Neil Dudley: The Cowboy Perspective, well, it might be hard to define, but I guarantee if you think about it, you’ve got one in mind. Whether you’re building a legacy, an empire, or a fan base, I bet when your friends look at you, they see some cowboy in your face. Y’all come along, let’s talk about this or that. Maybe when we’re done, you’ll go away with another perspective to put under your hat.
Hey, everybody, if you hear my voice, well, it means you’re listening to the Cowboy Perspective, and I appreciate your attention, your time. I know it’s not easy to come by these days, so thank you for listening. I just ask if you like the show, like our episodes, please share and tell a friend, if you don’t, tell me, please. I’d love to know what I could do a little better, that’s something I’m trying to improve on each and every day. Okay, without further ado – where did that even come from? One of these days, I’m going to have to explore where did without further ado come from. What I mean is let’s get to the task at hand and get to this second part of my conversation with Mr. Gerald Burns. In this episode, you’ll be hearing about what the influence of cowboys had on Gerald’s life, some of the things that he’s done that I always kind of thought he was famous for and a perspective that I think cowboys have about learning from others and paying attention and putting that into your daily life. So, I’m looking forward for you to guys to listen. I think there’s a lot of value in here. Enjoy.
One thing, like me and Brian talk about this so much, Brian’s my brother. I think he’s been introduced on the podcast. We hadn’t talked about him a lot, but he’s a little bit of an artist and likes that braiding and kind of stuff. And he laughs a little bit, like we watch that show The Man from Snowy River. I really love it. And it, to me, it’s all about the horses in that show. I’m just drawn to that. And to him, the whip was the cool thing. So, it’s funny how everybody, you were just absolutely right, like there’s a million ways to be a cowboy. They can’t be and shouldn’t be all the same.
Gerald Burns: Yeah. One thing Billy mentioned when he was, y’all were doing y’all’s deal, he was talking about the people he’d worked with over time and talked about Bob Byrd being one of the best ones he worked with. And that, to me, that’s what helps mould. If you’re able to be around some good hands, okay, and you have got the wherewithal to know that you’re not a good hand as good as them and can follow after them. I remember I went out there one time and helped Billy, Buster was short of hands and me and somebody else I don’t remember went out there, and I had a horse or two with me and I had them tied to the trove. Bob Byrd, he walked by there and he looked at them horses and he looked at their feet and he said, “Who’s your horse shoer?” And I said, “Well, I shoed my horses.” He said, “It looks like washerwoman shod them,” and walked on off. Anyway, I just thought to myself, you got to go through some of that in life. But what’s really neat is when somebody comes back, and they don’t ever say it, but they kind of approve of what you do. And that was his way of saying, that’s all right.
Neil Dudley: That’s a great example of what I think cowboys did for me in my life. I’ll bet you, Bob Byrd, if you had a chance to talk to him today, would have said, I rode by there and I knew he shod them horses and I knew he could do better than that, but I wasn’t going to say it to him that way. I was going to say something, and then you probably, I would assume, or perceive that you thought, well, okay, next time he sees my horses, he’s going to think something different.
Gerald Burns: It probably made me mad to be honest with you. And I went on, but that’s another thing. And here’s another thing, I started, my brother started me out shoeing horses because, like you say, he shod his horses out of necessity. Out there all the hands, you shod your horses you rode and that makes a big difference. If you’re using a horse all the time, every day, if he’s making your living, you’re going to shoe him where he can get around because you don’t want one crippled on you or something like that. You want him where he can travel in rough country, whatever. And I wasn’t 13. That’s another thing I’ve done for a long time was shod horses.
Neil Dudley: Well, you talk about fame and getting well known for things is such a weird thing to me or is very interesting. Billy is definitely recognized, one of the most renowned rawhide braiders in the world, and that’s pretty big when you just live right down the road from him. You’re famous, as far as I know, I’m sure of this for being one of the best horseshoers in this part of the country-
Gerald Burns: I don’t know about being famous. I’ll tell you what though, but-
Neil Dudley: Well, there’s levels.
Gerald Burns: Well, yeah. And I’m not a failure and I realize I’m not, but I’ve shod a lot of horses. And what I was going to tell you was my brother got me started doing that years ago, and I shod my own horses out of- I couldn’t pay $5 to get a horse- When I first started shoeing horses, we was getting $5 and $7 to shoe one and $2.5 to trim one. Now that was a long time ago, Neil. I tell you what they’re getting, you know what they’re getting now. Anyway, but when I came and started, the first time I ever saw Billy here to know him, he was trimming some colts down there at a neighbor’s house when Brenda and I lived over east of- north of Gustine, and he was shoeing, trimming some horses down there. And I was visiting with him a little bit, and of course, he’s not the most talkative individual in the world. And we didn’t talk a whole lot, but we talked a little bit. But anyway, I think that’s kind of where things got started. But he and I shod a lot of horses together, and he’s by his horseshoeing just like he is everything else. It was good. And I learned so much from him about shoeing those horses and more than anything else, making sure their feet were, I never saw him use a gauge and I’ve never used a gauge. I don’t know if I could read one, to be honest with you. But I knew how a horse’s foot, I knew when you got him too short in the back, and I know when you left too much toe. I knew all that kind of stuff. But anyway, I learned so much from him and he can always make them look so good. Mine never did. I’d always have a nail out of line, and his never were.
