Leslie Keller Books

Cowboy and Horse In my posts I generally use the term cowboy, but this doesn’t mean the same type of relationships, experiences and events do not include women. I’m using the term as a catchall for both sexes. What is a cowboy without his horse? In all our cowboy history there is one constant which is, of course, the steady steed. Whether he be a pony, a Quarter Horse, a Mustang or a mix there is no cowboy without the four-legged animal used to transport him from coast to coast. Way before the cowboy, horses were first domesticated by humans around 4000 BC. They are herd animals who have excellent balance, as well as smell, sound and sight. You can always tell which way a horse is looking by the direction of his ears. If one is forward and one is back, he is looking at you and away from you at the same time. This helps his fight or flight response, so he knows if there is a predator in front of him as well as behind.   I will devote another full post to the wondrous...

I'd never considered the ethnicity of cowboys in the American west. The old movies and television shows from the 50's and 60's always portrayed cowboys as either white or Hispanic. Of course, Hollywood is not known for an always accurate rendering of history. I found an interesting February 13, 2017 article on Smithsonian.com by Katie Nodjimbadem about an early cowboy named Nate Love, who was known as Deadwood Dick.  According to Nate's 1907 autobiography, he was a freed slave who traveled west and lived the real cowboy life - drinking, gambling and moving cattle along with some of history's famous and infamous cowboys.  You can find Nat's book on Amazon - The Life and Adventures of Nat Love. It's a brief accounting of his life. The article goes on to mention that many whites traveled west with slaves, which is another fact I never knew.  According to the 1860 census, 30% of the population of Texas were slaves. After the civil war, former slave owner...

It was bound to happen, only I've been missing it for the last ten years - Wyatt Earp is back in the saddle and heading out on a vendetta ride.  Hitch up your wagon and head to Tombstone, Arizona to join the action. This is the tenth annual Wyatt Earp's Vendetta Ride which is being held this year from October 14th through the 18th. If you love the old west history and feel like spending some time in the saddle, this adventure trip is for you. If you want an 'old west' experience and to relive Wyatt Earp's gun fight at the OK Corral, Tombstone is a fun place to visit.  There aren't many options for accommodations so if you are going to visit, plan ahead. Tombstone is small, only a few blocks long and a few blocks wide so don't plan to spend more than a few days for the complete experience. Driving from Phoenix it takes just over three hours.  It's only an hour from Tucson so I would recommend combining trips and taking in the sights of Tucson and Tomb...

I grew up dreaming of cowboys and the lore of the Wild West. As a young girl, John Wayne, Tex Ritter and Roy Rogers all rode off into the sunset with my heart.  I still love them and the old shows but I've grown up and I'm an animal lover. I don't throw paint on people wearing fur but I would never wear it and I don't condone it or anything that exposes an animal to harm. I've owned and ridden horses, raised cattle and chickens and tried to treat them all humanely. Our chickens lived in a large pen and had a clean place to roost before 'free-range' was in vogue. My horse was loved and cared for and, I like to think, happy. Our cattle had names, we bottle fed some and, even though they did eventually become someone's dinner, they were treated with kindness while in my family's care. I've been to the rodeo several times but I don't find enjoyment in it. Yes, it takes a brave, or crazy, person to climb on a bull weighing almost a ton. Many w...

Where would the lore of the old west be without our television cowboy heroes? Since that was my first exposure to the genre, I thought it might be fun to step back in time to when a cowboy was king. One of the first television series was Hopalong Cassidy, starring William Boyd. This show ran from 1949 to 1954 in the age before we all had color televisions. Hopalong was actually the creation of author Clarence E. Mulford in 1904. Mulford created a series of short stories which were later developed for film.  The original character was not the clean cut persona I remember but instead a rough talking, dangerous fellow who had a wooden leg. I'll bet you can make the connection to how he became hop-along. Before all the good guys wore white, Bill 'Hopalong' Cassidy was dressed in all black including his hat and rode a brilliant white horse. His sidekick was first played by Gabby Hayes, who became a star as a supporting character in dozens of films. When the studios decided...

I had never heard of the organization Cowbelles until my good friend Randy Glennie told me about them. Until she passed the March of this year, she was a very active member of the Santa Cruz chapter. Here's a bit of history about the organization from the Arizona State Cowbelles website. History of the Arizona State Cowbelles The Arizona State Cowbelles is an organization rich in history. “The Cowbelles” was organized as a social club by sixteen ranch wives in Douglas, a town in the very southeastern corner of Arizona, on October 17, 1939. The group’s purpose was “to promote family and social relations between cattle people and to cooperate for the best interests of our industry, our community, and our country”. One of the ladies’ first service projects was sewing quilts to donate to those in need. Soon they realized the need to educate consumers about the benefits of beef in the diet; many programs and activities were developed to accomplish this task. Other women in Arizo...

As far back as I can remember I loved the 'wild west'. I read books about it, spent hours watching westerns on television and loved everything that involved horses. My favorite and oldest childhood memory is of the trip to visit my paternal grandmother. On the way I would beg my parents to stop at a place where they gave pony rides. If I was lucky, on the way home, e would stop.  Heaven! Flash forward more than fifty years and I still have a love of the west and, of course, horses.  But I have to ask myself the question - what is a cowboy today?  I frequently tell people on my travels that one of the attractions which drew me to Arizona was that it retains some of that flavor - there are wild horses wandering the desert and if you are lucky, you may see some of the wild burros near Lake Pleasant. Fly over and you will see tracts of land devoted to farming.  Drive up to Cave Creek and you may see a horse tied up to a post outside of a local bar (next to ...