Margaret Brownley

Will Rogers: Master of One-liners

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I just finished reading a delightful book by Will Rogers titled The Cowboy Philosopher on Prohibition. Using liberal doses of the Bible, Rogers made a thoughtful and humorous argument against the alcohol ban.  The book made me realize how little I really knew about the man and so naturally I had to do some research.    

Will Rogers was born in Indian Territory in 1879 to a prominent Cherokee family.  Rogers quipped that his ancestors did not come over on the Mayflower.  Instead they “met the boat”

He learned cowboying from the ranch hands on his father’s Dog Iron Ranch.  Cherokee freedman Dan Walker taught him roping, which later proved to be his road to success.

Quick to learn ranching, he was in his own words a poor student, saying that he “studied the Fourth Reader for ten years.” He was much more interested in cowboys and horses. Much of his later humor involved both.

“You know horses are smarter than people. You never heard of a horse going broke betting on people.”

He left home to work on a Texas ranch, where he was known for his lassoing abilities.  He then tried to make it as a ranch owner in Argentina, but when he ran out of money, he traveled to South Africa.  There, he joined Texas Jack’s Wild West Circus.”  

He rode broncos, but his real talent was throwing lassoes.  He didn’t just throw one rope; he threw three, and his trick of lassoing a horse’s neck, legs, and the rider all at the same time earned rave reviews.

“Best doctor in the world is a veterinarian. He can’t ask his patients what’s the matter. He’s just got to know.”

He returned to America in 1904 and joined the vaudeville circuit.  During his trip to Madison Square Gardens, a wild steer broke out of the arena and began climbing the viewing stands. Rogers roped the steer to the delight of the crowd. The feat got front-page attention from the newspapers, giving him valuable publicity and an audience eager to see more.

At first, he worked in silence, but when he discovered that audiences responded to his western drawl, he began ad-libbing. Soon people were lining up to hear his words of wisdom.

“Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.”

His folksy style enabled him to poke fun at politicians, gangsters, prohibition, and other controversial subjects in such a way that no one took offense. People were too busy laughing.  Knowing that President Woodrow Wilson was in the audience during one performance, Rogers improvised a “roast” of presidential policies that had Wilson, and the entire audience, in stitches.

“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
 

He went from being a cowboy to a vaudeville performer. Before long, he was known as a humorist, newspaper columnist, social commentator, and humanitarian.  As an entertainer, he traveled around the world three times and appeared in an astounding 71 movies.  He also wrote six books, and more than 4000 syndicated newspaper columns. 

Somehow, he still managed to marry and father four children.  Who knows how much more he would have accomplished had he not died at the age of 56 in an airplane crash? 

Fortunately, his witticisms live on and are just as relevant today as they were a hundred years ago when he first uttered them.  The man who cautioned us to “always drink upstream from the herd,” also had a lot to say about politics, which could just as easily be written today.   

  • This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something.
  • We shouldn’t elect a President. We should elect a magician.
  • Both parties have their good times and bad times at different times. Good when they are out. Bad when they are in.
  • I can’t see any advantage of having one of your own Party in as President… I would rather be able to criticize a man than to have to apologize for him.
  • So much money is being spent on the campaigns that I doubt if either man, as good as they are, are worth what it will cost to elect them.
  • The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets. 

What is your favorite Will Rogers’ quote?

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The Fourth of July, Frontier Style

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The Fourth of July was celebrated big time in the Old West.  From mining camps to wild cow towns, those early settlers used the day to whoop it up with dances, speeches, parades, foot races, and turkey shoots.  Not to be left out, even American Indians celebrated the day with pow-wows and dances. 

Some celebrations even took place in remote areas. In 1830, Mountain man William L. Sublette, on his way to Wind River with 81 men and 10 wagons, celebrated the holiday next to a large 130-foot-high rock.  Claiming to have “kept the 4th of July in due style,” Sublette named the large boulder Independence Rock.

Independence Rock

Located in what is now Wyoming, the rock became a signpost for travelers on the Oregon and Mormon trails. Companies arriving at the rock by July fourth knew they had made good time and would beat the mountain snows.  Celebrations included inscribing names on the rock and shooting off guns. 