Neil Dudley: Would he pull one out if it went in wrong?
Gerald Burns: He would do something. It would look good when he got through. But I remember one day I went down there, and this was not too many years ago and he had an old pony there that was not the easiest thing to shoe. And he had, it was really funny. I didn’t laugh at him, but anyway, I walked in there and he was bent over, and he had that horse’s leg up, jacked up. And anyway, he was putting a shoe on and his glasses on – of course, that’s another thing that comes with age – but them glasses were hung off just about off the end of his nose. And he was bent over, and he is hot, and he’d been at it a while. And he was tapping on that horse. And I thought to myself, I said, “How are you getting along Bill?” He says, “Well, I just shoe one foot a day, then I’ll shoe another one.” But to me, he was a good horseshoer. And one time, Earl, his daddy, of course you’d have to know him, but Earl was, he didn’t say much. He was kind of a gruff individual. But anyway, he come by me one day and I was, I had a horse there tied up. I’ll was shoeing him. He come by and he stood there a minute. He said, “Only one man I ever saw that could follow Hopkins and that’s Billy.” Well, Hopkins was an old horseshoer, he was famous in this part of the world for shoeing horses. And he was a pretty good hand. And Earl let me know that I wasn’t nothing compared to Billy as far as being a horseshoer. And I knew that, but anyway, just a lot of things that happened in life. But Billy really was a huge influence in my being able to know how to, and that’s just like anything else, you learn the basics. And then over years, you develop, you try to get better at it. You just try to do a better job. And let me tell you something, during that time when I was day working for a living, a lot of times, we was needing some money and there’d nearly always be somebody that had a horse need shod. So, that’s a hard way to make a living. I don’t envy these boys. I’ve got a nephew that shoes horses, Zach shoes horses for a living. I don’t envy them boys doing that. But let me tell you something, it was good for me because it could always help me get my tail out of the crack. So, I’m glad I learned how to do that over time.
Neil Dudley: There’s another thing you’re touching on a little bit that I think would be valuable to anybody listening is the idea that people you learn from, which Billy might be a little older than you. I don’t know y’all’s ages exactly. You might be the same age.
Gerald Burns: No, he’s a little older than me. He’s about four years older than me.
Neil Dudley: But once you get past 20 years, four years isn’t anything. It’s basically the same age. And you’re willing to learn. I think it’s important for people to think you can learn from people your age, younger than you. Like don’t set some limit on yourself of who you can learn from, who you can look up to. I think I learn a lot from people younger than me. And I try to teach people older than me things. It’s like, we’re all just here trying to get better. Don’t limit yourself by saying, well, I ought to be better than him today, then I’m not going to let- If you aren’t, then just admit that and let it be and try to get better. I think I battled that a little bit myself in my younger years of just thinking, well, I’m supposed to know what I’m doing, and I shouldn’t, I didn’t accept the learning I could have.
Gerald Burns: If you’re like most of us, you probably about the time you was about 13 to you were about 20, you probably were about the smartest individual you knew.
Neil Dudley: And think I might have extended it to 30.
Gerald Burns: And then when you got past that, you found out your daddy was a lot smarter than you ever thought he was. That’s the way all, that’s just a natural thing. That’s way we all were. And boy, I’ll tell you what, my dad’s been dead, well, he died in ’86 and he was 74 years old. So that’s several years that he’s been dead. But there’s so many times that I go back, and I say I wished I’d done something different then because I said things and I did things that- We had a good relationship, but I wished I had done something a little different, because now my vision is a lot clearer than it was then. And I would’ve done things different. But that’s, you live and learn. Hopefully, you learn, and you try to correct those things and you can’t go back and fix them. One thing I’m always quoting things he told me one time, he said, he had a little plaque hung up on the wall, and it said: Be careful of the words you say – you ever heard of that? Be careful of the words you say, keep them soft and sweet. You never know from time to time which ones you’ll have to eat. So anyway, he always told me, he said, when you spit something out, when you say something, he said, you can’t ever take it back. And that’s something I’ve learned in the last few years. I haven’t always been this way, but I’ve tried to make it one thing I live by is to, and I know you can’t tell by what we’re doing here, but I try to not talk quite so much and as quick. I used to get a bad grade in deportment when I was a little boy, because on that report card back then, they had a place for deportment, and the reason you didn’t get a good grade and mine was acts before thinking. And that usually involved my mouth. And what I’ve tried to incorporate in my life in the last few years is to the Lord gave us two ears and one mouth, and there’s a reason for that. We need to listen twice as much as we talk, and I think that’s a good thing is to you can learn more with your mouth shut than you can with it open.
