Forgotten Books: THE CowBoy HANDBOOK (1998)

If the title interested you enough to start reading this review, you probably need this book. CowBoy, (as opposed to cow-boy or cowboy) is the author's term for an attitude based on what cow-boys (the genuine Old West type) came to symbolize around the world. He also calls this The Buckaroo Attitude. Cow-Boy, he tells us, is a state of mind, and can be achieved by anyone -- and he explains how.

Along the way, he tells us a whole lot of other stuff he thinks us CowBoys should know, if we don't already. beginning with how cow-boys came to be, back in 1494, and what they've been doing since. There's stuff about tending cattle, and hunting them, and the tools used to do it. There's info on CowTowns and railroads and ranches and real-life cow-boy life.

Next comes a section on Romancing the Range, with dime novels, music, pulps, movies and TV, followed by an attempt to seperate fact from fiction, a Who's Who of cow-boys, cowboys and CowBoys, real and otherwise, and a chapter on Rangeland Lingo. 

Then, at last, it's on to all that stuff we need to know to live the CowBoy lifestyle, including cooking, decorating, collecting, sightseeing and dressing the part. And, of couse, maintaining that CowBoy state of mind. 

So if we're CowBoys already, why do we have to read a book? Well, as Ranger Doug of the Riders in the Sky would tell us, doing things the easy way just wouldn't be The CowBoy Way.

And since we're talking cowboys, here an ad the INSP Network sent me for it's series THE COWBOY WAY, now in its third season. Catch it if you can on Thursdays nights.