Ranch Album Transcrption
RANCH ALBUM TRANSCRIPTION
Edited by Daniel W. Patterson
All songs in this film were composed by the filmmaker, Gail Steiger, and are performed by him with back-up musicians. The film unfolds through voice-over narration above still photographs or over extensive motion-picture clips showing ranch work and life.
(The following still shots appear one by one during the opening narration
and introduce the place, the profession, and the cast of characters.)
Yavapai County, Arizona
Shipper calves
Bill (foreman)
Harry (foreman)
Chuck
John
Jay
Lynna
Mary
Patty
Scott’s Basin April 10
HARRY CHIANTARETTO: A commercial cow ranch is in business to raise calves to sell for beef. A cow's job is to have a calf as often as possible. And a cowboy's job is to take care of that cow and see that that calf gets to market. The cow business has changed a lot. In some ways, quite a little bit. We've seen a lot of these smaller ranches bought up by outside money and put into bigger outfits. We see a lot more hunters and hikers and campers and just a lot more people coming out. We have a lot more pressure from the government agencies now than we used to, but some things haven't changed too much. The day-to-day handling the cattle in this rough country has had to stay pretty much the same. It's just this whole country's so rough. It's still just a horseback job.
GAIL STEIGER (singing with accompanying instruments):
I see a rider over the hill
Maybe he doesn't know yet
Time don't stand still
I see a cowboy over the hill
Maybe nobody told him
Time don't stand still
(Film title and credits)
RANCH ALBUM
Funded by
The Margaret T. Morris Foundation
Executive Producers
Eugene P. Polk
Richard L. Menschel
Produced for
The Sharlot Hall Historical Society of Arizona
(As Gail Steiger sings this song, the camera shows cowboys working with horses—herding colts through the woods, bringing feedbags to mature horses, saddling up and helping one man’s son to saddle and mount his horse, and riding off together toward rough terrain.)
I see a rider over the hill
And he doesn't know yet
Time don't stand still
Well, everything changes
That's what they say
Maybe nobody told him
He's just holding on
To something the man on TV said
Was already gone
Yesterday's gone
Or fading away
Ah, but I see a rider over the hill
Maybe he doesn't know yet
Time don't stand still
Maybe he doesn't know yet
Maybe he hasn't heard
Maybe nobody told him
Maybe they never will
Spring Works
April 10 – June 2
03:28
GAIL STEIGER (over shots of cattle and men moving about in wild terrain): You know, it seems like the world started mourning the passing of the old west and the cowboy about the time barbed wire fences got invented. But real cowboys aren't all gone yet. People have run cattle here in this part of Arizona for more than 100 years, and this album was put together during one of them. It's about working cowboys and the job they do and the kind of life that comes from doing it. This is a hard country out here, and it takes a lot of it to support a cow. She's supposed to live off the land, and she has to be fairly tough to do that. And the cowboy that looks after her has to have a little more going for him than just a big hat and a pickup truck.
(The visuals throughout the following section show the rough terrain and the rounding-up of cattle scattered through it, including an extended chase of one rambunctious calf that tries to run free but ends up getting lassoed. The section closes with the herd heading together toward the “holdup.”)
04:12
HARRY: We got four full-time men on this ranch that hold down camps. Each man takes care of about 600 head of cows on about 65 square miles of country. Twice a year, all the men get together to round these cattle up and work them. In the spring of the year, we move these old cows from winter country to summer country, and we brand all the new calves that we find.
JOHN CHIANTARETTO: When we're working, every day we make a circle, and each guy gets a piece of country to cover. He tries to find all the cows in it and drive them into a holdup. When you get dropped off on drive, well usually you just watch for tracks on your way through and pick up all the cattle that you find.
HARRY: I can think of three things right off the bat that a guy needs to know to really appreciate punching cows around here. One of them is we cover just a whole lot of country. All this country's rough. Some of these old cows will sure try to get away from you. A lot of them, if they get a chance, they'll never, never stop trying to.
(Very faintly in the background instrumental strumming begins and continues through the next comments, growing louder during the chase of a the rambunctious calf while Jay is speaking and then stopping.)