Neil Dudley: And I think for the listeners out there, think about that and in the realm of social media, text messaging, all of those things are saying something. And just like your dad said, when you say it, it’s out there, you can’t get it back.
Gerald Burns: A lot of people are finding that out these days.
Neil Dudley: So just keep that in mind. And it’s absolutely valuable and valid in everything you do. Just cause you are texting some person, you really don’t even know if that’s the person you think you’re texting to. It’s such a different world, isn’t it?
Gerald Burns: I’m not very good at that. You talk about teaching older people what to do. Those girls at the bank, I know they get so aggravated at me, but I’m not a computer person. I don’t do very good with the cell phones and all these programs, you’re talking about, you’re going to give me a copies of that deal you did with Billy. But I’ve tried to go by without having to do that. I’m hoping to get to the age where I can stop all that and go back to doing what I know and just live that life again. But Billy, what’s funny about him, he’s got- did you see? Did he have his iPad when you were-? And that amazed me, he wouldn’t get a cell phone forever. I don’t know if he’s got one now or not.
Neil Dudley: I was asking Lauri about it, and she said, well, I said, “Has he got a cell phone?” And she said, “You mean one that works?”
Gerald Burns: He used to aggravated because I think Buster and them, when they first went out there, they wanted him to, I don’t remember if that’s when it was or not, but anyway, they wanted him to carry a cell phone, but he never did do it. Nut he got this iPad. Now, I’ll tell you why he got it – so he can look up stuff about his braiding and stuff like that. And Laurie says he looks up a lot of stuff. And so, but he’s advanced more in that deal than I have.
Neil Dudley: He’s a great guy to talk about. Matter of fact, I had kind of on our conversation starters for this, just tell a couple stories – you’ve told some, several of them. You got any more good Billy Albin stories?
Gerald Burns: I’ve got a gillion of them. That’s what I told you a minute ago. This is going to last a lot longer than you probably hope for, but I recalled two times, we used to catch a lot of cattle.
Neil Dudley: Now, you were listening, I’m pretty sure we left it in the last episode. He says you’re the best man to go catch a bull.
Gerald Burns: I don’t know about that, but we’ve caught a lot of them.
Neil Dudley: And that’s thing that changed about stuff around here, like y’all’s career, y’all were working, day working together, there was a lot of that work to be done then. You had to kind of think about going, like Billy went to west Texas and you went to the bank because that kind of work was drying up around here.
Gerald Burns: Yeah. It did. People got to where they could handle their cattle a little better, and back then, if somebody had an old bull that they couldn’t do nothing with, well, they’d holler, and we’d catch him, and we caught- I could tell bull catching stories forever. But anyway, two cow deals that really stuck out in my mind. One of them was the bank, the bank it’s not there anymore at Comanche, and there’s some boys got upside down on a bunch of cattle. There’s about 70 head of them and they were cows and they hadn’t cut any bulls on those cows, probably calves. They probably hadn’t cut any cattle on them things in four or five years.
Neil Dudley: They’re all just inbreeding?
Gerald Burns: And while it was happening, those bulls, there was a gillion of them. And so, a big part of them cattle were bulls and bull yearlings. And ost of them were eared cattle. So, you were talking about Brahmers and stuff like that, horned cattle. Anyway, so they got upside down on these cattle and the bank was going to repossess them. So, they called us and said, “Would y’all be interested in gathering those cattle for us?” And so, we were interested in, so he said, “What would you do it for?” And we agreed on price. Anyway, went off down there. And first thing we tried to do was we got our feed sack and we were going to see what we could gather, just so silk them in. Well, we silked three or four cows and maybe a calf or two and got them in the lot. None of the rest of them. I mean, here’s what the deal was. Those guys back in that day had access to men who were in the somewhat incarcerated or something. But anyway, they could use them to work out, and the way they gathered those cattle was they’d get on the back end with about X amount of those guys, and they would get trash can lids or buckets or whatever they could do and make racket, like how they drive the lines in Africa with the beaters, that’s what they did with those cattle. And when you rolled up there with a gooseneck trailer, you know what that sounds like on a gravel road. Those cattle would hear those goosenecks, and they would just, they were like a [inaudible]. They’d run off and two and three in a bunch. And that’s the way they’d stay. They wouldn’t bunch up. Well, we got those few cattle in, and we called my nephew Byron. He was going to school at Tarleton, and he also had access to those good Hancock horses and stuff and down there at Tarleton. And anyway, he brought a couple or maybe three head of horses. Billy had a horse or two. I had a couple of horses, and then my dad had an old horse, big old stout horse that come off that outfit too. And we used him kind of like you’d use a bulldozer to do the heavy work and we’d tie those cattle down. And then when we’d go to get them up, we’d load them with him, not to use up our horses dragging those cattle on the trailer. So, we were getting along pretty good. We gathered a lot of stock, we just, we jumped two or three and each one of us would go rope one and tie him down and we’d tie down a load and then we’d come around and load them up. Well, one morning we got in, we jumped two or three and one of them was pretty good size, probably about an 800-pound bull yearling. And I went and roped one, Byron went and roped one. We got them tied down and then we could hear Albin over, and he was kind of, there’s kind of some ruckus going on, we knew something was going on. And anyway, we was going along there and I finally found him and he’d roped this bull yearling. And when he roped him, to jerk him down to tie him, his breast harness, the off strap on his breast harness broke and it fell down between his horse’s legs. So, it was hanging on his horse’s legs. Well, his horse broke in two, it was this [inaudible] horse I was telling you about, his horse broke in two with him. Anyway, so here he was, and here’s the picture. And I wish we had Ace here to draw it for us. But here was Albin standing up in the stirrup. And he wasn’t more excited than you and I are right now. He wasn’t tore up. He was standing up in his stirrups and he had that rope way up over his head to keep it out from under that horse’s feet. And that bull yearling was a hooking right in that horse’s hind end. And that horse was pitching. Now he wasn’t swallowing his head and bucking, sure enough, but he was kind of goating and going across through there, pitching and this bull was trying to hook him in the rear. And Albin was standing up in the air. Anyway, and I happened to, I was the first one there and I come by him, and I threw a rope under that yearling and happened to catch a leg, pulled him down. When I pulled him down and everything come tight, well, that horse went to the end of it. He quit pitching. And I don’t remember the conversation. I like to say something about Albin – “You were in a bind.” “No, I wasn’t in a bind, but I was glad you showed up.” But anyway, but we got all those cattle, 70 something head of those cattle gathered. We didn’t break but one leg, and we didn’t leave anything there. So that was a great time. We always talk about that, even today we talk about that kind of stuff. And there’s one more and I’ll make it shorter, but there’s an old boy that bought some cattle out east of town and it was some cattle this guy had raised like milk pen calves, but they were, back then they bred a lot of Brahmer bulls to these Holstein cows around here, these dairies. Well, they were half Holstein, half Brahmer cows. There was about 15 of them and they had their calves, which were pretty good size. And maybe there was a bull on them. I don’t remember. But anyway, they were in a little pasture, kind of a wooded pasture across from this guy’s house. And he messed around and passed away, this guy did. And his wife was going to sell, well, this old boy from town went down there and he bought them cattle. And then he couldn’t do nothing with them because that old man had tended to them all these years. They knew him, but they didn’t know nobody else. We had more trouble with that little patch of cattle. You couldn’t get in there to rope nothing because there was some brush and stuff and they just, they knew every inch of it, and they would just run. So, we gathered up all the catch ropes we could find, and we’d hang them in the trees in those trails like, and we did catch two or three. We snared them like you would a big fish. We’d catch them things. We caught all we could. And then finally we just got after them and they finally went to jumping the fences, and we caught them all over the country. But we learned a lesson right then. And you think you gather the milk cows, but sometimes they might be the hardest ones to gather. But we ran into stuff like that all the time. And always has had a great time. And I got a lot of remembrances, but you know, Neil, people run into me from time to time, and maybe I’m off doing something for the bank, and they’ll say, “Oh yeah, we remember you, you remember when y’all came over and caught this or that?” I don’t remember. We caught a gillion of them. There’s a few that stick out in my mind, but a lot of them didn’t. But we just did that back in the day. We caught a lot of cattle. And because of Billy’s expertise, I mean, we could get it on one usually pretty good. And get him caught without too much trouble.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. Well, both of you guys are just something special to me. I think you both really give each other a lot of credit, and I think that speaks to just your cowboy philosophy and how you are. Cause I think Billy would say well I couldn’t have done it without Gerald. It was just, you guys worked together, like you said, you pour it together and it’s just kind of this one thing.
Gerald Burns: Yeah, it was good. It was a good time.
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Just really quick, I want to say thank you to Johnny over at Straight Up Podcasts. He is helping me improve this podcast in so many ways with regards to sound quality, interviews, organization, all that stuff. So, Johnny, I just want to tell the world that I appreciate what you’re doing here helping the Cowboy Perspective be the best it can be.
