Cold Beer, Fence Posts, and Cowboy Logic

When I owned my ranch near Freedom, Oklahoma, I learned that a beer cooler was practically standard equipment in a ranch truck. Fence tools, wire, gloves, and cold beer. Especially the beer.

Back then, we drank what we called Oklahoma’s 3.2 beer. Marvin loved his Budweiser, and he did his best to convince me that beer was better than drinking water.

I loved that cowboy, but I was skeptical of his thirst-quenching wisdom.

If a crew headed out from the lodge to mend fences, a cooler full of cold beer usually went along. Apparently, stretching wire and setting fence posts required a steady supply.

The first year I helped Marvin with his taxes, I added up the checks he had written for beer. Let’s just say the total could have made a nice down payment on a new truck.

That was an eye-opening introduction to the ranch budget.

Normally, one beer was plenty for me. In Oklahoma, I’ll admit I sometimes had two or three of those 3.2 beers without feeling much of an effect. I still wasn’t convinced they belonged in the same category as water.

Some of the wranglers we hired were delighted that drinking on the job was tolerated. Some drank too much. Looking back, I sometimes wonder how we got all that work done. We did, but the drinking wasn’t always harmless, and it wasn’t always funny.

Then I built Stables Café & Cantina and learned another lesson the hard way: Think twice before you build a beer-drinking cowboy a bar.

You would think those beer checks might have taught me something. Apparently, I needed a bigger classroom, complete with a bar and bar stools.

I can laugh about parts of it now, but living it was another matter. I was building a business and a future. Love, ambition, and cowboy habits didn’t always pull in the same direction.

These are the everyday truths behind FREEDOM, the television series I’m developing from my life on the ranch. The laughter belongs in the story, and so do the consequences. Loving a cowboy and building a life with him gave me plenty of both.

The beer was cold. The work was hard. And some of my most expensive lessons came with a cowboy smile.

No Quit!