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, here’s another installment of the Cowboy Mentor series I’ve been doing. It’s just been a whole lot of fun for me. I’ve got to talk to men, and I got to do some cowgirls, although I haven’t gotten around to it. I know it’s a reality and a truth that I have cowgirl mentors as much as cowboy mentors. Anyways, what I’m excited to share with you today is a conversation I had with a guy I call my uncle, John. He’s a Dudley from way back and we had a great time just talking about how he mentored me, maybe intentionally or unintentionally. So, I hope you guys are entertained or at least get some insights into his perspectives, which have affected me and are the reason I think about a lot of things the way I do. And we talked about it a little bit, part of how I talk, I think comes from him and watching him get in front of people and talk. So, I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for listening. All references will be in the show notes. Please, if you enjoy the podcast at all, just subscribe, tell one friend. That would really help me out. Thanks so much. Let’s get to it.
Okay. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Cowboy Perspective. I always want to welcome everybody and I’m glad you’re listening. I appreciate that time. Today, I’ve got another guest for the Cowboy Mentor series. He’s a guy that’s mentored me really my whole life in one way or another. Probably not intentionally, but maybe intentionally. That’ll be some of the things we get to explore through the conversation, and let’s jump right to it. John, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me here. We’re in the Dudley Brothers headquarters office. Why don’t you tell everybody real quick, just for anybody that doesn’t know you as well as I do, who you are, where you came from? Just a quick insight into that.
John Dudley: Okay. That’s easy. I’m John Dudley and part of the Dudley Brothers Ranching Organization here in Comanche, Texas, one of the partners, grew up on the Dudley Brothers ranch, right out in the middle of it, right in the middle of the 1950s drought. The Dudley Boys, my father and his brothers, had had a mercantile, very successful mercantile business in Comanche – cars, tires, gasoline, and so forth. And as the opportunities developed, they would go and buy ranches that were contiguous, turned out that they were more or less sort of unwittingly, but nevertheless, they were putting the John Bryson Ranch back together. John Bryson was an early day rancher in the early day 1900s and had some good luck and then some bad luck and had been really the big boy rancher in this part of the state, we’ll say 1900. By 19- The 1930s, he had been murdered in a cow trade that went bad in another ranch out in west Texas, but the big, old, huge mansion that he had built in 1912, I think – 8 bedrooms and big hall and all that – that is sitting on a thousand acres of land. And that was the last of the John Bryson properties. And so, my dad walked across from their mercantile business in Comanche, walked over to the courthouse steps and bought that tract of land. So subsequent to that, that was in 1936, in 1938, my mom and dad married. And she was sort of the local princess because her dad was a very successful merchant and banker and so on. And they moved into that Bryson house. It had been painted, had a new roof, and I believe bathrooms had been installed, and they moved into that house on their wedding night. So as a consequence of that, that’s the house I grew up in and right in the middle of the Dudley Brothers RR Organization. And at that time, it was really a great place because it was sort of the headquarters that predated when they really went into the show cattle business and built a facility closer to town. But that’s where the horse barn was. That’s where all the horses were kept. That’s where the cowboys met in the morning. That’s where the organization, the day got started. And even though my dad might be going into town to that business, the whole organization of what was happening that day would take place right there. So as a little kid, I’m right there, just tagging along with the whole thing. And the greatest thing in my life was the cowboys that worked for Dudley Brothers back in those days. One of them was named Little Bob and one of them was named Big Bob. And then there was Joe Henderson and Ward Driscoll and other fellas, but those guys, they were the stars of my show. I absolutely adored them. I wanted to be with them every minute. And I didn’t, actually that the drought, I mean, I knew it was dry and I knew it wasn’t good cause my dad would visit about that at the dinner table. But I got to go with the cowboys and feed all day, every day, all summer. And that was good. Although I didn’t realize that feeding so much was not such a good idea.
Neil Dudley: Awesome. See, so, this is what I end up doing is kind of chasing these rabbits as they run across the pasture. And you’re mentioning those old cowboys and y’all’d go feed. What was that like? Or how did they go feed? Backs of trucks? Did you have a wagon? How, what did it look like in those times?
John Dudley: Oh, a bobtail truck, and a lot of sacked feed – it really predates modern cubes, so to speak, but cotton seed, what do you call them, Neil? Those holes- mill feed sometimes and then sack feed and tow sacks. And it was just, they’d pile up the feed or maybe it was hay coming out of the hay loft. And they’d pile it all up on the back of that. And I get to climb up there and ride on the back of that.
Neil Dudley: How did those guys treat you?
John Dudley: Oh, they were good. They were really good.
Neil Dudley: They didn’t razz you any?
John Dudley: You know what? My dad – and this is something that people don’t, this does resonate now, because young man with young families allocate a lot of time to those young families. It was not uncommon for my dad who was, we’re talking the 1950s, he was a man of 50 years of age at that time with a huge obligation, family obligation, business obligations. He was a very, very, very busy man. And yes, he loved me, and yes, he was interested in what I was doing, but he was real busy. And those cowboys, they’re the ones that took the time to teach me how to get on a horse right, how to ride the horse. And my dad also had a very short, well, I won’t say a short temper, let’s say his patience quotient was not great. And old Joe Henderson, he was, I would have walked through burning fire for him. He was so he was so good to me. And the rest of the guys too. Little Bob lived down below the house. Big Bob lived down below the house. And Joe Henderson lived over here and so on.
Neil Dudley: Well, see Big Bob and Little Bob just happened to be a couple of the hands I have never heard of before in my life.
John Dudley: Oh yeah, you have, yes you have. Little Bob Cummings you would not have had, would not have heard of, but I’m talking about Big Bob Brewster. Big Bob Brewster who lived down at the Callaway place. But they would all mingled up there where we lived. And there’s a cow, a couple of cows, a couple of milk cows, and Joe Henderson would take, oh, he would maybe take two days off every year, and he’d come – he called me Johnny. And there are only three people in my life that have gotten by with calling me Johnny, but Joe Henderson was one of them and he say, “Now, Johnny, will you milk out the cow while I’m gone?” And I said, “Sure, I will Joe.” And I’d get out there and I’d get the cow in there and get her situated, and I’d throw milk every direction, not much in the pan. And I finally take it in the house and my mother, her or her help would say, “Is this all the milk?” I’d say, “That’s all the milk that got in the can.”
Neil Dudley: Joe just happens to be one that I looked up to, too. Cause he was still around when I was a little kid and I got to experience some of that. So yeah, he’s a pretty special guy, interesting character from my perspective. You talk about bringing milk into your mom. That just makes me want to chase that rabbit a little bit. Like what was she like? What was her kind of life like and that in your perspective?
John Dudley: I had a really interesting situation. My dad was a big old rancher merchant. He had not had an extensive formal education. He had had no formal education. His family were prominent along in the past, but the bo weevil destruction of the cotton in the early 1900s – 1918, 1915 – and his father had been a merchant. And so, times were not great. So, my dad went to work as a really young guy. My mother on the other hand had been very blessed in the education department. She’d been sent away to a private girls school. She’d been sent away to college in Virginia. She had gone to the University of Texas forever. She had gone, she had lived up in New York, gone to a couple of colleges up there, traveled all over Europe. So, I have this house, I’m growing up in this house with this dad who’s talking about the wormy goats and the cows that we got to go dip and the drought, and where in the hell is the feed going to come from? And here’s my mother who’s just, she’s tuned in to that, but she’s over here cooking some gourmet lunch. And we’re going to sit down and everybody’s going to sit down politely, and we’re going to sit with our hands in our lap until everyone is served. So, and then okay, here’s the deal, this is just going to be weird to most people, but my mother had lived in New York, and she was a huge fan of classical music. So, we were in the Texaco Gasoline business on the square in Comanche. It just so happened that the Texas company, the Texaco company sponsored every Saturday afternoon a live broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. So, my mother would bake this huge cake every Saturday afternoon. And it was always a big deal. We all had a sweet tooth, and it was always a big deal to come and lick where the icing was made. And so, we’d come in, we’d say, “What is the world is that in the background?” She said, Oh, that’s just Puccini, Puccini’s whatever.” And we’d say, “Uh, that’s pretty bad.” But she would lure us in there. And as a rather odd consequence of that I think nearly everybody who grew up in that house are music lovers as well. She lured us in.
Neil Dudley: I got to start thinking about that a little in my life. How to look, I don’t know if I use the sweets to lure them, other than to get them out of my way.
John Dudley: It worked pretty well.
Neil Dudley: I got to thinking maybe it might be time to explain a little bit of how we’re related. You’re talking about your dad. Well, that’s kind of my granddad, which would be Eltos, was Gail’s brother. And so that’s, I always call you Uncle John, but you’re really not my uncle. I don’t know exactly how that lineage table plays out, but we’re cousins.
John Dudley: Your dad, Harry, and I are first cousins. So that makes you my first cousin once removed there. And that makes you and my son, Gardner, second cousins. And everybody, nobody in North America knows how to do that. And they say, John, how do you know how to do that? I say, I do cattle pedigrees for a living.
Neil Dudley: That’s what, and I think I’m lazy in that regard because I just know John will know. John will know, and I’m not even going to try to figure it out. To me, I guess though it is valuable in the way I feel. You feel more like an uncle to me than a cousin. To me, I don’t know, I feel like uncles that, I guess your, it doesn’t have to be some kind of lineage thing to be close to somebody.
John Dudley: Well, I think it’s an age and a generational thing is your perspective how folks are.
Neil Dudley: I always thought Jackson and Gardner were my cousins, just same as anybody else. Like if I was at school and we were talking, Brian’s my brother and everybody else is my cousin.
John Dudley: And you were right, you were correct.
Neil Dudley: Anyways, that’s just part of how we’re tied together in this story. And Dad and John, they’ve been running this ranch together for years. And so, I was, as a little kid, tagging along with my dad, just privy and watching, same as you’re talking about watching the hands back when you’re a kid. So, I was watching you and everybody else run the ranch. And so de facto, I got a lot of mentorship in one way or another. I think a lot of the way I talk today is pattern after you, in a way, maybe intentionally or unintentionally, but you kind of present yourself a certain way. I always thought, man, that’s pretty cool. He seems like a confident guy. I want to be like that. I find myself saying stuff, I’m like man, that’s exactly how John would have said it. At least in my mind. Okay so, we were kind of at the place where you were bringing in milk from the milking the cow.
John Dudley: Unsuccessfully, unsuccessfully.
Neil Dudley: And then your mom might just, I don’t know, make butter with it, or just say I’m glad John tried, and there’s nothing left to use.
John Dudley: But parenthetically, this is a little bit of a weird thing. The milk always came into the house. It always had all that cream in it. It never did get cold. It was here was breakfast, drink your milk. I didn’t then and don’t now. I can’t stand milk and never drank a drop of it.
Neil Dudley: And I’m not a big fan of milk unless it’s really cold with a brownie or something like that.
John Dudley: There you go.
