Ceremonies of the Horsemen: The Ranch & Reata Essays

These are some selected essays by singer-songwriter Tom Russell as they appeared in the journal of the American West, Ranch & Reata. From subtle humor to serious-as-a-heart-attack looks at life, Tom Russell brings his no-holds barred writing style to a wide variety of works that study and display the human spirit in the West. As Russell says of the region, "The West was where you went to re-invent yourself - in the manner of Will James, Roy Rodgers, or Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Your persona thus reinvented, you wrote or sung up your singular cowboy vision. The plot usually centered around, or led back to - the horse. In that respect I call these essays Ceremonies of the Horsemen, a phrase stolen from a Bob Dylan song. I hail from The Irish, with a feint touch of Norwegian. My father's father settled in Iowa. He was the sheriff of Chickasaw County and a horse trader on the side. Or vice versa. I have his card here on my desk: Russell Brothers - New Hampton Iowa - Dealers in Live Stock - Horses and Colts a Specialty. We're Irish, and our besotted roots trace back to pirates and gypsies - a tribe or rascals who would sell a lame horse to a blind priest. It wasn't long before my father left Iowa - gone west to grow up with the country. He worked his way up, discovered Hollywood Park Racetrack, played poker with Hopalong Cassidy on the backside of the track, and sired four kids. My brother Pat jumped out of the crib and was soon hot-walking racehorses, then building a bucking barrel in our backyard. Hang and Rattle, kid. Soon he was riding real bulls at Crash Corrigan's film ranch. Brother Pat's record collection was well formed early on: Tex Ritter, Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, George Jones, Hank Williams...and several LP recordings of bullfight music. The stage was set. I absorbed the music and stole his Tijuana gut-string guitar, learned a bunch of old cowboy songs and poems, and became the songwriter. He carried on with the rodeo and the family trade in livestock. To this day he's horseback, behind some arena in Nevada or California. Bringing in the fresh cattle. These essays are my own Moveable Feast. The mystic priest, Fr. Richard Rohr, says the second half of life is the time we're finally able to fall upward, and find our true selves. Finger's crossed. Guitar in hand. The story's the thing. The myth. The legends. Whatever I couldn't fit into a three-minute song I fleshed out into an essay. Here they are."