CHUCK: They never get over it. Aw, some of them, if you get them handled enough, why, they'll kind of get over it, trotting cows. One of them hiding cows, they don't seem to get over that hiding very easy. I've got an old cow over here, 16 years old, she don't need a thicket. All she needs is one god damn little bush. She can disappear. Just be one bush in the country and you'd swear to Christ it ain't big enough to hide a cow in, and you ride right as close to me to you before you'll ever see her. She'll never move, too. When she was younger, she used to come out of there like a freight train when she'd come out. She's old enough, I'm getting curious now just to see how god damn long it'll take her to die.
JAY RUNSTON: You know, like when a cow gets away, you know, they're smart, you know. They know how they did it. And then they just keep it up, you know. And then pretty soon they're taking their friend with them-- their buddy. And then they got their little calf with them. And they keep that up and pretty soon you got 10 or 12 head trying to get away every time--or getting away. There's guys, you know, they come through. They put in their 30 days, they're gone to another bar room. You know, a guy that lives on one of these outfits has to stay there, make a living. You know, you don't just, you gotta keep cows, you know, you just don't let them get away. And if you're gonna be a bear, be a grizzly, you know.
(Faint instrumental strumming again in the background, growing a little louder between speakers.)
BILL MURPHY: Back before they fenced this country, the old neighbors used to get together and help brand each other's calves in the spring. That was partly to be neighborly, and partly to keep the other guy from getting his brand on your calf by mistake. You got one that's a long ear, well, they're liable to get him on you. Nowadays, when I go to help my neighbors, it's just to be neighborly. In this country here, we all try to help each other.
BILL: When you work for one of these outfits, you gotta learn to be a jack of all trades. You learn to do everything. You learn to flank calves and rope them and vaccinate them and earmark and castrate them. And most ranch kids, they learn that from time they're little bitty guys watching. They start out on the smear bucket, and maybe earmarking calves. And then they get big enough, well, you drag a little calf out every once in a while and teach them to flank. It's really enjoyable to watch them kids get in there in the herd and drag their first calves. That really makes my day to see a young boy out there that's really wanting to do something, with his rope down and his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, trying to heel a calf or get him by the head, and we all watch out for him to keep him from getting in a wreck. And that's what's the making of a cow puncher.
HARRY: Spring works usually takes us about two months. We work seven days a week. Sometimes that's a pretty long old haul. But if a guy don't keep hitting a piece of country just every day, them cattle will drift back behind him, back into the country that he's already worked, and then he'll miss them. We move around to each camp until the whole outfit's worked.
(As a cowboy rides off, the picture and the music and lowing of cattle fade away.)
SUMMER
11:49
HARRY: Out here, summer's pretty much the time that's left between the spring works and the fall works. And after the spring works, each man goes back to camp.
HARRY & LYNNA CHIANTARETTO
Strojost Camp
51,200 acres, 700 head of cattle
Each camp here supports a certain area of the ranch, and the man in that camp is responsible for that country and the cattle in that area and his horses.
(A view of the setting sun, with bolder notes of music beginning and continuing through the words of the next speaker.)
LYNNA CHIANTARETTO: I always make him tell me where he's going, especially when he rides into those canyons. So in case he's not back, at least by dark or something, I can either get some help and we could go hunt for him, you know, backtrack him down. I always worry. The kids, you know, kind of help me, you know, because they keep me occupied, but you're still always looking down the road to see if he's coming in. And now that Petie. and Ty's riding, you know—of course, Ty's been riding a while—but Harry will saddle them up and let them go. And you're sitting here. Oh, here we go again. Yeah, I have my fears. If it ain't one thing that you're worried about, it's something else. If they're cowboying.
(The music grows louder during shots of colts in a corral trotting about and being roped and hobbled, while Harry voice-over describes the training of colts.