Not every community celebrated with guns and fireworks.  In 1864, a mining town in Nevada decided to celebrate its first fourth with a dance.  Music, flag, and dance committees were formed. Of the three, the music committee was the most challenging as the only musician was a violinist who had an affinity for whiskey. His drinks had to be carefully regulated before the celebration.  

Stag Dance

Since the town lacked a flag, the flag committee pieced one together from a quilt.  Fortunately, a traveling family camping nearby provided the blue fabric.  The family included a mother and four girls, which meant more women for the dance.  The problem was the girls had no shoes, which would have made it difficult to dance on the rough wood floors.   The miners solved the problem by taking up a collection of brogans, and the dance went off without a hitch. 

William “Buffalo Bill” Cody made history in North Platte, Nebraska on July 4, 1882, when he mounted an exhibition of cowboy “sports.”  This was the beginning of his Wild West shows and what we now call a rodeo.

Not to be outdone, Dodge City did something different two years later for the Fourth of July to attract attention and business; It hosted the first professional Mexican bullfight on U.S. soil. Though the event was a financial success, it was not without controversy.  Many, including Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals, denounced the sport as barbaric.

Compared to the rest of the country, Denver’s first Fourth of July celebration was oddly subdued. Drinking or carousing was not allowed.  Instead, the Declaration of Independence was read, followed by prayers, “chaste and appropriate oration” and wholesome band music.

This year, most public celebrations have been canceled.  But we Americans will find a way to keep “the 4th of July in due style.”  Just like they did in the Old West.

How are you and your family celebrating the Fourth this year?

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He may be a Texas Ranger, but he only has eyes for the outlaw’s beautiful daughter. Amazon

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The Outlaw’s Daughter & Giveaway

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He may be a Texas Ranger, but he only has eyes for the outlaw’s beautiful daughter…

I’m happy to announce that my new book has just been released!  This is book three in my Haywire Brides series, but each book stands alone. 

I’m giving away a book today to one of you.  So be sure to leave a comment!

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Texas Ranger Matt Taggert is on the trail of a wanted man. He has good reason to believe that Ellie-May’s late husband was involved in a stagecoach robbery, and he’s here to see justice done. But when he arrives in town, he discovers the thief has become a local hero…and his beautiful young widow isn’t too happy to see some lawman out to tarnish her family’s newly spotless reputation.

Ellie-May’s shaken by her encounter with the Ranger. Having grown up an outlaw’s daughter, she’ll do anything to keep her children safe—and if that means hardening her heart against the handsome lawman’s smiles, then so be it. Because she knows Matt isn’t about to give up his search. He’s out to redeem himself and find proof that Ellie-May’s husband wasn’t the saint everyone claims…even if it means losing the love neither expected to discover along the way.

Ellie-May has lived all her life in the shadow of her outlaw father.  Do you think a parent’s reputation has the same impact today as it did in the 1800s?

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Poets in Cowboy Hats

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Out where the handclasp’s a little stronger,
Out where the smile dwells a little longer,
            That’s where the West begins…

                            Arthur Chapman 1912

 

Last week was National Cowboy Poetry week and I usually spend it at the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival signing books.  The festival, was canceled this year, along with everything else.  But I sure did miss it.

I especially missed rubbing shoulders with people like Cheryl Rogers Barnet (daughter of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans), Jon Chandler (chosen Best Living Western Musician by True West Magazine) and cowboy poet, Waddie Mitchell.

This is me signing at the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival.

It was at this festival that I first learned to appreciate cowboy poetry. I was never particularly fond of poetry, but this was different. This was storytelling like I’d never heard, and it really brought the west alive for me.

Cowboy poetry flourished after the Civil War. War songs were mixed with traditional ballads to create a unique style that painted vivid pictures of loneliness, loss of a horse, camaraderie and annoying coyotes.  

Cowboys recited these poems for each other around the campfire. No free form verse for these hard-driven men. Old time cowboy poetry always rhymed and was often put to song.

Much of it was done orally, which helped with memorization. Because the poetry was not written down, much was lost but not all. Fortunately, some of these gems were printed in newspapers and have since been published in books.

Legend has it that the reason poems were recited from memory was because cowboys were illiterate.

Not true, says writer David Stanley. In his book Cowboy Poetry Then and Now,” he argues that cowboys were anything but illiterate. “Many cowboys of both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been well read, sometimes astonishingly so.”  He goes on to say that “Cowboy poetry has been primarily the province of literate people since the first publication of poems in western newspapers in the 1870s.”