You’re talking about some stories stick out, you don’t remember some. Well, I’ve kind of got in this habit where I’ll go out to the feed store. Brian will be there usually and Johnny Conan’s kind of in there, we kind of show up about the same time. He’s drinking a cup of coffee and I’m drinking a cup of coffee. Well, the other day we’re kind of laughing about somehow they got to telling the story about first time I kind of roped a cow on Dudley Brothers and we were out in Reynolds County on that place at the time. And some of those old cowboys that work for Dudley Brothers were my heroes. And this particular one was Clinton Tonguette, he worked for them out there and a cowboy. Well, anyways, I roped this cow and I’d been roping but I didn’t do a lot of roping in the pasture or know anything about what I was doing. I ended up jerking her over right on top of her head and breaking her horn. And it was all a big wreck instead of something that could have been smooth if I had known what I was doing. But I was so glad I got to do it because I wouldn’t have ever known how to do it without getting to do it. Well, anyways, I remember that, a lot of people remember that. Tom R’s hollering, “No, don’t do that. Don’t that!” Clinton’s over in the truck just laughing. I don’t know. I’m sure Dad’s sitting there shaking his head thinking, oh my gosh, this kid’s ruining this good cow. Well, Brian and Jordan and the cousins, well apparently, Brian had jumped on a horse and the saddle wasn’t tight. And while all of this was ruckus was going on, he was over there falling off the horse, and he’s like, “I’m glad you did that. Then nobody knew what I was doing.” But anyways, it was a funny story. And it’s just one that several people remember, and it’s fun to get- When Billy took me up there to Busters and they sat around just telling stories like that, man, I enjoy that so much. That’s one reason I want to do this podcast is if I like it, if somebody else somewhere I know just likes that because it’s going to spur a memory of something they have, and oh yeah, I remember we did that and that was tough, dangerous, but we lived and it’s a good memory. It’s been so much fun talking to you. I think I might know what your answer is going to be here, but I’m going to ask the question anyways. What’s your favorite book?
Gerald Burns: I guess I’d be amiss if I didn’t say the Bible probably holds the most meaning for me now, not only because it shares who the Lord is and all this, but boy, there’s lots of good life lessons in that word. And I’ll read them. I’ve been trying to read the psalms, five Psalms and a proverb every day. And if you read that every day, a proverb and five Psalms every day, you’ll read through the book of Proverbs in a month, and plus, you’ll read through the Book of Psalms in a month. And so, I’ve been doing that since January. And so, I’ve read it. I’m going on my seventh time to read through, just Psalms and Proverbs. But so much wisdom in that. And the book of Proverbs is a big, it talks about gaining wisdom and gaining knowledge. And after I’m reading it six or seven times, some of it’s beginning to soak in. So, I guess I’d say for me, the Bible is the most important book in my life. Now I thought about that. I read a book one time that Elmer Kelton wrote, and you know Elmer Kelton? And I used to rope some with his brother over here, Meryl. And anyway, those boys were raised out there in cow country, and they knew what the deal was. But Elmer wrote a book called The Time It Never Rained. Did you ever read that book?
Neil Dudley: I’ve seen it. Like I say this all the time, I never read books in my life until the last couple of years and I still don’t read them, but I listen to them.
Gerald Burns: Anyway, The Time It Never Rained, that it was a great book. I really enjoyed that. And then another one he wrote called the Good Old Boys and they made a movie out of that, and that was a great book. My dad was a great reader. Back in the day, before we had TV’s and stuff, that was the main, a big part of your entertainment. And I remember going to my granddad’s house up at Burkett and there was a, these little cabinets that they had with the glass fronts, you seen them, that cabinet was probably about five foot high and about three foot wide maybe, or a little wider. And it was chock full of Zane Gray and Louis L’Amour and all those old Western stuff, old Western authors and stuff that wrote those. And my dad, he was raised reading that kind of stuff. And my earliest memories of anybody doing anything, I mean, my dad didn’t sing nursery rhymes to me, but he sang little Joe the Wrangler and Strawberry Roan, and stuff like that. And I guess, that probably put a bug in me, when I was little like that, and talking about, I don’t know if you know little Joe the Wrangler.
Neil Dudley: I don’t. I’m familiar with Strawberry Roan.
