Boots O'Neal

both of our nails my uncle and he's a getting kind of old now but he's a guy that's punch cows his whole life boot is a character and everybody that knows him knows that boots is smart and he's done it all and he's earned his keep and he's good guy on his good teacher and he teaches much young kids and lyrics has taught me a lot of things he's taught me to be tough and keep going and don't quit that comes from the timeframe that he grew up and not many people are like that anymore but he is a sure enough gentleman and eight dance is really good he likes to dance with him all the women yeah yeah he does like to charm him a little bit I think even in his old age but yeah he's good respectful man boots who is also see surprises me from time to time because he's very very nice about complimenting me I'm sure he does other people as well but he's very and always was very edifying I'd like a man boots spend about six five or six hours sitting on the porch listening him tell old stories about to get old days and I learned more from just listening him sit around on the floor and talk than I have from anybody else or anything went to work in 1949 for a big cow v punching cows and have been doing that ever since so I've got 62 years that we've been doing this thing when I first started working with the big righteous while the wagons stayed out for seventeen eight months at a time that you lived and stayed with those wagons and and as opposed to now while even where we're using a wagon they usually come in overnight or over two or three nights while they come in or there'll be a motor vehicle area when I first started punching cows well you pull all my genes with horses and they wouldn't be any way to leave it overnight like run in and come back timeless didn't have any money at that time you know just a living you know the kids I liked the children now are blessed with so much more and nearly everyone has a car and then why they just a family like ours they was eight of us children and mother and dad and you know it's just us in a survival mode most of the time you know we didn't didn't go trips I don't ever remember going with my mother and dad and all us going to a restaurant and going in and sitting down and eat and you know you just didn't do that you didn't have that kind of money but we were on the ranch and everything throughout my life has been geared for a right you know where the people that I've been associated with was Cowboys or rights people that was interested in rights that I think he's at Wagner at the Jay is one of them and he was younger guy and he was driving the hood wagon when they were moving camp and he's rolling a smoke and he had just gotten there just gotten on there and working in his rolling him a cigarette and they dropped the lines and the horses ran off and everybody's and they run off across the river and everybody's bed rolls and teepees and stuff got wet and all the clothes and stuff and boots I'm sure that he's going to get fired but that though man ever he said though man was a nice guy never said a word to him and they just gathered everything up and went on and he stayed there for a long time for the whiting ranch right below here 24 years and was a ranch foreman there for several years running the brother had a bronc pen they called the brown pen and where we kept five or six men and I lived there eleven years and running that and then moved to headquarters and was the ranch foreman for eight years and then two or three years before that I just worked there as a cowboy after that's the thing and we then I work for the as I started out I went to work for the Jas there in the Palo Duro Canyon in 4900 I mentioned while ago and then went from there to the miter doors which was up on the Canadian River and they were both all like three times the size of the four six right here now so they were real big righteous at that time and they'd have a big crew of cowboys and paid most of them about 90 to 100 dollars a month then you worked say up until 66 we work six days a week I member it's in 66 the rights manager called me I had a crew and told me that was going to take off Saturday evening and Sunday that weekend we'd see how it worked out and and they've been doing it ever since in the Army for two years and went to career and then I worked for years as an inspector for the cattle raisers Association where I had a special Texas Ranger Commission then work in this area right here and when I quit and went back to work for the rights what latias granddad took my place and he worked for and then the rest of his life but I've been 44 years with wagner's in here out of my life and I've never done anything but work that's a looking back if I had any regrets it would be my daughter tells me and she's a schoolteacher in Vernon has a master's degree in Spanish education and she tells me that I never did learn how to play because we just worked all the time and we didn't go to Lake on weekends and have a that sort of thing like her husband and I've been with them the time or two on the weekend or something I remember one time I got jumping up and down holler and was doing something and my son-in-law run said everybody get out here and watch this boots is having fun but I've I've had fun every day in my life you know my job I look forward to going to work every morning and like now I could retar anytime I wanted to you know but I like people dread what's gonna do tomorrow I never dread what we're gonna do and I look forward to going to work of the morning and I uh I am I told a young lady that interviewed me here a few years ago for the Dallas Morning News she I told her that sometimes I wished I had already slept and was gonna do what we're gonna do tomorrow she said she'd never seen anybody with a job like passion also has another sign that I like to hear him say many times it's something surprises him or he's excited he says Dog Show ziggity and so a lot of times off I will say that in class in my future life gosh actually giddy funny will be sitting on the porch up there and will I be when there's a Trudy or something me and like when me and drew Timmons and Pat Butler and hi Fox and Quentin Daniel and everybody worked here together when you're in one summer we'd all sit on the porch and we'd all forget we'd all type out a text message and send it to boots and they'd say the same thing and his phone would start going off and he'd wake up he'd be sleeping up there he'd wake up and say partner ziggity got a textbook he's asked us how to reply on it said her name's Lydia - how to do it this free funny yeah one day raining and blurred out pointing - and a full it started raining really hard so we came up and got in the bunkhouse and we're playing focusing Burt was just telling all his stories and I don't know why but he was making me laugh it was funny because he would just sit there and he'd tell a story and then everybody laugh then before everybody even got done laughing he