Neil Dudley: So, if you think back a little bit more about those cowboys, I think you’re starting to build your perspective, your cowboy perspective as a kid. Is there any- Oh, I was going to say it’s really fun for me, I don’t remember the Bryson house being there. I can think maybe there’s some bricks on the ground or a little shell of it, but in my memory, it was already gone. And that might be true or not, but it’s what my brain, as far as I can go back. But I remember that horse barn well, and you were talking about feeding, there’re feed rations written on the boards in there. So that’s some pretty fun stuff to just know as the history, and think back, that was a real lifetime where that was how you guys-
John Dudley: And we were beginning to show steers in the county show and the steers were kept out there. This was before the night- this was before the show barn got built here. And so, we kept our nurse cows and our steers out there. And we’d get out there in the middle of all that Mesquite and try to teach a steer how to walk and show. It was a wreck.
Neil Dudley: Now did they- was Herefords always- There was never another bovine?
John Dudley: No, no, always Herefords.
Neil Dudley: That’s a pretty cool story.
John Dudley: Always Herefords, 1938.
Neil Dudley: Well, what is your perspective from kind of leading a family business? It’s led by a group, but ultimately there’s always kind of gotta be somebody that steps up and says, okay, I’ll kind of break all ties and be the front man for the business, if there’s such a thing. Talk a little bit about that, if you don’t mind, what it is like from your viewpoint.
John Dudley: Let me tell you how things evolved in this deal. So, I came back after college, graduate school in the Navy. And I got back here in 1973, I believe. Ginger and I had married. And so, I’m learning from my dad and from my uncle Eltos. And then I certainly learned things from their third brother, Uncle Tom. So, I’m doing all the grunt jobs that nobody else wanted to do. I remember just as well as anything I’d been home about six months, and my dad said, here you do the cattle papers. And then a little later after that, my uncle Eltos came in. He was the horse lover and the horse dude. And he came in and said, “Here you keep the horse records. You do all that.” I said, okay. Well, so, my dad was beginning to lose his energy. He was not really well. He probably had cardiovascular issues that you’d take care of now, but this was long time ago. So, he’s beginning to slow down, and I’m picking up more of his tasks. And so, he dies at the end of 1976, and it was very, very hard, it was really hard for the whole family to regroup because my dad had been, he’d been the partner, but he’d also been the elder brother. And so, he kept, he had worn that those shoes, those boots, real successfully. Well, so Eltos and I wound up doing a lot of togetherness as we moved forward. And then a few years after that, Eltos suffered a health difficulty, had a heart attack. Didn’t kill him, but it took him out of vigorous activity. And so just as things went along, I remember that when my dad died, Eltos said, “Well, we can’t go to Denver this year.” My dad died on New Year’s Eve, and he said, “We can’t go to Denver, Colorado. That’s in January.” And I said, “We can’t not go.” And he said, “Well, what do you mean?” I said, “We have to go. We have to be there. We have to show them this flag is still flying.” And he said, “Okay, I think you’re right.” So, we go to Denver. I guess we took our wives so we made it pleasant. And it was hard. It was real hard because you have to go all through all that. And then maybe the next year and the next year, we’d go to Denver. And then, so things just devolved, things just devolved. And my role here has been to kind of sort of keep all the fingers pointed in the same direction. And I have occasionally had to make some, well, when I say I, we have made decisions, and maybe I presented the deal. And checked on how everybody else felt about it. It’s just devolved. And it’s been, I think if Dudley Brothers Registered Hereford Operation in Comanche, Texas, is unique in any way, we have been able for three cousins and three brothers, six of us, to manage this place harmoniously and I think successfully, and I think with everyone feeling they are a major part of it. Everybody has their talents, and some people can look at a bull and know from 200 yards that the bull needs attention. And other people can make a big speech.
Neil Dudley: Well, it is, to me, any leadership role can get lonely at times just because that’s just the nature of it. And as a kid, I mean, I still don’t understand it fully. I mean, I’ve still got a lot of growing up to do. Tom R told me one time, and this was just a few years ago, “Kid, you don’t know anything.” And he was right, although I didn’t believe it. I’m having to really explore and allow this truth to be in my mind. I don’t know anything.
John Dudley: Well, I’ll tell you this, I’d been a big success in college, had big, important roles. I’d been a big success in graduate school. I’ve been an officer in the United States Navy for four and a half years. And I came back to Comanche, and I thought I was the smartest son of a gun in the world. And about the second day I was back, I’m drenching goats. And I thought, well, I don’t know how this is going.
Neil Dudley: Now, when Gail passed away, was that surprise or kind of knew it was coming? I feel really unfortunate, I would have so loved to have got to know him.
John Dudley: Oh yeah, he was a doozy now. He was great. There are a few remaining characters out there that remember him well. He was a big personality. He really was. And a lot of fun. Didn’t matter how bad the drought was, didn’t matter what was happening, he always managed to put a good spin on it. And, yes, he had been declining. His death was sudden and a surprise, but he had been declining.
Neil Dudley: Another thing I’ve watched you do through the years and be a part of in the family business is kind of playing that role of industry representative, leader, thought, kind of building some of the thoughts and directions of the industry. Probably cattle industry as a whole and Hereford breed. Talk a little bit about that and why you did that.
John Dudley: Well, so one day, they called me up and I’d been a director of the Texas Hereford Association. And this bunch of fellows called me up and said, “We want you to be the president of the Texas Hereford Association.” And I said, “Okay, good. I’d like to do that.” Now it has to be said, Neil, that I never ever, ever passed an opportunity to get up in front of people or to have the lead dog. I mean, I that’s just the way I’m built.
Neil Dudley: So where did that come from?
John Dudley: That’s I’ve always been that way. When I was in the first grade, I wanted to be the loudest and the tallest and the biggest. I mean, I’m just built that way.
Neil Dudley: It probably come a little bit from your dad.
