the other. Out in that Texas
desert working the dairy cows some winters and the fields on odd
summers, my way of being quickly became that of the cowboy.
What that means exactly I can’t explain, and neither can any other
cowboy worth his salt. Maybe it’s something in the walk, or perhaps
it has to do with the way we understand the world; having to look
out from between the legs of some beast of one sort or another most
of the time. What’s part and parcel with this way of seeing the
world is a quiet kind of attitude that doesn’t have much to say
most of the time, but will never stay quite still when there’s something
important to be taught.
The Boss lady said, “don’t you worry you’ll
do just fine” and sure enough it’s turned out to be the best chore
I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing. Guests from England, Japan,
Portugal, and all sorts of other wonderful places sit themselves
in the backseat of that old Suburban and proceed to share the world
with me as we wind our way to the Ranch.
Like that man from the Isle of Jersey, (I thought
the only Jersey was New Jersey and told him his accent didn’t sound
like anybody from Jersey I’d ever heard.) He came to Las Vegas to
gamble and gamble hard, but when lady luck didn’t make an appearance
he decided to look around for something else to do. He asked the
concierge at his hotel what might be fun and was told about the
Ranch. At once he was intrigued by the idea of being a cowboy for
a day. After calling the reservations line and making arrangements,
he went about the Las Vegas strip in effort to buy the right ‘outfit’
for his adventure.
Now I’m sure if he taken a bit more time and thought about it a
bit further he would’ve come up with a different get-up. However,
he had Clint Eastwood, Audey Murphy and maybe a dash of the Duke
in mind as he made his way through the forum shops. The result was
a five foot three man in stiff designer jeans, a cowboy style embroidered
red silk shirt, a periwinkle blue kerchief and ostrich skin boots.
He was ready to be a cowboy for a day. Oddly enough, all of that
might’ve worked too, but when he walked out of one of the shops
with a wine red colored ten-gallon Stetson atop his head and a cheroot
dangling from the corner of his mouth, well you’ll just have to
use your own imagination. I’ll simply say this; a cowboy of those
colorings never walked the streets of Laredo.
Anyway, he spent the best part of the day out at the Ranch and a
better time couldn’t have been had by anyone. He charmed everyone
with his innocence and want to be a Real cowboy. Everybody out there
(even to the most hardened cowboy) went that extra step to make
his dream come true. By the time he stepped down from the old Suburban
and into his hotel I could’ve sworn I saw something of a cowboy
in his walk, or maybe it was the way he held his head, or maybe
. . . .
Maybe it’s what makes this the best job ever and causes some guests
to come back time after time. There’s something about the smell
of mesquite and creosote in the wind that makes a body want to sing
a Hank Williams song. That something heard in the coyote’s yelps
as it runs off in the distance. It’s that ‘thing’ you see in an
old cowboy’s eyes when he jokingly complains about his bad back.
Or perhaps it’s none of these things. Maybe, when all else is said
and done, what I discovered is that there is still a place where
I can sit quietly and let my spirit catch up and re-new an old way
of being. The cowboy way.
The
Ramblin' is SVR's newsletter about current and past events.
To
view past Ramblin's please choose one of the following links:
