Weekly Posting of the Conservative Cow Doctor

Tying the Knot

Careers start early for country kids. Me and my two brothers were the cowboy crew the instant we were old enough to hold the reins. Being a four-year-old cowboy is frustrating as about the best you could do is plod along behind the herd, curse the heat under your breath and hope the wind did not blow your straw hat off and spook your horse. My father would occasionally lope back from the leads to check the drags and extract each of us from whatever pickle in which we found ourselves. All three of us used the leg-shinny technique to climb into the saddle, something which was rarely successful when mounted on horses anxious to catch up with the herd. If we dropped a rein we were stuck because our reach was too short to retrieve the rein from the saddle, but if we dismounted and retrieved it from the ground, we were back to the leg-shinny obstacle. To avoid crying cowboys in the drags, Dad always tied a knot in our reins roughly a saddle horn length from the bit. It is not easy being a country kid.

Eventually, our lengthening reach and growing inseam eliminated both obstacles and the knot in our reins became a relic of our youth. Your horse, the herd and the horizon look totally different when you are riding with knot free, long, split reins. No longer just plodding, knotty mini cowboys, suddenly we were a force demanding a momma cow’s respect and here is why this is timely.

Recent photos and video clips from Del Rio, Texas shows what can happen to split reins flying wildly from the centrifugal force of a spinning horse. Had the Border Patrol agents tied two knots in their reins, one at the saddle horn and a second near the end, the reins would have politely hung together as if they had the manners of a softspoken National Public Radio broadcaster. However, I would not be caught dead doing security work with knots in my reins and neither would they. Propagandists describing the border scene as reminiscent of the slave trade is absurd, yet the Covid crisis has taught us 50 percent of the electorate swallows all they are fed by the ruling class. Patriots who know which end of the horse gets up first should consider this: When the Oval Office occupant and his ilk speak so ignorantly of a scene of which you are knowledgeable, you must assume they are also lying about subjects about which you are unfamiliar. Progressives rarely lie only once.