“Look at the little calf,” I pointed out, while the others brought the small children to see the eager, tail wagging baby feeding contentedly from the cow’s udder, oblivious to all but the object of his satisfaction. The black calf held a stiff-legged stance, rooting and pushing with his muzzle against his look-alike mother as strands of hay fell from her mouth. We were at the Ft. Worth Livestock Show on Saturday, and this was one of my favorite sights. My husband had been eager to see the cattle sheds, especially liking the Charolais, a hefty white breed of beef cattle. (It was surprising for us to find out there were red Angus cattle; we thought they only came in black.)
We had several hours before catching our train home, and our sons thought we might enjoy this slice of rural life in the midst of the city. Apparently, many other city dwellers were hungry for getting back to their roots, judging from the thousands of spectators, who couldn’t all be cowboys, despite the proliferation of boots, jeans and cowboy hats. Other than seeing the rabbits exhibits, which brought back memories of our rabbit keeping a couple of years ago, I could have done without most of the rest of the show. I just wanted to get out in the fresh air and see something festive.
However, the display and explanation of a cotton gin was fascinating. A boll of cotton was put into a glass enclosure, high pressure air extracted and ejected the seed, while an airy fluff of cotton floated as the finished product. We were given the downy puff to keep, and it was as soft as silk. Compressed with other such gossamer balls, it would help make up a bale of cotton like the 400 pound bulk standing next to us. It would take a pound of cotton to make a shirt, and a pound and a half to make a pair of jeans. Selling for $1 per pound, the highest since the civil war, the cotton for the jeans would cost $1.50.
We could not eat in the stuffy, unappetizing atmosphere, so we found our way to the historic Stockyards district, now a wonderful bit of history with the flavor of the glory days of the old west. The sidewalks were thronged with pressed-jeans cowboys wearing crisp shirts and string ties, as well as ordinary rumpled ones. The bizarre mingled with the banal in the carnival-like atmosphere as we gawked and gaped at everything from a wizened old man leading a dog with a cat on its back upon which clung a rat, to the stores with music from a guitar band pouring into the street.
Suddenly a wide place opened before us, with historic buildings behind black iron fences and impossibly green and lush lawns where children tumbled and families lolled, enjoying temperatures in the 70s. The romance of the west was apparent as we read a quote from Theodore Roosevelt inscribed on a wall extolling the skill and uniqueness of the American cowboy. We left just as a cattle drive was about to start down the street, filled with new appreciation of our heritage and the wonderful country God has given us, where, though times have changed, the enduring values of our forefathers can still be taught and practiced, in this one nation, under God.
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