“Cowboy”? Better find another insult, pard.

I was just reading about that French play called “George W. Bush ou le triste cowboy de Dieu” (George W. Bush or God’s sad cowboy), how the director was bushwhacked (okie doke…pun intended) a while back and the play was shut down for a spell (“for the protection of the actors”) and how it’s about to start runnin’ agin. Who says the French are lily-white cowards? Not me, that’s fer durn sure.

Anyway, I don’t rightly understand why them little French guys think calling somebody a cowboy is such a big insult. I reckon none of ’em have ever met a real cowboy. I figgered them little French guys would have a better way with words than that, anyhow. Maybe they’re just ashamed of their own insults so they’re havin’ to borrow words from us. I can understand that. If’n you had to go around all day talkin’ like you had a mouthful of snails or somethin’ I reckon you’d wish for some good old American words, too.

Anyway, I reckon that if the worst thang folks could call me was cowboy, I’d be pretty dang happy with that monicker. ‘Cause here’s what being a real cowboy means…

• He don’t sit around talkin’ about something that needs doin’ until it cain’t be done…he gits on his horse and he goes and does it.
• When he tells somebody he’s gonna do something, he by gum does it, come hell or high water.
• There’s no friend like a cowboy; he’ll tell you when you’re wrong, help you make it right, and go to hell and back with you or for you, whichever the situation calls for.
• He’ll go outta his way and three counties over to avoid a fight if’n he sees an honorable way to make peace. But if you back him into a corner — if you mess with his spread or his kin — he won’t bring a knife to the gunfight.
• He don’t rightly give a snake’s butt what you think a him. If you ain’t a cowboy yourself, he understands that you just cain’t help yourself.

Yessir, I’ve known plenty a cowboys in my time, and I wouldn’t trade a one of ’em for a whole herd of cheese wranglers. But here’s the deal: it ain’t too late for them little French guys to come around to the cowboy way. But they’re gonna have to show a little backbone first. As my pard Texas Bix Bender is fond a sayin’, sometimes courage takes nuthin’ more than sittin’ down, suckin’ it in and listenin’. But, in the end, there’s always this, agin from ol’ TBB: the bigger the mouth, the better it looks shut.