Cowboy Boots and a Marimba

I recently stumbled onto this blog (The Pioneer Woman). This gal is incredibly talented as a writer and is also an excellent photographer. If you don’t have a couple of hours to spend, don’t even get started on Black Heels to Tractor Wheels: A Love Story, but I have to admit that I thought it was hysterically funny.

I, too, once had a crush on a cowboy. He wore cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and a wide belt with a cowboy buckle. He hailed from a cattle ranch in Northern California and was quite a phenomenon in my little Southern Utah home town. He played the string bass and the marimba, which he hauled around in the back of his “souped-up” black pickup. He’d just been elected student body president at the local college. I was just finishing high school, and who can even imagine why he might have found “small-town local girl” interesting, but he asked me out. We had our fling, and then when school ended that year he returned to the ranch and I went back to work my fourth summer at the Grand Canyon. We wrote to each other every day for three months. As the beginning of school drew near, he returned to Utah for student body officers’ leadership training, and stopped at the Grand Canyon to see me on the way. He arrived the day of the Grand Canyon Lodge Dining-room Staff Dinner Dance (Wow, what a mouthful!). Finally being together again was so romantic. I was pretty proud to be dining and dancing with “my Cowboy.” I took a couple of days off work to share “my canyon” and do some exploring. One afternoon, we were driving the truck across the Cedar Mountain Flats. I was wearing my new brown and white striped sunglasses. Cowboy said, “You know, I’ve had a lot of time to think this summer. I’m not sure it would be a good idea for the student body president to be all tied up in a girlfriend.” (Does that sound like a mother talking?) We had a discussion that stretched an eighteen-year-old’s ability and understanding, but agreed that when he dropped me back at the dorm that night we would say our final good-bye. It was sometimes awkward being on campus together, but I never lacked for dates, and with the resiliency of youth I always took the attitude that it was “his loss.” We were in the same Trigonometry class. I “bested him” by quite a bit. Toward the end of the year when my parents were out of town I was taking care of our farm alone. He showed up a time or two to help me with the chores. I think he might have been interested in taking another lick of the spoon, but it was too late. I was one year older and one year wiser. Even though he played a mean marimba, I realized that a cowboy hat, suntanned face, strong arms and riding around in a “souped-up” pickup was no longer enough to make my heart skip a beat. Thank goodness we grow up!