John Dudley: Well, from my dad, and also, I’m stuck as the middle child. Here’s my older brother, the lawyer, here’s my younger brother, TJ, here’s my only sister, the princess. So, I by God always had to make a lot of noise to get my turn at bat. Well, in any event, So, they said, “Would you serve as president of the Texas Hereford?” And I said, “You bet.” Right around the corner, the next thing they called me, and they said, “We want to run you for the American Hereford Association Board in Kansas City.” And I said, “Okay. And I’d like to do that.” So, I wound up doing that for six, I think either six or eight years, I forget. Big job. Big commitment. Had to be on that board at the time when the American Herford and American Polled Herford Associations merged. And I was on the merger committee. And so, that was a big job. Well, I complete my terms at bat there and just right around the corner, some people called me and said, I had been a director of the Texas Southwest Cattle Raisers ever since my dad had died, they had put me in that role. He had been a longtime director and I got plunked into that position. I think it’s the position that I wanted and Eltos didn’t is the way that worked. He didn’t want to fool with it.
Neil Dudley: Well, and what I remember of him and know of him, he didn’t really care to be in that spotlight.
John Dudley: That wasn’t the way he was turned. He was more interested in seeing that something got done correctly according to his method, which was always a good one by the way. In any event, so the next thing I know, I’m being channeled up the way for a six-year hook with the Texas Southwest Cattle Raisers. And the same time, they called me and said, “We need you to be the chairman of the Texas Beef Council.” I said, “Whoa, wait a minute here. I’m president of the Cattle Raisers.” They said, “Yeah, you can do it.” Fine, no problem. I said okay. So, then they said, “We need you to be on the executive committee of the NCBA.” I said, “Okay. Alright.”
Neil Dudley: You just say yes every time?
John Dudley: I did. I never said no, I’ve never said no, not to a job ever in my life. Now, it’s important, I think probably what we need to say right at this point in life, my whole gig has been a team effort. I’ve got the best wife in North America, and she has been right there with just the right touch, regardless what was going on. So, I would say, “Yeah, you think I’ll do that?” “Well, of course, John. Yeah, of course you should do that.” And she was perfectly willing, capable, and eager to fill in the gaps. She got to go to the orthopedic doctor with a broken arm and a broken finger and a broken foot and a broken this during all the athletic years when John was in Kansas City or in some other place. And then she was good to that. So, it was, we’re a team.
Neil Dudley: Well, that’s super important in life. And I feel real lucky. I feel like I’m a part of a similar team today with Stacey.
John Dudley: It’s the best of the best.
Neil Dudley: I always, I’ve said this previously on the podcast, it makes me think back to the John Wayne movie McClintock! and he’s talking to his daughter over the back of a horse and telling her he’s not going to give her any of his, one little piece of property and she’d go build what she wants. And he just says, “There’s no substitute for that growing together.” And you and Ginger have done it. And there’s no way to do it any other way or there’s just no replacement.
John Dudley: Well, you’re just blessed when it works that way.
Neil Dudley: Okay. So, you were along the way talking about the roles you play in building the industry and that kind of thing. Do you remember off the top of your head any particular challenge that you come across there or-? I don’t know if there’s something to needle in there and talk about a little more, get some more maybe insight into what that entails.
John Dudley: Well, I’ll tell you what, when I was growing up, my father and my uncle Eltos and their wives were dyed in the wool, Horned Hereford breeders. And they didn’t have any use at all for Polled Herford cattle. They didn’t even much like the people that raised Polled Herford cattle. Well, so here I am on the American Horned Herford board. It’s perfect. We’ve got a gorgeous building, a beautiful boardroom. There are only nine people on it. It’s all a very, it’s all a great situation in Kansas City. It’s just a joy. We go out every summer to somebody’s ranch and have our summer meeting. Over here is the Polled Herford Association, and they’re needing to change their dynamic. So, as I said earlier, I wind up on the merger committee. And so here I am dealing with all these Polled Herford people and these Polled Herford cattle. And I thought, I don’t know how I got to that. My cattle raiser gig started off tough, but when I was- The day I became president, some significant, very significant changes had to be made in the headquarters among some of the personnel. Like the top of the staff. And my predecessor and I had talked about it, and he said, “I think when you get there,” I said- Anyway, bottom line was, I had to really function almost as the CEO of the cattle raisers as the president for several months until we got somebody hired.
Neil Dudley: Hey, I want to take a quick pause and just tell you a little bit about Dudley Brothers Registered Herefords. They’re having a production sale. This is actually the 59th one. It’ll be happening October 8th at the headquarters there in Comanche, Texas. You can also check it out at Superior Livestock Auction Online. You can bid and buy bulls there. So, if you’re a commercial cattleman and you’re looking for quality bulls to put on your cows and raise you a lot of beef, go check them out: Dudley Brothers, www.dudleybros.com.
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.
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Okay. So, circling back to that, kind of maybe tie up that piece of the conversation on coming into that role of president, kind of having to get past the not so fun news along to the person that wasn’t performing that you’re out, I’m in. How much experience had you had with that kind of activity prior to that? Maybe in the Navy?
John Dudley: Well, yeah, in the Navy, as an officer in the Navy, I had lots of opportunities to say, not fire somebody, but to discipline somebody, send somebody down the way or I’d had some amount of personnel handling.
Neil Dudley: Well then you had, it wasn’t just like a jump into the deep water without some kind of paddle. In my career, I’ve kind of had that. I got dumped into the deep water a time or two on that without any tools.
John Dudley: That’s the hardest part. I mean, in any of these businesses, dealing with personnel and then when somebody has to go, that’s hard.
Neil Dudley: It’s hard in every way.
John Dudley: But it has to happen.
Neil Dudley: That’s right. And the longer you wait the worst, it needs to just be a swift, sharp scalpel, and go on.
John Dudley: I was really, I’ll be honest, I was flying by the seat of my bridges a little bit because when we had to have these conversations, I was thinking, wow, I hope I’m on the right track here.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know of anybody who’s been perfectly confident in their decisions every single time. A lot of times you’re just thinking I’m a good person, I’m trying to do the best I can.