To prove his point, Stanley tells us that “It wasn’t just original poetry that was enjoyed around the campfires. Cowboys also enjoyed “a mass of popular poetry from Shakespeare to Rudyard Kipling.”

There’s a famous saying that any poem a cowboy likes is a cowboy poem.  That may be true of Shakespeare, but for me, personally, nothing beats a poet in a cowboy hat.

What’s your favorite western storytelling medium: movie, TV, books, music or poetry?

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So You Think You Know How to Wear Cowboy Boots

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Cowboy boots are fun to wear, but I recently discovered I’ve been wearing them wrong—all wrong. Fortunately, help is on the way. Some of the top designers including Calvin Klein and Fendi are about to send cowboy boots down the runway this spring and you know what that means; our sacred footwear is about to get a makeover.    

To keep you from being out-of-step, here are some tips from fashion experts:  

  • Don’t go for the costume-y look. If you’re wearing boots, avoid cowboy hats, ponchos, spurs, prairie dresses and overalls or you’ll end up looking ready for Halloween.
  • Leave the accessories at home. (I think this means don’t wear your diamonds.)
  • Avoid fringes and sequins (ruffled skirts, okay)
  • You can’t go wrong with jeans (not the faded ones) and turtlenecks. If you’re brave or  immune to stares, you can even wear boots with shorts.
  • Pair cowboy boots with animal prints.

If you’ve been wearing your boots all wrong, chances are the same can be said for the guys in your life.  According to fashion pundits, men should adhere to the following guidelines unless working on the range:

  • Avoid dressing like Woody in Toy Story. Ditch the bolo tie and chaps.
  • Forget the spurs (unless you’re playing a bad guy in a movie).
  • Hats are okay if you going to a rodeo or rounding up cattle. Otherwise, leave at home.
  • Avoid light colored jeans. Dark fitted jeans are best paired with cowboy boots.
  • If you’re wearing a tux, only black cowboy boots will do (polished to a shine).

Men, if this is too much for you, don’t despair.  Everyone loves Woody.  As for the rest of us, Happy Halloween.

What is the best or worst fashion advice you ever got?

 

What happens when four mail-order brides get cold feet?

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The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same

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My favorite time period to write about is between 1880 and 1890. In many ways, the cowboys of yesteryear struggled with some of the same issues we currently face and that’s what makes the time period so fascinating to me.

They aren’t paying attention to each other. They’re too intent on the wireless.

For example, technology in the way of telephones and electricity changed the way people lived in the 19th century, just as new technology does today.  The Victorians even had their own Internet.  It was called the telegraph, and this opened-up a whole new world to them.

What, for that matter, is a text message but a telegram, the high cost of which forced people in the past to be brief and to the point?

In the past, our ancestors worried about losing their jobs to machinery.  Today, there’s a real possibility that robots will make us obsolete.

Sears and Roebuck was the Amazon of the Gilded Age. The catalogue featured a wide selection of products at clearly marked prices. No more haggling.  Customers were drawn to the easy-to-read, warm, friendly language used to describe goods, and the catalogue proved an instant success. Our ancestors could even order a house through the catalog and that’s something we can’t do on Amazon.

The Victorians worried about books like we worry about iPhones. We worry about screen time damaging the eyes.  Victorians were certain that the mass rise of books due to printing presses would make everyone blind. 

Then as now, women fought for equal rights.  Our early sisters fought for property ownership, employment opportunities and the right to vote. Women have come a long way since those early days, but challenges still exist, especially in matters of economics and power.

Nothing has changed much in the area of courting

Almost every single I know subscribes to at least one dating site.  These are very similar to the Mail-Order Bride catalogs of yesteryear.

Did our Victorian ancestors worry about climate change?  You bet they did! The Florida Agriculturist published an article addressing the problem in 1890. The article stated: “Most all the states of the union in succession of their settlement have experienced a falling off in their average temperatures of several degrees.  A change from an evenly tempered climate has resulted in long droughts, sudden floods, heavy frost and suffocating heat.”

Nothing much has changed in the world of politics. Today, the Republicans and Democrats are still battling it out, just as they did in the nineteenth century. We still haven’t elected a female president, though Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood tried to change that when she ran in 1884 and again, in 1888.