Gerald Burns: He left home when he was just a little kid and came riding up. They took him to wrangle the horses on this outfit. And of course, they all took him under his wing. Well, one night, they had a bad storm and stampede, and he was riding old Blue Rocket. And I think that the name of the horse. And they said they found him where old Rocket fell and in a chasm 40 feet below. And that’s where he ended his life. Stuff like that didn’t mean much then, but it means a lot now. And I’ve sang Strawberry Roan to my kids, grandkids. And of course, they’re raised down there where they don’t get to see, be a part of much stuff like that, but we try to show them what we can when they’re down here. Anyway, I’ve never had a horse. Most of my horses never were gentle enough for my kids to ride. When the girls got a little older, Amanda rode that old brown horse a lot. And Angie rode, had a horse too they could ride. But they weren’t really gentle to turn loose with kids on them. They were horses you used, and there’s always a little something. Old Tony, he’d kind of spook and jump. And old Brownie, he’d take a chance to do something every once in a while, too. They weren’t bad to pitch, but I couldn’t turn them loose on them. So, they liked horses, but they didn’t get to do what a lot of kids do. Like your girls get to ride a lot, and mine didn’t get to do that. I never could afford to have them a horse of their own. My horses I had was what I used. And anyway, so it’s a different deal. But they’ve been brought up to value nature and the things and nature. And the book of Proverbs, it talks about taking care of your livestock. Tells you that’s an important thing. If you’re going to have them, you need to take care of them. So, they knew the value of animals and taking care of stuff. And my wife, bless her heart, she’s told people before, she said, “I never knew what it was,” but said, “I’ve been compared to a horse or a cow.” You know what I’m talking about. You think, well, that’s something, the way an old cow would do or something like that. She said, I’m always doing that. And now, Brenda, I’m not comparing you to a horse or a cow. But that’s what she’d say. She might listen to this – get that in. But she’s always had to be, I’ve always had those kinds of thoughts.
Neil Dudley: I’ll guarantee you, I mean, Stacey says that’s just as part of that growing together. I bet you Brenda wouldn’t trade some of that for nothing because that’s part of why she married you and loves you, just who you are. But I was having a thought, it fluttered away. It happens. What about a value of a dollar? Oh, I was going to say, you telling this story right now is your dad living on a little bit and it makes me so glad we’re telling it. He’s living on with things he did for you, and then you’re doing for your grandkids and when you’re gone, they might sing that to their- And that’s kind of a really cool thing about life, I think.
Gerald Burns: You know a dollar’s important. You got to have them, but I’ve learned that they’re not the most important thing. But let me add this thought – my dad worked for wages all his life and we never had much of our own as far as places or houses. The ranches and stuff that he worked on would furnish him houses and stuff. So, back in the early fifties and stuff, not too many years before they’d gone through the Depression. And my dad was born in ’12 and my mother in ’15, and they lived through part of that. And most of these people that had been through that time, they look at things a little different from the way they do now. My dad, I don’t remember him ever, in fact, he never did tell me much about money or investing money. We never had any money to invest. I remember sometimes mother would fuss about having, something would be a little different or had to pay a little extra bill or something would be wrong, and she’d say something about it. And Daddy would say, well tell him to just be glad you got the money to pay for it. And so that makes a big difference. We like you say, Brenda and I, we started off with nothing. We borrowed up stuff, kin folks would loan us stuff, and that’s the way we started our married life together. And I remember one time we drove from Chalk Mountain to Cross Plains to pick up a little old cookstove. And it was a little two burner stove. You couldn’t hardly fry egg on it, but that’s what we used. And I found a refrigerator somewhere and I broke the handle off of it, this is terrible, but I broke the handle off of it, but it had a little catch deal. And I figured out this deal where you could, we had an old butcher knife and you could take that butcher knife and stick it in there and then hit it, hit it and turn it all at the same time. And that door would come open. It’s still cool. It was cool and kept stuff cold. Anyway, I got me a piece of leather strap or thong or something and tied it on the end of that butcher knife and I left it hanging there on that refrigerator when we were living there at Chalk Mountain, and Brenda got to where she could walk up there and slip it in and open that door just as easy as you’d open one of these modern day ones. But just whatever we could- that’s how we got by. And we began to get a little stuff. Never did get a whole lot of nothing. We one of the things I think we did in our life that was an important thing is we bought a little spot of ground and built a house on it, and it took a while to get it paid for. But it’s paid for now and it’s ours. And so, that was pretty special. But as far as a dollar, I still stop and pick a penny up. I don’t walk over them. I don’t know how people clean their cars out and throw these pennies on the ground and just let them go. And because to me, if you pick a penny up and throw in a jar and you do that enough times, one of these days, you’re going to have jar full of pennies. Now that might sound like a nitpicking thing, and I’ve had people call me tight and everything else. I really didn’t think about being tight, but maybe I am.
Neil Dudley: I think it’s just having an appreciation.