John Dudley: I’m giving it my best shot and we’ll see how it works.
Neil Dudley: Which that’s part of this team around here I think when talking about Dudley Brothers is you take your best shot, and if it’s not right, everybody just rallies and comes back around, and straightens it out. It’s not like a bunch of finger pointing, which is I think comes from leadership and a lot of working together.
John Dudley: We wouldn’t survive if we were turned in that direction.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. And that’s interesting. Kind of the whole group is-
John Dudley: We’re a team. We’re a team, team players.
Neil Dudley: Have you got, would there be some things, failures I want to call them, but it might be the wrong word, just really good lessons you’ve learned that you think, man, somebody could probably use this, and here’s how I could illustrate it?
John Dudley: Yes, I’m sure there are lots of lots of lessons. I think the main thing I would advise or suggest or relay to anybody, if you’re a sole proprietor and you own the whole thing and you don’t have to answer to anybody, then that’s one deal. But if you’re a partner – and this would go, Neil, back to our discussion of that partner, that wife partner – but if you’re a partner, it’s not all your show. You’ve got to get the whole team together on a deal. And if you try to run out in front of the team, it’ll turn around and bite you. You’ve got to be sure that, we’ve made some real important decisions here in this organization, in this ranching organization in the last several years, and I might have hatched the idea or the idea of might’ve been put on my desk. But you can be sure before it went anywhere else, that idea got thrown into the middle of our partnership table. And because every, we’re just blessed. We’re all, just so happens, we’re all well-educated, everybody on the team.
Neil Dudley: And I think that ties back to Gail and Eltos. I think they may have missed some of that and they wanted their children to have that.
John Dudley: Well, they sure did.
Neil Dudley: And maybe even at a thin grace and really the, those teams that were together.
John Dudley: They did, they realized that. But we’re well-educated, we’re all well-informed, we’re all have very, very different interests and the way we like to spend our other time away from the business and all of that, none of that, we’re real different about that, but we can get around the table and articulate an issue, and everybody can understand what the hell we’re talking about. And then they may not agree, or they may want to say have you thought about this or we should think about this. And that’s the beauty of the team play.
Neil Dudley: You want to talk politics at all?
John Dudley: Oh gosh. Oh, mercy, mercy, mercy. Life, business has got to be completely replete with compromise. There is no it’s my way or the highway. It doesn’t work. And we have arranged in this country to have all political parties believing that they’re distinctly, uniquely gifted in a way to lead. And of course, we’re all suffering from the fact that we’ve lost the politeness. We’ve lost the dialogue. We’ve lost the ability to compromise. And it’s not necessarily, it wouldn’t be very hard for anybody to figure out where my own political leanings are. I’m a political conservative, I’m a fiscal conservative, I’m a lifelong Republican. But I’m not happy with any, I’m not happy with the way the country has become so polarized and how angry people are. And this whole thing that we’re enduring right now during this virus business and this whole social upheaval, I guess that’s been coming. And so, we’ll just have to, we’ll have to hope that the country is strong enough to survive it.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. I don’t know the answer. I agree with you that the- seems like everybody gets on their spot and they’re not moving and I’m going to be completely sideways about anything and everything. And it might even not be that way, but that’s what you see in the media, on the social media. Probably the country’s not actually that opposed to each other.
John Dudley: No, but it’s the emphasis of the moment of bad. Here’s the media. And it’s emphasized and blown into, blown out of the world. I mean, after all the coronavirus, the two parties are going to blame each other. Well, hell it happened to us. And we all know where it came from, and I’ve read several treatises on viruses and how they’re spread and all that. And so anyway, it’s a mess.
Neil Dudley: And probably even a more- here’s how I act. I just ignore it all, and that’s probably worse than anything. I just don’t even bother trying to worry about it because I don’t trust any of the information.
John Dudley: Well, we’ve pretty much gone into a news blackout in our house. I do read the Wall Street Journal from cover to cover every day. And I guess, so that’s my bias, that’s my bias viewpoint. And of course, that’s a conservative newspaper versus the New York Times or something else.
Neil Dudley: I mentioned this. I want to explore a little bit because, and this goes into me telling a story that I remember. And I look at you and Ginger, and you guys paint a picture for me of strength and resilience and just things you’ve been through in your life. Like, even as your dad passes away kind of suddenly, you had to come play a role. You’ve had a child pass away and lived through that and dealt with that on so many levels. So, I look at that and I think, man, God forbid that happens to me, but I’ve got some sort of a blueprint to think, you’re not going to just die? And the second you have a kid, you start thinking, man, it gives me a whole other level of respect for you and Ginger and going through that. So, I want to tell a story about Jackson because he’s the guy that’s not with us anymore. And I think about him a lot. And part of me growing up in the family, well, we got to do some of these jobs, like build a fence. We’re out, and I may have told you this story. I don’t know if I have, but it’s one I remember about him. We were out building a fence between the open pasture and the Harris in Democrat. And Dad had taught me to weld. So, he was kind of using me for welding and cutting the pipes and getting that ready. Well, almost everybody else was on the drive the T post crew, which was kind of not a lot of fun. Somehow or another, I drove the first T post. And we built this fence for a few weeks and we’re kind of down to the last T post. And I grab it and I grabbed that T post driver, I’m running over there. And I’m like, I’m going to drive the first and the last T post in this fence. And Jackson comes and tackles me and says, “Hell you are! I drove every one of these T posts. You won’t be able to say that!” I just remember that about him. We had good times. That was another tough work and lots of sweating and tired, but we had fun together.
John Dudley: Sure, sure, sure, sure. That’s the beautiful part of the ranching and agriculture.