HARRY: We raise our own colts here. The first time these little old colts ever really see a man is when we wean them and halter break them. We don't spend much time getting a hold of a colt here. A good colt that's got any sense, he'll kind of figure out what a man wants out of him and come around real quick. We halter-break these colts when they're about six or seven months old, when we wean them off their mothers. They're not so big then they can out muscle you too bad. And you're not near as apt to cripple a colt at that age. All we try to do is just get them to where they'll lead a little bit and you can catch them and pick their feet up and get them gentle. And then we'll turn them out for a couple of years, and we'll get them back up when they're about three years old, and a lot bigger and stronger. And break them to ride. All horses and cattle can sense if you're tense or if you're scared, and a little old colt, he can figure out if a man really likes him. They sense that real quick, and they'll get to liking you. They'll just snuggle right up to a man and figure out that as long as he's coming to you, he's okay, and that really helps him come around.
HARRY (taking off his hat and putting it on the horse’s head) There you go. He’s ready for a hat.
A cowboy is gonna have to ride a bunch of different kinds of horses. He'll usually always have five or six horses in his string, and it's pretty much his responsibility to take care of them horses and to make what he wants out of them horses to ride. And you'll find that your better cowboys are the people that really take pride in them horses and really take care of them horses, because the better the horse is, the better the job you can do working with your cattle.
CHUCK & LEONA HARVARD
Barney Wells Camp,
38,400 acres, 400 head of cattle
17:43
LEONA HARVARD (speaking in a silence broken only by the occasional noises of rural life) : Chuck says he likes living at the camp there, because all he has to do is think for hisself, go out there and keep his cows going to the best of his ability. I think that's the reason most of your guys that are cowboys have turned to be cowboys. They make their own choices of what they're doing from day to day. They don't like somebody on their back all the time telling them what to do and what not to do, how to do it, when to do it. Out in the boondocks like that, they can do as they darn please.
(Musical strumming begins again and continues, and the visuals during the next voice-over show Chuck Harvard on his solitary rides through the camp assigned to him.)
CHUCK: When you're in camp, all you gotta do is prowl around, pack a little salt. Hope to hell you don't have to patch up too much fence. See how many of your bulls went to the neighbors. Bulls ain't smart enough to come back home. When they think they have some work to do at home, why, you have to go get them. If the cows get hungry, you can feed them blocks of feed supplement, pack it on a pack horse. Usually six blocks to a time. That's about 200 pounds. I damn nigh packed a lot of block here last summer. Well, just about the time this brush was putting out good some we got that last big freeze and it froze all that. I didn't have any brush, didn't have any grass. I was hauling two-and-a-quarter, two-and-a-half tons of block from Santa Maria twice a week. Then packing it in between times, and if I'd had time and could have got it, well, I could have put out more. They would eat more. I don't know how much more. They'd eat quite a little more. This damn old pickup without any license on it-- I was afraid to get on the highway in the weekend. I'd haul it on Monday and either Thursday or Friday—usually Thursday. Well, it ain't got a hell of a lot on me. I didn't have no license there either. but made it all summer. Never even seen the cop. Be kinda hard I guess to explain, really. Gotta be more of an independent nature-- I think. Person that wants to be around people all the time ain't too apt to make it too long. Somebody that's kind of a lone wolf, why, they're pretty well to home.
(His comments end with a cowboy on his horse gazing off at the distant rugged landscape in silence except for the blowing wind.)
BILL AND MARY MURPHY
Cross-U & Spider Ranches,
111,360 acres, 700 head of cattle
21:23
(Silence. Then gentle strumming starts again over shots and sounds of Mary going out of her house to feed two young calves. Then inside her house she is teaching her young son Lee.)
MARY MURPHY: In a lot of ways, we live pretty much the same out here as they did a hundred years ago. A lot of things are still the same. The work is still the same. I cook on a wood stove in the winter time. But a lot of things are different, too. We have a lot of conveniences that they didn't have. The world's different now.
(to Lee) We'll do a little bit of review this morning, okay?
LEE MURPHY: A.
MARY: Years ago, people weren't quite as aware of what was going on in the world outside their own little world out here. I think today we're a little more aware because we hear the news right away, and we know what's going on all over the world. And we are concerned, because our kids have to live in today's world, and we want them to be aware of the changes out there.
(To her son) Turn back here where we were working yesterday. Let's see. Okay, read this story to me.
LEE (reading): The donkey gives John a ride. John wants the donkey to go fast, but he thinks to himself, “I will not move fast.”
MARY: Okay, how about. . . .
23:56
BILL MURPHY (Music done, the view sees and hears him riding through woods, up and down steep hill, tracking the cattle with two dogs following him and helping when needed): When you work an outfit like this with one or two men, your works are really never done. You've gotta keep at it, and you trail these cattle around and pick them up a little bunch at a time and try to handle them right and get them and work them right to keep them gentle. But I learned to trail when I was with my dad down there. My dad had that old Sycamore outfit, and he'd get down there in them cedars. And I was a little fella riding with him. He'd jump some old cows in them cedars and he'd pull out and catch something, and I'd have to trail him up. And you gotta learn whether that track is is fresh or old. And the difference is in the color of the ground. And the way that track's made depends on dry ground or wet ground or whatever. Sometimes an old track in the mud, it'll be fresh, but it'll freeze during the night. And you look at that track, it might look like it's two or three days old, and it may be a night old--froze. And there's a lot of fellas who will just trail an old track around and around and around, and they really think they're trailing something, and they can trail it for days and never catch up to anything.
BILL (to the dogs, who begin barking, running, and moving the cattle fast as Bill and his horse tear down a steep, rough trail behind them, with background music adding to the liveliness of this scene): Hold them up! Hold them up!
BILL: Good dog.
BILL (to casual strumming music, after the cattle have settled into a group moving slowly and calmly along): A cow puncher's got a job to do. He'll have good days, and he'll have bad days, and he copes with it. And them bad days, cattle will run off, and he'll have to catch something, and you'll just have a one hell of a wreck. And your horse is down with you, or whatever goes on. You get the point where if you say, well, I'll be damned if I know what I'm a-doing this for, but when it finally all irons out and you get it all done, you look back over it, you laugh about it, even though you had all that hell. But it's just, if you're a cow puncher, like I say, it's just your pride to get it done. (Bill chuckles as he watches his dogs bark at a coon they have treed, and he then rides away.)
JOHN & PATTY CHIANTARETTO
Bozarth camp
28,800 acres, 500 head of cattle
28:39
(After silence a pick-up trunk drives up from the distance to a gate. Patty gets out, opens the gate, and then drives away, past mountains, with distant views of the vehicle. Gentle strumming begins again as the truck stirs up clouds of dust as it reaches and enters vast flat and empty spaces.)
PATTY CHIANTARETTO: That first winter we was here, there was a pretty bad storm hit us that fall, and we couldn't get out for three weeks. There's a creek that separates us, and if it comes up, you're stuck. You can't get a vehicle across it. The outfits usually furnish your groceries, and you have to go to headquarters to get them. And if there comes a big storm, you can't get out. You have to take a pack horse to ride out and get your groceries. So I think it's 13 miles to Strojost. Now that's the shipping part of the ranch. And then another nine on to the headquarters where you pick your groceries up. And it's a good day-up/day-back ride. When you go to get your groceries, you better make sure you got everything on the list. It's a pretty—it's a change. I was used to, before we come here, just going over and hitting the switch on the wall and having lights. I never was off and around other ranches that didn't have electricity, and everything was gas. But there's trade-offs to anything you decide to do. You just have to decide what you want, and what kind of inconveniences you're willing to put up with. I think the most important thing in John's life is cowboying and I think his family, and breaking horses, and I think all around just cowboying. Well, I don't really know where I'll be in 10 years. I guess I'll be wherever John's at. Probably on a ranch somewhere. Who knows, it may even be this one.
(0ver the following narration, the viewer sees John lug a rope and other equipment into a rough, circular corral to work with a colt. He proceeds to train it, tying up one of its rear feet, then setting its foot free, and letting he colt run in a circle in the corral with a saddle on its back, then riding it around the circle, ending with giving it reassuring pats of praise. From time to time during the scene a musical instrument is heard—either quietly or more excitedly when John has a horse circling quickly inside the corral. The scene closes with a somewhat bluesy harmonica leading.)