Gerald Burns: Well, and it depends on what you do. The way we worked back in the day and when you are under a horse for an hour to shoe him to make $10, you don’t just take that $10 and just scattered anywhere. And you realize where your money comes from. If you ever end up with any, you’re fortunate. If you don’t, you’re better off probably. And you don’t leave your kids something to fight over. That’s the way Mother and Daddy was. When Daddy retired, when Mr. Armstrong and them sold out, Daddy sort of retired. He really didn’t quit working, but he quit working for anybody particularly. But that outfit Mr. Armstrong then bought, or Ms. Armstrong bought them a house in Crowley. And when daddy and mother, when mother passed away, we divided things up. We sold that house and there wasn’t much to divide up. There was a lot of memories in that house as far as things that the grandkids got, and daddy had I don’t know how many Bibles. And most of those Bibles, he had written in. Well, we had enough Bibles, and I wasn’t able to be there when they divided it all up. My brother, he kind of ran that outfit, but when they divided all that stuff up, every one of the grandkids, every one of the kids and the great grandkids, everybody got to get a Bible. And most of them got to have one that was written in, very special. But my brother, he said, “Alright, so we’re going to draw lots. And whoever draws the first number gets to go first. So, you get to pick what you want,” but he said, “You pick what you want out of the house,” but said, “There’s a table here with some stuff on it. You got to take something from that too.” So that was some of the less desirable things. He fixed so that when it was over, everything was gone. But my girls have stuff that my mother had that I grew up with, and now my granddaughter, she just turned 16, my oldest granddaughter, and she likes stuff like that, old stuff like that. And that’s pretty special and it’s not worth nothing, Neil, but it means something.
Neil Dudley: Well, yeah. Worth and value and all that is such a, I’m trying to find the word for it, but it’s so different for everybody. So, I like to ask that value of a dollar because just having the granddad I did and the dad I did, it was drilled into me pretty hard, like you said, pick that penny, pay attention, this stuff can’t be gone tomorrow. And you got to think about that too. And if it is, like you said, you might be better off.
Gerald Burns: As you’re talking, and I’m sitting here, and I’m not going to begin to do this, but there’s verses from the Bible comes relevant through my head. When you’re talking about that, I’m thinking about stuff the Bible says about that. It lays it out pretty plain. And if you’ll pay attention, that’s the thing about it in life, if we just pay attention. So many times, there was things that was told to us. I think about George Jones, he wrote a song and sang it, and I’ve played it at a couple of funerals I’ve done. And it’s called Choices. You’ve probably heard it.
Neil Dudley: Oh yeah, The Choices I Made.
Gerald Burns: Yeah. I’ve heard voices since the day I was born telling me right from wrong. If I’d have just listened to what they had to say, I wouldn’t be here today, living and dying with the choices I’ve made. So, it makes a big difference. And a guy like you, still young enough, and make right choices, get some good information from somebody that you see that’s successful. You don’t have to, I mean, if they’ve made their money, like I can think of some boys that I’ve worked for that have become pretty well off, and they did it working. And I that’s where I really put a lot of store in what they’ve done because they know where it- They know where it came from. And so, guys like that, be around those kinds of people and see what they did and kind of look around and see what’s going on and take some advice from some people. The Bible says a wise man will receive instruction, will receive knowledge. That’s a wise man. Wisdom don’t come out of a book. Wisdom comes by taking knowledge that you have and applying life lessons. And then you develop wisdom over time. And that’s why, these old men you go to, we’re losing a lot of our, of the national treasure that we have in these old people that are dying off. And we haven’t taken the time. I wished I had sat down and had a deal like this, and I wished I’d have sat down with Carlton Penn and talked to him. I wished I would have- some guys, that I worked with an old boy at Chalk Mountain. He run that outfit down there, sit down and talk to him, what’s special. That’s a good thing. Like Randy Majors before Earl died, Earl was a- he was an encyclopedia of horse stuff. That’s what he focused on. He knew breeding from one end to the other. And I gave him that old Hancock horse I had, I gave him his name and his registration number. And he had all volumes. He had volumes of the quarter horse registry from the first, from the very first. And he went through there and he wrote down, I’ve still got it in his handwriting of old Brownie’s ancestry. Like our family tree, so to speak. And I wouldn’t take for that now, because- and if we just take time, the people around that we see that are special, just stuff like this, just talk about it. That’s one reason when I heard you and Billy talking, I thought to myself now that’s special. The only thing I’d like to have something I could keep, that my kids could hear. And that’s something I’ve got. I record some of my stuff from cowboy church. I put it on a disk, and I hope someday- I’ve just got it thrown around places now, but someday when I’m gone-
Neil Dudley: They’ll love it. They’ll be very thankful for it. Like we’ve got home videos and there’s a video of them branding some colts back in, I don’t know, it was ’84 I think. Grandpa Eltos was still there. James Quost is on that video. A guy named Gabriel that I remember as a kid that worked there, all my uncles. That is so special for me. I love listening- There’s another video where they videoed a very early part of the sale, the bull sale, when it was still under the tent. And grandpa Eltos is just talking to the crowd about their offering, and it’s so nice just to get to hear his voice. So, what you’re doing is great, keeping that around. I might advise or encourage you to don’t just leave them laying around, put them somewhere where they can get their hands on them later.