Neil Dudley: Even working, like probably any job, I would offer this to anybody listening, is if you can’t have a little fun with the people you’re doing it with, do something else.
John Dudley: Listen, that was the Gail Dudley quote. My father, Gail Dudley said it a million times – if you’re not having a good time doing this, then by God go do something else. As I said earlier, he had a good time never mind how many storms were brewing up on the horizon.
Neil Dudley: Right. At the end of the day, it’s going to be that way always.
John Dudley: It’s the way you’re turned in many ways.
Neil Dudley: Is there any insight to how you might offer somebody to think about or getting through tough times? How do you play strength and resilience, and how do you find that?
John Dudley: Well, there’s a lot of things come to play in that deal. Faith is real important. If you’re fortunate enough to have a good faith, that helps. If you’re fortunate enough, most especially, and I don’t mind discussing it – the loss of a child is, it’s like being struck by lightning. It’s like being run over by a Mack truck. It’s beyond devastating. It’s beyond your imagination to contemplate. But there again, if you’ve got a team, Ginger and I in this case, supported by Gardner and supported by this whole huge family and this ranching organization and supported by people from all over the world, it makes a big difference. It’s hard, plenty hard. And I have to say, and I don’t mind saying it, many people don’t survive it. Many marriages do not survive. Many marriages do not survive the loss of a child. You have to, there’s all those things that come into play. You have to say, why us? How’d this happen? What’d we do wrong? Or how did these stars fall out of the horizon? And, you have to work at it. You really have to work at it to get back, get your breath and get back. You have to start from day one. Jackson died one day, and two days later, Ginger and I went to a wedding reception. And we looked at each other and we said, can we do this? And we said, we have to. We absolutely have to. If we don’t get out of this house, if we don’t walk out through the front door and get into our vehicle and go back into the world, we might never.
Neil Dudley: It sounds very much like something you said after Gail – we can’t go to Denver; well, we have to go to. We’ve got to keep fighting the flag. That’s a great perspective that I want to use in my life is as bad as it is, you can’t just stop.
John Dudley: You got to keep going forward, got to keep going.
Neil Dudley: Did you guys do counseling or any of that kind of stuff or did y’all just work through it? Was it you and her counseling each other?
John Dudley: Well, in fact we did avail ourselves of one very good counselor, a onetime deal. That individual was beneficial. We then went, we went to a member of the cloth of our particular brand of religion. A disaster. I started to punch the son of a gun in the face because he just was like, uh, I don’t know what to tell you, say to you, and it was just- As you well recall, Jackson was this heroic character. He was tall and red headed, and he was very, very, very smart and a pretty decent athlete, and just a sensational character.
Neil Dudley: A great personality, just fun.
John Dudley: Sensational character. And maybe on the other side of the horizon, I’ll learn what, where something began to go wrong. And in any event, it was tough. And still is. Still is. And you know what? You get over, your parents die, and you love them, and you love to remember them, and you’d love to think about it, but it’s not like somebody just poked you in the gut every time you think about them. You’re easy with it. It was supposed to happen. They got old, they died. But when you lose a child, every day, you think golly.
Neil Dudley: And I worry – I don’t know if worry is the right word – I am scared sometimes to talk about it. Cause I don’t want to cause you that pain. Like, I don’t want to scratch that scab again. I don’t know if that’s worse than allowing it.
John Dudley: I have, I’ve written many people letters. One thing that I try to do, I’m a big letter writer and I’m very, it’s easy for me to take out a piece of paper and write a bereavement letter and say the things that I think will be helpful and comforting and what have you, what have you. And certainly, when you’re aware of someone who has lost a child however – there is no easy, there’s no good way to lose a child. It doesn’t matter. But you have to go up to that person and say, how is Jackson? I mean, not, not, not, not that, not how is Jackson, but I remember when Jackson did thus and so. Because the inclination of your friends, your family, the public is to say, don’t mention it. Don’t bring up that child’s name or they’ll lose it. Well, as the years go by, you get where you can handle it better. And you get, you learned the one thing you can do for other people – happens all the time, by the way, it just is very, it’s not an infrequent occurrence for someone to lose a child. And you realize that you can go and let them know that you still know about that person and that you still care, that they haven’t just gone into, they haven’t just evaporated.
Neil Dudley: And that probably is just some of my immaturity too, is that’s an emotional thing for you. It’s going to be, it has to be, there’s no way around it, but it’s okay for it to be emotional for you. It should be. Now that might be another thing we might have- I’d be interested in showing emotion and being emotional. I’m a lot, I’m kind of like that way very much, where in me looking at you, you’re not the most emotional person. And does that, is that just how you are? Is that something that you feel like you’ve learned from your childhood? Or am I just misreading it? Cause that can happen.
John Dudley: Well, I tell you what, I’m a pretty good actor and always have been. I do not like men or women, I do not like men or women in a position, in any position, I do not, I want them to keep their emotions in check. Now, maybe that’s the English in me. I don’t like for people to be standing up in front of me getting emotional about something. I want them to be able to sing right through that, take a deep breath and move right on because I don’t like preachers, I don’t like anybody to begin to get weepy on me. And politicians, whoever, I just think that is you go home and do that in your own garden. But you stand up there and present yourself in a way that I don’t have to go, oh my God, I’m so embarrassed about this. And oh shoot. I’m beginning to worry about, oh God, oh God, I’ve got to look the other way. I can’t stand it. I just don’t like that. And so, I have always been, to me, ramrod straight and look you in the eye is my deal. I just, in fact, poor Ginger has listened to me rail about, we’re having this conversation and you’ll, hopefully this will get exed out, but it has become the fashion for the dear departed’s children to stand up and do a la-da-da-da-da-da-da at the funeral. I’m okay with that if they can do it, but if they have to start crying so that I have to start crying, then I think golly, why’d they do that? I gave Joe Henderson’s obituary. I’ve given a bunch of obituaries. But they asked me, the family asked me to do Joe Henderson’s obituary. And I thought I’m a son of a gun if I- I hope I can get through this, having just heard me on the subject. And I did. Had to kind of bite my lip a couple of times, imperceptible, but he was such, he was just my guy, and I thought, oh Lord, I’m going to start thinking about how sweet he was, how patient he was to me. On a horse, my dad would say, “God dammit, get over here, get this. Why are you doing it wrong?” I’m saying, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Joe Henderson would say, “Johnny, how about just reining him just a little bit, just a little bit to the left right there. Just ease up on that just a little bit.”