JOHN CHIANTARETTO: I think the only way I ever really made it punching cows was because I broke a lot of horses. I was always pretty good at that. Of course, I had a pretty good teacher. I can't really say that. I had two or three of them that really did help me a lot. The real art in riding colts is not in how well you can ride a bucking horse, but really in how well you can keep them from bucking. I like to tie a foot up on them and let them fight the rope instead of me. Then I can get close to them right at first. One of the main things anymore that I really try to do is I try to make them my friend, you know, and keep them that way. I think that sure seems to help it. That way you don't have near so many battles with them as you do if you try to force too much down their throat at one time. And I think, I think a guy needs to, you know, be pretty calm with them, be casual with them, and then they'll be that way with you. You can't be, you know, wound up real tight and scared and stuff because then they're that way with you, and then they don't get gentle that way. When you're a kid, you usually want to just be good at one thing, usually whatever you're best at, you know. It might be roping or riding a bucking horse or whatever, but I think the older you get, the more you just want to be good at all of it. I'd like to be remembered as a good hand, a good cowboy, you know. I don't really worry too much about that. I think, you know, there's a lot to-- just as much to what you think of yourself as what other people think of you, you know. So, you know, as long as you satisfy yourself, because if you don't think anything of yourself, nobody else is going to, that's for sure.
Fall Works
September 14 – November 21
(This set opens with a group of riders trotting down a hill together in the rain. Over the next narrations are long shots of men—with one young boy among them—working as a team attentively and skillfully herding large numbers of cattle up to the shipping site. Sounds of cattle and gently strumming music pervade the background.)
35:36
HARRY: In the fall, things get a lot busier. You gather all the cattle from all over this ranch, and they all come right into your main shipping point. And we have to cull all these old cows and bulls and ship any of the younger cows that are not calving regular. And we have to have all these calves weaned and separated, ready for shipping day. There's always a date set when the buyers and the trucks are gonna be here. And those cattle have to be there when them trucks show up. And the buyers.
JOHN: In the fall, the days are always a lot longer because you always have to drive your cattle, and usually a lot farther. And that does take a lot of patience because they only go so far, and you gotta rest them. And a lot of times you have a long trot back to camp.
HARRY: When you're going through your piece of country, you need to watch your tracks. You need to work them thickets a little bit, and you need to watch for the men on either side of you. And you just can't turn off and just go to the hold up. You have to work with the drive, just as a whole crew, working a piece of country. It's not one man that's doing the job. It's the whole crew working together, you know, that makes for a good outfit. We always throw these cattle together outside before we come in these shipping pens and work the herd. One or two men work the herd, and everybody else holds the cattle up, and we always cut the bulls out, all the younger bulls that we're not gonna ship to get them out of there so they won't be stirring around with them cattle and fighting. And then we cut out all of our yearling heifers and our young dry cows that we don't need to put to the pens. And then we cut all the baby calves out that's too small to ship. You gotta be a pretty smooth hand to do that. You have to keep them cows mothered up, and you have to make sure you got the right calf to the right cow and you gotta do a pretty easy, smooth job of cutting them cattle out, so you don't separate them, those pairs or get anything mixed up.
JOHN: There's just a whole lot to knowing how to work a big bunch of cattle you see. A good hand, he'll go about it in a pretty smooth manner. He won't, you know, make a lot of unnecessary moves, and he's just always awake. He's not just sitting there asleep and cattle run off and cause a big wreck, you know. He's right there, and if something does happen, if a cow does run off, he's even, regardless of how he's mounted, he's apt to catch him real quick. He's right there, you know, to do his part.
CHUCK: When you get them in the holding pastures after you get your outside country worked, you come into the corrals and then separate the cows from the calves.
Sorting
November 20
(Over the next set of commentaries the camera pans over the cowboys driving larger and large bodies of cattle to the sorting place and managing the cattle with ease. The unobtrusive musical accompaniment continues.)
40:17
When you get done with that, you separate the steer calves from the heifer calves, then the replacement heifers from the selling heifers. It helps if you know a steer from a heifer.
HARRY: A man can class somebody as a dude-- it is not really because he's a inexperienced man. A dude is a man that shows up on these ranches that's rode a horse in town a little bit, and he's watched two or three movies on television, and he's absolutely sure he's a cowboy. And when you tell him something, he'll correct you, you know. He knows it all. Those kind of people, they'll get in your way. You can take lots of people that are inexperienced, that know they're inexperienced and wanting to be cowboys, and then you can help them. You can make a cowboy out of somebody like that.