What about environmental concerns? Today we’re concerned that plastic bags and straws are harming our oceans.  Our Victorian ancestors worried about tomato cans. That’s because a German scientist told the New York Times in 1881 that the careless deposit of tin cans was “bringing the earth closer to the sun and hastening the day of the final and fatal collision.”

During the 1800s, horses were taken to task for messing up the streets.  (Oddly, enough, it was once thought that automobiles were good for the environment.)  Today, cattle are under fire for the methane in their you-know-whats. Oh, boy, I can only imagine how that would have gone over with those old-time ranch owners.

We have Coronavirus, but that’s nothing compared to what our ancestors battled.  The 1894 Hong Kong plague was a major outbreak and became the third pandemic in the world. The rapid outbreak and spread of the plague was caused by infected fleas. Repressive government actions to control the plague led the Pune nationalists to criticize the Chinese publicly. Sound familiar?  The plague killed more than 10 million people in India, alone. 

As the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Reading how people in the past survived and, yes, even prospered during tough times inspires me and gives me hope for the future.  I hope it does the same to my readers.

This list is nowhere near complete, but what did you find the most surprising?

Attorney Ben Heywood didn’t expect to get shot on his wedding day–and certainly not by his mail order bride.—Pistol-Packin’ Bride/Mail Order Standoff collection.

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The Mail Order Bride Standoff

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I have a new book out, just in time for Valentine’s.  The anthology is titled Mail Order Standoff.  If you like mail-order bride stories, then this one is for you. The stories all have a fun twist when the brides get cold feet.  Here’s a short preview of my story:

Pistol-Packin’ Bride

Attorney Wade Bronson didn’t expect to get shot on his wedding day–

and certainly not by his mail order bride…

Elizabeth Colton stares anxiously out the window of the stagecoach.  Fresh from Boston, never could she imagine a more desolate place. Every scary story ever heard about attacking Indians and highwaymen comes back to haunt her.

 Before they reach town, her worst fear is realized. A horseman flags them down and yanks open the door to the coach.  Certain he is about to rob her—or worse—she pulls out her derringer.  Much to her shock, the gun goes off and the man falls to the ground.

Attorney Wade Bronson is lucky to be alive.  Fortunately, the bullet missed his heart—barely. All he did was stop the stage to tell his mail-order bride he’d been called out of town on urgent business and had to postpone their wedding. God forgive him for not feeling especially charitable toward the blue-eyed beauty who shot him, but now he’s bed-ridden with a shoulder-wound and his gun-toting bride-to-be is in jail.

It seems everyone in the small town has an opinion on the brash young woman who traveled west to become his wife—and none of it good.  Orphaned at a young age, Wade was raised by the town and is Prickly Pine’s favorite son—literally—and the local girls know better than to get involved with him. Things looked bad until his three worried “mothers” took it upon themselves to place an ad in Matrimonial News for a “nice Christian girl from the east.” Now they refuse to believe the pistol packin’ bride is the right woman for him. At first, even Wade has trouble visualizing the two of them wed.

But in matters of the heart sometimes a wrong really does make a right.  Now he doesn’t know which task will be hardest; convincing his reluctant fiancée that marriage to a man with three sets of well-meaning “parents” won’t be so bad (maybe).  Or proving to the town that Elizabeth really is the girl of his dreams. 

To Order:

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Margaret Goes Square Dancing

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I’m ready to dance!

In a moment of madness, I decided to join a square-dancing class.  I figured it would be good exercise and wouldn’t be that hard to learn.  I mean how hard could it be to do-si-do?

Well, I got the first part right.  It is good exercise. I clock more than ten thousand steps during class. Dancing is also good for the brain. According to Psychology Today,research shows that dancing reduces incidences of dementia and Alzheimer’s.

As for the easy part: forget that. Square-dancing requires memorizing hundreds of steps and learning a new language. The director told us that if we got lost, to just stand still and look confused.  Now That I can do.

In spite of the challenges, the one thing I really enjoy is the courtesy. Call me old-fashioned, but I love the way partners bow and honor each other. Though dress is informal, almost everyone dresses up a bit, which adds to the fun. The best part? There’s no shortage of cowboys. Yee-haw!

The various square dance movements are based on the steps and figures that were used in traditional folk dances from different countries. Folk dances were originally gala occasions where news would be swapped, and courtships formed.

