A World That Was Real

I Don’t Know What I’m Supposed to Write About Anymore

What am I going to write about today?

That’s the question I keep staring at. Not because I don’t have thoughts — I have too many — but because sitting down to write feels like dragging a dead vehicle uphill some days.

Using AI on your ranching operation? Maybe.

Would people read it? Would they get value out of it?

Would they actually pay me for it?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I really dislike doing this. Writing. Publishing. Hitting “send” and hoping someone gives a shit. Will it ever get easier? Will I ever get better at it? Probably — but only if I fundamentally change my habits and rewire my brain to sit still long enough to say something honest, useful, and real.

Because why else would anyone fucking subscribe to my Substack?

A Few Uncomfortable Truths

A few things are painfully clear to me right now.

I don’t work in ranching anymore, so my relevance has slipped.

Some of my work still touches ranching, but a lot of it doesn’t.

And I don’t know which part I’m supposed to lean into.

What makes it harder is that I struggle — deeply — to engage with the ranching community at large. Not because of the work, or the land, or the animals… but because so many ranchers I encounter now are hard-core MAGA Trump supporters, and it completely turns me off.

That culture feels loud, angry, and brittle. And layered on top of it is this exhausting obsession with toxic masculinity — the need to be the ultimate cowboy at all times. Never smile. Never loosen up. Never have fun. Just work, work, work, and be an asshole to anyone outside your tight little circle.

That version of ranching feels foreign to me.

Because it’s not the one I grew up with.

The Cowboys I Knew

Most of the ranchers I knew growing up were well-educated. World travelers. Sophisticated. Kind. Most of them smoked pot and listened to the Grateful Dead (RIP Bob Weir).

They were ski racers, fly fishermen, climbers, campers, packers running mule trains into the backcountry. Most could play some kind of musical instrument. They laughed easily. They pulled pranks. They didn’t take themselves so goddamn seriously.

My Uncle Dave was a rancher outside Pearsall, Texas.

He never learned to rope all that well, so instead he bulldogged damn near everything that needed doctoring. Korean War veteran. University of Texas graduate. And the most fun-loving human I’ve ever known.

At stoplights, Dave would make everyone get out of the car and dance a waltz until the light turned green — then everyone would pile back in through whatever door they were closest to.

At 82 years old, he rode The Rattler with me — a roller coaster that hit nearly 90 mph on its first descent, then snapped into a brutal right-hand turn pulling more G-forces than an 83-year-old should reasonably survive. He rode it out with one hand in the air, yelling “Yahoo!” the entire time.

That was a cowboy.

Nights That Still Live in My Body

One summer, working for the Lazy Shamrock Ranch in Heeney, Colorado, we helped the neighbors brand. The neighboring outfit was part of the legendary Bell Ranch, owned at the time by the late Jeff Lane.

That night we sat around a campfire — cowboys still wearing batwing chaps, wild rags, vests, Tom Mix-style hats. Every single one of them was playing something: guitars, homemade basses made from wash tubs, coffee-can drums, a harmonica. Jeff played an acoustic.

They sang. They drank. They laughed deep into the night before rolling into their bedrolls.

Jeff could’ve slept in a mansion. Instead, he slept on the ground under the stars with the rest of the crew.

That was a cowboy.

Cowboys were — and many still are — full of piss and vinegar and always ready to pull a prank at a moment’s notice.

I rode a red roan mare once. Small. Built like a brick shithouse. Stout, ornery, and loved to buck. At a team roping, one of my buddies decided it’d be funny to toss a pack of firecrackers under her while I was half-slouched in the saddle, one leg draped over, deep in conversation about women, rodeo, and beer.

BOOM.

She came unglued like a sacked bobcat. I launched roughly 30 feet into the air and came down flat on my back. No breath. Stars. Head pounding.

Everyone laughed — including me, once I could breathe again. Nobody got mad. Nobody threatened anyone. We laughed so hard we cried.

Those were the days.

I Know This Was Real

Maybe I’m naïve.

Maybe this is all just nostalgia — fragments stitched together into a version of ranching I want to believe existed.

But I don’t think so.

The memories are too vivid.

The smell of leather and dust.

The jingle of a spur.

The crushing hiss of a beer can.

The tink-tink of a horseshoe on rock.

I remember Jerry, Tony, and Rick after working cattle in a snowstorm. Smoke curling from a Camel in an ashtray. Rick stitching a queen-size quilt from Crown Royal bags. Jerry’s laugh. Tony’s unbelievable stories. Rick wearing his Olathe boots outside his Wranglers — spurs rubbing the heel caps, earned only after hundreds of days in the saddle.

These were real men.

Real cowboys.

Tough as dry horse shit on the outside. Soft as downy on the inside.

They didn’t care about race, religion, skin color, or where you came from. If you pulled your weight, you were welcome — even if you were a “dude.” You might catch a ration of shit, but if you weathered it, you were in.

Nature, livestock, and wildlife always came first. No exceptions.

The Part That Still Hurts

I miss those days.

And I’m deeply sorry my children won’t get to live that version of this life.

Not because ranching is gone — it isn’t — but because something essential has hardened. Something joyful got squeezed out somewhere along the way.

Maybe writing is how I try to hold onto it.

Maybe that’s what this Substack is really about.

I don’t know yet.

But I know this:

That world was real.

And I was lucky enough to live in it.