already be telling another one it is fun pretty good listen to me stealing stories that record and fifties one thing with that guy on the river grew up on the rights in the Panhandle and and we didn't have electricity and we didn't have hot water in the house you know and where we they didn't have heat in the bedrooms and that you're just in the living room in the kitchen you know in bedrooms were the same temperature is the world you saw collected but we bathed in a horse tubs in front end that you used to got them in front of the kitchen stove cause that was warmest place in the house and you could open oven and it would be warm and you hated the water on the stove right there and you put it in this tub minute bathed and they'd be like kids they'd be two or three of us bathing the same tub of water and then you'd carry so without the back no word and they'd fix another woman we of course didn't have television or that is before television I never even heard that television when I was y'all's age I didn't have me things have changed from then and now well I sure it's funny when I'm sitting at home and boots calls me yeah Ashley how come his TV won't turn on her what channel is the boat I've known or what channel is something on her something he wants to watch ain't real sure how to get there so I was telling how to get there I had turns TV on or whatever but we did that I remember we got a radio and we'd all gather around that thing of the night and listen to certain problems just like we get around and listen to television now we get in the living room you didn't turn data to get that thing home with this had certain programs on certain nights what and you you just listen to that and then turned it off you didn't just leave it a running because it's a battery and you didn't want to run it down the bus to school just like the kiddos now and went to a little school of Li foolish that's where I started school and and finished there I didn't I like the little finishing school and went back cuz I went to work and I went back several years later and got a GED and then have also Hetson call a good life looking back I don't remember us ever thinking of the hardships it was having her but we walked a long ways to school us kids I don't remember how far but it was like a mile or so to where the bus came bus wouldn't come through gates and his gate there and we lost that game every morning and he'd let us out there baby walk back but we didn't have anything up it'd be really cold in the winter what we spoke up left and then wait on that bus and snow and everything we didn't think thing about it and I don't ever remember the folks taking this up there coming and getting us they just saying you know you just take off so long ago but hiya Boston school we had boxing teams with the school in and he's good Wellington all-time tournaments and with with go to Wellington and shamrock places and they'd have three day tournaments for you you'd stay there families but they don't do that now what about your kids like y'all went to a something y'all stay in the motel neat and cafes or something now then families would agree to keep like their big families agree to keep to and we just stay with them and they'd feed you and everything and the tournaments would be Thursday Friday and Saturday we fortunate and a lot most people get you know toured or burned out on the deal or like riding a horse I started riding a horse in about 46 nearly every day and I've rode one every day since you know when I still enjoy riding the horse and working you know you know I guess the necessity said everything that we needed with but we never we never did have any and extra money just you know I remember just haircut was a quarter you know when go to town get a haircut or something we'd go host back to town and get a haircut that's boys when we were just little kids they I don't think people were as concerned or didn't think about something happening to you so much as they do now and I we didn't you know at one thing you didn't have the news media that you have so we didn't hear about so many things happening you know them I'm sure that they were things back then that happened but we didn't have any way of knowing that and nobody worried about somebody getting you there something this usually and if it cost a dime to go to the picture show they'd take us to town on Saturday night to Picture Show and dis Leverson with walk home at night and it was seven miles back to the rights we just walked out there they didn't think anything about this little kids doing that now you be afraid somebody get started to school I think he's in 38 at leaf force and I finished the sophomore year and then went to cowboying and then several years later I went back and got a GED and then I have about I had about 750 classroom hours of law enforcement that I've had at accredited colleges both Midwestern university and at VR JC and I graduated in the Army I was certificate of graduation from a chemical biological radiological warfare school that I went to and then I also went to a school in a Ujima Japan during that period for noncommissioned officers and but I also graduated from a short course in Austin at the for sure's in their deputies in 1960 I wasn't sure for identity but I was an inspector for the cattle raisers and at that time I wanted to learn all I could learn about the you know winter so I went to several schools like that that I wouldn't have been compelled to I have a lot of respect for books and all he's done and he's done a lot for me and there's a lot of people that do respecting a whole lot and he's a good mystic all around good guy and a good man and I respect him long had a lot of influence on my life he was a cowboy that a generation ahead of me that I worked with he was born in King County in 1910 but he was a had he was a outstanding cowboy but he had great morals and and was a real honorable kind of fellow you know and I think looking back that I was 16 years old when I went to work with him and he was one of the leaders and kind of the boss at that time there but he was 39 and had never married you still just stayed his wagon you know but he had a lot of influence on my life and palm Blasingame was another he was just a a cow man and a cowboy way that not a famous guy about anything but he just had to was a outstanding human being you know when honored you know his fellow man and that sort of thing you know as as I grew older I don't think I realized at the time I was working with him that they didn't mean that much to me but as I look back I remember little things or things that they did or the way they handle situations that what I was impressed with and Alan Jeffers was a brand inspector clarendon when I was growing up he was a woman like them he was just an outstanding individual just a good man another thing he's taught me is instead of messing with a cult all the time and I just messin with him constantly just leave him alone I ride him