The early colonists brought popular folk dances from France, Italy and Britain with them. However, following the American Revolution, the British dances fell out of favor and the French dancing styles took over. Many French terms like “do-si-do,” “allemande” and “promenade” are still used in square dancing today.

The French were not satisfied with the long double line of an indefinite number of couples, so they concentrated on the square limited to four couples. These squares were known at first as “French contra-dances,” or more simply as “French dances.”

Dance historian Phil Jamison writes in his book, Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance  that in addition to European dances, African American and Native American dance forms contributed to the development of square dance.

The dances done in early America didn’t have a “caller,” or someone who yells out the moves to dancers. Rather, the expectation, Jamison says, was that dancers went to school, memorized the moves, then went to the ball.

“Square dancing in those early days was done to live music that was almost always played by African-American musicians. It’s believed that many of these musicians became callers due to the gap in literacy and formal training among slaves of the time.”

Jamison says he found evidence of an African American caller dating back as early as 1819 in New Orleans. Other African American dance moves, instruments like the banjo and fiddle, and call and response traditions were also incorporated.

There have been several attempts to have square dancing designated the national dance but, so far, the efforts have been defeated.  However, according to The Smithsonian, thirty-one states now claim square dancing as the official state dance.

Square Dancing has changed through the years to fit the needs of the people doing it.  All ages can join in the fun and there are many LGBT clubs. There are also groups for the handicapped.

Though square dancing, as we know it today, is now an American dance, it’s popular the world over. S.Foster Damon wrote in his book, The History of Square Dance, “Square-dancing is greater than any one nation: it is democracy itself, in dance form. Can anybody think of a better way to spread the spirit of democracy?”

What new and exciting things do you have planned

for the New Year? 

Meet the Haywire Brides

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Margaret has a Jingle-Jangle Winner!

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Thank you for sharing your favorite Westerns with us.

The mat will do its magic carpet trick and land at the following doorstep:

       Sandy McMahon

 

Congratulations, Sandy.  Send your mailing address to me at margaretbrownley1@gmail.com

Have a Merry Christmas Y’all!

I’ve Got Spurs That Jingle, Jangle, Jingle & FUN GIVEAWAY

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As a child, Saturdays were my favorite day of the week. I remember getting up early and rushing through chores just so I could spend the afternoons watching Westerns.  I had an unstable childhood, so I found comfort in the predictability of those old shoot em ups.  When a cowboy rode into town, you just knew he would set things straight before riding into the sunset. 

I also knew that when the camera zoomed onto the hero’s spurs as he walked into a saloon, he was sending a clear message; No one had better mess with him. 

I became fixated on spurs and for good reason. As a foster child, I was constantly being bounced from family to family. This meant I was forever having to change locations.  But the hardest part for me was having to walk into a new school, which I did more times than I can remember. This never failed to make me feel like an outsider. Because I was shy, thin as a rail, wore glasses and had red hair, I endured much teasing. No one called it bullying back then, but in modern terms that’s what it was. 

After going through an especially hard first day at a new school, I remember thinking enough was enough. Would Hoot Gibson, Ken Maynard or Bob Steele stand around while the town picked on them? They would not! Only ten at the time, I decided what I needed was spurs, just like my favorite western heroes wore. The next time I walked into a new school, my spurs would send a clear message that no one better mess with me.

Convinced I had an answer to my problem, I asked for spurs the following Christmas, but never got them.  It didn’t matter. The next time I walked into a new school, I pretended I was wearing spurs just like I’d seen one of my cowboy heroes do the previous Saturday.  They only jingled in my head but, you know what?  It worked.  Somehow the jingle-jangle sound that only I could hear helped drown out the teasing and that made me smile.  And that smile helped me do something I’d not been able to do at other schools: make new friends.  It was a lesson I never forgot.

THIS DOORMAT MIGHT NOT DETER PORCH PIRATES, BUT YOU NEVER KNOW.

 

In that spirit, I wish you all a jingle-jangle holiday season filled with lots of smiles, good friends and loving families.  May all your spurs, imagined or real, be shiny ones and bring good things your way. 

For a chance to win this “don’t mess with this house” doormat, tell us what movie or TV show made an impression on you as a child?   

 

Meet the Haywire Brides

                                     

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