Gerald Burns: You mentioned your granddad, and I knew Eltos, and I know all them guys back in the day. And I’ve been helping over there with the bull sale for years. I don’t know; I don’t remember how long I’ve been over there, but I remember when they had the tent, and I remember the tent blowing down one time. A storm come through and blew it down the night before the sale. That was a big deal. And I remember Clinton and what was the boy’s name that worked here that cowboyed-?
Neil Dudley: It was either Joe or Ward.
Gerald Burns: Yeah, Joe Henderson. Anyway, I remember him, and that kind of, I’ve watched them boys doing that, and I thought, man, that’s neat. They were- Well now, it’s me and Buddy, we’re back there loading them cattle, loading them bulls in the sale order and stuff. And I think, I guess there’s some little kid somewhere looking at us and saying that’s pretty neat.
Neil Dudley: Well, that’s me. I mean, that’s the truth of it.
Gerald Burns: Yeah. And anyway, so, well, I’ll tell you what, I’ve been down a lot of roads and I’ve had a lot of good experiences. I’ve had a lot of experiences I don’t want to talk about, but we all have those. But I’ve been so blessed to have what I’ve had in my life as far as the people, my daddy always told me, he said, and friends, good friends. And he told me, he said, “Gerald, you can get through life without money, but you can’t get through life without friends.” And that makes a big difference.
Neil Dudley: Well, and in this world today, like my girls might listen to this someday in a time of need. Who knows when God calls me home, it could be anytime. So, I want, I’m trying to always leave a little treasure for them, something they can hear. And you think of all the most famous people in the world. You might think you wish you could have what they have. I promise, they don’t have any more than about five to ten real close people that care truly care about them, truly love them. It’s just to think they got a million followers on Facebook, that’s just, there’s still only five or ten that really truly care about them and matter. So that’s a little bit of treasure there, girls. Don’t leave you self-esteem and belief in yourself up to how many followers you got. You might build it on the people that love you.
Gerald Burns: You don’t give your close friendships to everybody, and they’re developed over time. That’s like I think about Albin now. We don’t see one another very often now. Of course, he’s a homebody. He stays right there and works there in his saddle shop, saddle room there where he plats, he stays right there and works all the time. We don’t ever see him. I think the last two times I’ve seen him was at the grocery store. But here’s the deal – it don’t matter if you don’t see them, true friends, it don’t matter if you don’t see them for a long time. When you come back together, you’re still just like you always were. And that’s special.
Neil Dudley: I built one friendship like that in college, which I’m not a big proponent of college. I don’t know if I even think it’s necessary. But I would, in this regard, I built a friendship when I went to college with a guy that I’m just like that with. Well, we don’t, we rarely talk. We just are doing different things, living, but we get together. Matter of fact, I’m looking forward to it, we’re going to get together in a couple of weeks and spend some time out at the lake. And it’s just like, it’s just there’s no effort to it. We are just back together. It’s awesome.
Gerald Burns: It’s very special. It is.
Neil Dudley: Gerald, thanks for your time. Everybody, thanks for listening to the Cowboy Perspective. I hope you got something there to just roll around and think, maybe it’ll help you build a better perspective or maybe a little different one. And if it didn’t, well, I hope you enjoyed your time listening to our stories because we sure enjoyed telling them and having this time talking. So, we will talk to you later.
Well, that rounds out the full conversation with Gerald Burns. Now we’ve come to the end of part two, and I hope over the past two episodes, you’ve found a lot of useful information. I know that Gerald’s a guy that I respect and look up to, and I know he spends a lot of time thinking about things and trying to do the right thing. So, please take what makes sense to you, use it. Don’t worry about stuff that doesn’t make sense to you because that’s probably a piece of it that’s not for you. But hey, I’m so glad you’re listening to the Cowboy Perspective. I asked at the first of the episode, please share or tell a friend, one friend, just help me get the word out f you liked it. If you don’t, tell me. You know, we love to hear anything that would help add value to the show that I may not get. I was telling somebody the other day, the amount of times I do stuff, and I just don’t understand fully what’s going on is ridiculous. So, I don’t know any better way to say it than just say and tell me; if it’s not valuable to you, tell me. So, thanks for joining. As I always say, I appreciate your time. It’s not free. And I hope you enjoyed this conversation around the kitchen table here on the Cowboy Perspective. Catch you next time.
The Cowboy Perspective is produced by Neil Dudley and Straight Up Podcasts. Graphics are done by Root & Roam Creative Studio. And the music is by Byron Hill Music.