Neil Dudley: I can accept that so much easier.
John Dudley: Oh man.
Neil Dudley: That’s special. That’s part of the cowboy thing. Like this podcast is really it’s I don’t even know what it is. It’s just kind of evolving as I go, but it was, I wanted to be talking about these people in my life.
John Dudley: And that’s good. I think that’s great.
Neil Dudley: And how cowboys fashioned me, and cowgirls, moms and wives of the cowboys. They all had a role in making me who I am. And I never gave it much thought for a long time where that came from.
John Dudley: I think that’s great. It’s wonderful to be able to remember, and it’s not just the cowboys, but the cowmen. I’ve been blessed to know so many great ranchers, so many great cowmen. And you learn something from everybody.
Neil Dudley: Yeah. And that’s smart. Like let, somebody you don’t think you could learn anything from might teach you the most valuable thing in your life.
John Dudley: You can learn a lot.
Neil Dudley: Okay, what about, you mentioned the Wall Street Journal. So, that’s some place you get information. Do you read books? Do you listen to podcasts?
John Dudley: We have a huge library. I generally am reading four or five books at a time.
Neil Dudley: I just cocked my head to the side, like wow, as a guy that never reads.
John Dudley: Oh, I mean, I’m reading five books right now.
Neil Dudley: Fiction? Documentary? Biography?
John Dudley: No, I rarely, rarely read fiction. I rarely read fiction. I’m reading a book, nobody cares about this, but I’m reading a book- Ginger and I were blessed. Ginger and I are big travelers. Travel has been our, and I would say that one of the ways we handled Jackson’s departure, we started doing a lot of traveling. We’d get the hell out of Dodge. When the walls looked like they were going to close in on us, we’d go get on an airplane and go somewhere and be able to get our head out of there. So that was a very much of a saving grace. But anyway, at the moment, we were lucky enough to go to Cuba a few years ago, so I’m writing a book on Cubans, not Fidel and Raul, but normal, everyday Cubans and what their life has been like in the hell of Cuba. I’m also reading a great book on how the rivers of the world have basically set the footprint for the way the world has developed – all about rivers. We were in Egypt a little while ago, so I’m reading a book on, a very learned book about the Egyptian tombs and all of that and all that. I’m also reading- well anyway, enough of all that.
Neil Dudley: You go get more educated about places that you’ve seen. See what I kind of spend most of my time, at least at this point in my life, consuming as far as podcasts and books is kind of self-help business perspective stuff.
John Dudley: Well, that’s the point in life you’re at. I’m on the- way down here.
Neil Dudley: Well, for the listeners, is there a book in the historical library there that you’re like, if I could tell you to read one, if you’re interested in, let’s say, success or business or building something? Or even something else?
John Dudley: I’ve read a lot of biographies and autobiographies of important people and business and commerce and politics and so on and so on and so on, and you always pick up a perspective there. And I’m not going to get paid for saying this, but does most of this podcast get consumed in Texas?
Neil Dudley: I don’t even know. It might be mostly in Comanche.
John Dudley: I tell you what, Ginger and I just finished a book, and when I say we finished it, because I read it out loud. I love, love to read out loud, and I have a big, long humongous vocabulary. And I just love to read all these words. So, Mr. Stephen Harrigan, who’s a great history writer, last year published a book called Big Wonderful Thing. And it is the total complete history of Texas, beginning of the beginning until current. And it is an easy, fabulous read. It’s a every single page has something that you go, I didn’t know that. And native Texans, you think, wow, how many books have I read about Texas? Hundreds, but here’s something I learned and it was just great. 896 pages.
Neil Dudley: Well, see, that would be daunting to me to just even think about.
John Dudley: Oh, Ginger and I, late in the afternoon I get home, she’d get out her needle point, we sit there and she’d sit in my rocker that I got from the Texas Beef Council. We sit out there in the breezeway and open the doors and I just read this thing. Oh man, we have more fun doing it.
Neil Dudley: That’s so beautiful. Just even that picture is a beautiful picture.
John Dudley: Well, now you understand that we’ve gone into a TV blackout.
Neil Dudley: Well, I was going to mention that. So really TV’s worthless anyways.
John Dudley: I listen to Maria Bartiromo in the morning at six o’clock and get the market news from 6 to 6:30 and have my TV for the day. I used to listen to an occasional broadcast, but it’s all so biased and prejudiced that I find it to be completely worthless. It’s also unpleasant.
Neil Dudley: Stacey and I spent a little time watching TV, but it’s mainly, it’s totally entertainment.
John Dudley: Oh, the only entertainment that we watch is on, we watch, I’m sorry to say, English murder mysteries.
Neil Dudley: Well, we’re watching Yellowstone, which is a popular show.
John Dudley: We watch Father Brown and The Endeavor and all these real grisly, and I look at Ginger, I said, “If this was on American television, you wouldn’t watch this.” And she said, “I know it. I don’t understand this.” But anyway, the main reason we watch it is because they don’t have any commercials on it, commercial free.
