Prime-Time-Winter-2018

REFLECT IONS AND RECOLLECT IONS

Paul Marchant | Rancher/Columnist | paul@progressivepublish.com Irons in the Fire

Fashionable Practicality

Y ou’ll probably knows me that I am far from a fashion expert. That’s not to say, how- ever, that I don’t at least pay passing attention to the occasional fashion get no argument from anyone who

1981. He was a big, white-faced, yellow Sim- my-cross steer that, I thought, was the pic- ture of perfection. He probably stood nearly 5 feet tall at the hip and finished at around 1,200 pounds. He was, in my mind, the embodiment of the perfect show steer. In the picture, standing at the halter, I appear in all of my ridiculous teenager glory. My pointy-toed boots are barely visible from beneath my too-long wranglers, which are worn out in the back – a result of dragging in the dirt under my boot heels. You can almost discern my eyes from be- neath my long, shaggy bangs, which hang out from under a big, old, wide-brimmed, high, round-topped hat. If you could see my eyes, you’d probably notice a touch of indignant fury; a result of my bitter disap- pointment at my steer not being named grand champion at that year’s version of the Summit County Fair. In the champion- ship drive, the judge opted for a couple of more moderately framed steers to be his grand and reserve champions. With the benefit of time-aided wisdom and a little common sense, the whole sce- nario seems almost nonsensical now. First of all, how did I dare show up in public dressed like that? Second, what in the world were the powers that be in the beef industry thinking, particularly those in the show world, when they perpetuated the notion that such inefficient animals were good for the industry? It made no more sense than the short, tiny-framed cattle of the ’50s and early ’60s. The livestock show scene has always been a moral dilemma of sorts for me. I really love the whole scene. It has a unique feel all its own. The smell of fresh shav- ings, the sounds of blowers and the sight of a magnificent, pristine, perfectly fit and coifed champion juxtaposed in front of the

trend. I don’t think I’ll ever be too keen, or even aware of, any of the ridiculousness that spews out of New York City or Paris. But, when it comes to critters and what’s hot and trending at, say, the National West- ern Stock Show, the American Royal or the National Finals Rodeo … well then, now you’ve got my attention. I was slow to warm up to square-toed boots – I was always partial to the round- toed look – but now I’m all in with the square toe. The look has definitely grown on me, and for crying out loud, they’re much more comfortable than anything the Wicked Witch of the West would be sport- ing. I wonder what took the trend so long to get a toehold, as it were. At the other end, you have the hat world. If you see a high-crowned, short-brimmed hat bobbing its way through a crowd, you can pretty well bet that the guy under it is in his seventh or eighth decade. Regional differences abound, as well. A flat-topped lid will surely brand you as a Great Basin buck- aroo, while the big, turned-up, flying-nun brim is a Texas look through and through. As far as what sits atop your pony, you can see the same kind of trends. Sixty-foot ropes hanging on mule-hide-wrapped slick forks are all over eastern Oregon, southern Idaho and Nevada, while a 35-footer tied hard and fast to a Modified Association tree pretty much places you in the Great Plains. Somewhere I have a 5x7 picture of one of my last FFA project steers, taken around

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Akaushi Prime Time • Winter 2018

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