and everything will coming together and he'll eventually learn everything on his own without you having to teach them all the time in lesson with instance eh long had an opportunity to make $17,000 which is not much money now but at that time I was working at that time for eleven hundred and eighty dollars a year now it's not a month a year that's ninety dollars a month and we work seven days a week you know from daylight till dark for eighteen ninety days of time and the old granddad distilleries whiskey offered see eight seventeen thousand dollars to take take his picture setting on a horse and say CH long dry soul granddad's whiskey and he was working for about a hundred and fifty dollars a month then and he had thought about it a lot and consulted with some people that he respected a lot and decided to turn it down because he said that he didn't drink whiskey and he didn't want anti somebody else to you know but I've always looked back he thought how many people would took the money anyway you know whether they drank whiskey I was younger I'd come up I'd be with my dad or something and we'd be working or something we'd come in and he'd be hot during summer I'd be tired and ready to go home in Boots he'd give me a couple of dollars and tell me go to supply house and get me soda pop and sometimes he'd even take me down there with him and we'd sit on the front on the bench in front of the supply house and drink coke and a candy bar I saying CH hat but when you're flanking caves some of y'all will know you've got a calf on the ground and he's trying to get up and the balling and the kicking and some cowboy would slap him on the head or put his finger in his eye trying to make him and cussing little or something CH would say just holding don't classify and things like that but he just they just both all them were just good honorable men another thanks Big Top means to go slow and handle cattle slow and don't get in a big hurry you're not gonna get you'll get just as much done as if you're taking your time just as you will fees if he's hauling butt and going fast just like that David we're weaning and you got on a green horse and ticked off the booking and Burt's roadie for about three licks and then come off and landed right on his back and he got up and he kind of hobbled around there for this minute and I didn't know if he was alright and then the next day coming back he was all wrapped up and stuff and but he in with work that next day so I guess he is all right hard work is good for any young people and I think that they they learn a lot about discipline and and and you have to have learn to deal with hardships and things that maybe you you don't want to do or you'd rather not be there but you have to get up and do it and to learn to to do that maybe the fortitude and Staton qualities of a person that's God you know when you've had a job for many years a lot of young people think and we have that here who they do if it's if it's distasteful they don't want to do it they won't quit and just start somewhere else you can't in and you've got to just be able to to buckle up and do it you think about I've always looked at it like when when we get through this evening and get in be warm or will that their thing be fine when it's real cold day or something but I think for a young person one of the great things that they can learn is to have a job and to honor it regardless that you feel a little bad in the morning or something happened that you don't want to go to get up and go you feel a whole lot better when you get in because you did do it back then they had to be a lot tougher because they stayed on the year round he said and that's a long time to live on the wagon and you know any only shower you got with the cold tank and and stuff and you know probably got pretty boring out there seven days a week and nowadays you can go work all day and then drive in and go in your nice heated or air conditioning house and have a nice hot shower every night or whatever and I think that's why so many people are expecting because he's been through all that and he did so good then and now he does that days away and he still does everything get so many of our people now have had it real easy you know just and I admire that having these good lives and everything but I think that they haven't learned the work you got you have to learn to work I think it's a learn you and to public parents have a lot of bearing on own your young people that that's they get up and go when they don't feel good and everything and a little kid at home sees working with much lot he's a either hand aching ride taking right horses ride like I don't he's just he's awesome with the horse and he did it drain cares and he he does the yeah what what most of my life is that we've said already is just well it worked and then come in and school and go to work with have stuff to do and we'd go to work you know when we got in and I used to get up and Hornets the team of horses and and hold some feed down to some cows and then come back and get ready and go school you know and ice can't imagine that's probably one reason I didn't go when they longer and I did but to you I guess I just kind of make the best of your deals the way we've been dealt to you and do Gough I'll have no regrets I've always thought that this had a lot of meaning in it was at unity if y'all are familiar with Charles Russell he was a was a turn-of-the-century artist cowboy artist and one of the leading cowboy artists in the world I guess Charlie Russell born like 1816 died in 26 you know 1926 but I've always thought he said that here's hoping the worst of my trailed is behind me and sickness and and sorrow don't find me and the good Lord is good too missing here to the end that that's the Russell but I think there's a there's a whole lot and then three or four cents it's it's a that's very good but a lot of stories to tell he remembers all the details and he's a lot of fun when we get together like parties and recently had my parents 50th wedding anniversary and boots has a toast or some type of coin to share for any occasion and ready on the spot and can usually make you laugh I took the words of an old cowboy song and wrote changed them up one or two and added one or two and wrote that prior that was on the back of his funeral paper is fun it says that they say there will be a great roundup wear cowboy was like dogies would stand to be marked by the rider of judgment and he's posted and he knows old brands they say he won't ever forget you and he knows ever action and look but for safety you best make sure you've been branded and your names in the Lord's Tagliabue because of all of those stories of all those that is how he has received a nickname the living legend boots is our living legend you

Channel: Darren Wilson

Views: 137,385

Rating: 4.9006209 out of 5

Keywords: bootsLG

Id: wJ3otCfiLUA

Length: 29min 18sec (1758 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 23 2012