Neil Dudley: Nobody’s trying talk you into buying something. Last thing, this is a question I’ve been asking everybody. I keep saying, I’m going to discard it because every time I ask it, it’s kind of an awkward conversation, but let’s try it. What’s the value of a dollar to you?
John Dudley: The value of a dollar?
Neil Dudley: What value does the idea even of a dollar have?
John Dudley: Is the question what role does money play?
Neil Dudley: Maybe that’s a better question. Yeah, what role does money play in your mind and from your perspective?
John Dudley: Well, again, I’m certainly a conservative guy, a fiscal conservative guy. I like for the assets that belong to Dudley Brothers to enhance. I feel so blessed, Ginger and I do, to have what we have materially speaking. We have a nice house, we have nice stuff, we get to travel, we have decent vehicles, and we feel very blessed. I’m completely, I’m hopelessly out of phase with the hedge fund guys, the athletes, the Hollywood group. I despise those people for what they, the absurd amount of money they make, and the terrible things they do with it. But the value of a dollar, I mean, I think it’s a good dollar earned, a fair dollar earned, however you’re doing it, and the dollar well spent, I admire that. I do not admire, I don’t think, I get the point that it’s entertainment, but I don’t think a quarterback needs to be paid $50 million. And I don’t think those lousy actors in Hollywood who live outrageously unacceptable lives, many of them, and then go about flaunting themselves, I don’t approve of that. I like a good, solid dollar earned and then a well-spent dollar.
Neil Dudley: I think about my daughters and what they see and aspire to. I can’t even really relate to it because they’re already aspiring to social media stars.
John Dudley: Yes, my grandsons.
Neil Dudley: How to protect them from that, I don’t know.
John Dudley: I don’t think there is a protection.
Neil Dudley: You just try to build up people that I think display that kind of earning it fairly, honestly, not easily. It can be perceived these athletes are earning just a bunch of money pretty easy. I don’t know if it’s truly that easy, but it kind of comes across that way. Like, oh, well I just need to make a quarterback and I’ll have millions of dollars and life will be great. Not one time in the history of humanity that I have ever been aware of did money solve anything. Ultimately.
John Dudley: Nope. But the disparity in income is something that this country going to have to deal with. And it is what has fomented this unrest. The mansions and the shanties – I was a Latin American studies major, and I have a great textbook entitled The Mansions and the Shanties. And it was a case study in Brazil. You have people living on a dollar a day in the favelas, and you have people living – now I’m beginning to sound a little liberal here – but you have people living in massive mansions. There has to be some sort of normalcy here. Everybody needs to be able to make a fair living, but they need to work for it. They do not need uncle you know who to come and hand it to them. Did that answer the question?
Neil Dudley: Oh yeah, you bet. And that’s kind of my, I might need to discard it, but I just can’t quit asking because it ultimately maybe kind of starts out uncomfortably, but we get to a valuable kind of perspective I think for people to have and just say, okay, well, hey, most of everything I’ve heard out of these two guys so far I’m kind of cool with, so let me think about that a little bit. How does that fit into what I ultimately want to live my life out like? Okay. So have you got anything, parting shots or something, or even a, I love this, kind of somehow if there is a chance to reveal a little something that people are like, oh, wow, like you’re reading that book about Texas, and you’re kind of like, oh, wow, I didn’t know that happened, even if it was just for whoever, is there a story or a thing that you can think of that’s like, man, I bet nobody knows this?
John Dudley: Oh goodness. I mean, I’m sure there’s something out there that needs, that I need to all of a sudden think of. But let me tell you something – I often say to people on email, text, in a letter, I love to quote Admiral Farragut, and it’s really been my credo in life. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!
Neil Dudley: Well, there you go, folks. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead! John, thank you so much for your time. It’s been a real enjoyable conversation for me. I hope you and everybody hears my regard for you and appreciation for you. In all reality, we’re not just like chums, best friends, but I’ve learned a lot from you. And I appreciate that. I was going to say also, everybody, we’re going to put references and links to all the things we’ve talked about, the books you mentioned. I want to make it really easy for anybody listening to the podcast to go to the show notes, link right out to things that we’ve talked about here if you want to dive a little deeper into it. If you want to check out the Dudley Brother ranching operation, we’ll put a link to their website, and you can learn all about what Dudley Brothers does. Thanks for listening. And I hope you take away something that’s valuable to you and you might be able to have another perspective to put under your hat. Thanks so much.
Okay. Well, I don’t know. Is your brain completely exploded? Have you packed as much cool information in there and perspective as you can have? I hope you have, or at least is setting under the hat and the hat is sitting up a little higher. John has had a lot of experience. I really love how he approached most of the opportunities in his life. He kind of said it in the episode, he never said no to any opportunities. So maybe that’s one thing to think about as you go along is anything that pops up, consider it. Maybe it’s something that could lend you or send you down a road that actually turned out being really awesome. I know that happened for me. I never particularly pictured being a bacon salesman for a living. But guess what? I’ve now had a 20-year career doing it. Thanks for listening to the Cowboy Perspective. I go rambling a little bit, but it’s been a fun episode for me. This whole podcast project’s a big, exciting, fun thing for me. It’s turned out to be a real eye opener and fun experience. I say this all the time, anything we referenced in there will be in the show notes. So, check those out. If wherever you’re listening to this podcast, if you’ve enjoyed it, subscribe or share it or tell a friend, that helps, well, me become more famous. And that’s what I want to do. Not really. It just helps get the word out, and if it was valuable to you, it might be valuable to somebody else. And that would make me happy. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed this little conversation over the main headquarters office desk of John Dudley. Catch you next time.
The Cowboy Perspective is produced by Neil Dudley and Straight Up Podcasts. Graphics are done by Root and Roam Creative Studio. And the music is by Byron Hill Music.