CHUCK: You can't make it without somebody a-trying to help you somewhere along the way. I've picked up little tricks from damn near anybody I've ever worked with, too. There's just some things you do and don't do. You don't mess with another man's horse. You don't run in front of anybody or crowd them too much or make somebody else do all the work. You're supposed to do a little bit yourself, anyway. To my way of thinking.
42:06
(Harmonica introduction to the next song)
GAIL STEIGER (singing):
Well, I've heard it said
And I believe that it's true
It ain't what you’re wearing
It's what you can do
The boys they are ready
It's time to begin
I sure hope that I
Can hold up my end
And maybe someday
when I'm old and gray
They'll think of me
And someone will say
He sure made a good hand
And we all always did know
He would be there
When we needed him most
(At the sorting area many shots show the men’s wives and children joining them as they move the cattle smoothly into crowded areas and three alleys to wait there for shipping.)
HARRY: It's not something that you learn just right now or you can read about in a book. The only way you can be a good cowboy is to just learn it from experience. You know, old timers can tell you lots of ideals and a lot of things that's worked real well for them. And you need to listen. A lot of young people can tell you a lot of things, that's younger than you are. But still you're gonna have to put them to use and figure out your own way.
And maybe someday
When I'm old and gray
They'll think of me
And someone will say
He sure made a good hand
And we always did know
He would be there
When we needed him most
Yeah he sure made a good hand
And we always did know
He would be there
When we needed him most
(Harmonica closes the song and segues into next comments)
CHUCK: Good set up, three separate alleys. We can run 5 or 6 hundred head of cows and calves through here. Be done by one, two o'clock if everybody knows what they're doing. But then they usually do. And that helps quite a little.
Shipping Day - November 21
45:22
(Over the next narrations is extensive footage of the cowboys and their families waiting for the trucks and then the arrival of a series of trucks. The cowboys herd the cattle onto weighing platforms and then hurry them into chutes that lead them to the doors of the trucks. Eventually, with all the cattle loaded, the trucks pull out and drive off into the distance. Background music continues to accompany the scenes.)
HARRY: Shipping day. That's the payday of the year for the ranch. Seems like you hustle around for weeks, though, making sure you're ready for that day. And then when the day finally gets here, it seems like you end up waiting forever for those trucks to show up. The owners of the ranch are always here on shipping day to weigh these calves with the buyers. And they'll average each bunch that goes across the scale and the total weight's what'll determine just how good we've done for the year. With the economic picture the way it is today in the cow business, it’s real hard just to cover the interest on the land and the cattle, much less make a good profit. When that interest adds up to better than $250 on every cow, she's gotta have a 400-pound calf that sells for better than 60 cents a pound just to break even. And some years, a cow won't have a calf, or the calf won't be heavy enough, or the market price will be down. There's just a lot of things squeezing the business today that we just don't have no control over. A guy that's in this business just to make money, probably ought to have his head examined. I've been through three owners on this ranch so far.
JOHN: It is a relief to see the last truck loaded and headed up the hill, but I don't really think it's an end to anything. It just kind of sets the stage for the work we have to do in the winter. Usually about the first thing we do is take their cows back to their winter homes, and then we brand the replacement heifers and get them kind of ready to be turned back with the cows, and then after that, we usually go back to camp. All you do after shipping really is just draw a breath and maybe drink a beer and go on to the next day. Winter trapping. (Chuckles.)
(A cowboy walks about taking feedbags to the horses, no longer saddled. The event closes with a shot of a young horse resting on the ground.
Then the camera shows the cowboys’ children throwing a frisbee and playing baseball. Food gets laid out and everyone eats and drinks. The men chat and their wives socialize with each other.)
50:53
MARY: With everybody in this business, in this kind of life that we see, we may not see them for a year or two, but when we do, we just pick up just like it was yesterday. There's a closeness there that doesn't seem to cool no matter how long it is in between the times that you visit with people.
TRINA RUNSTON: To me, the families are so much closer. It's not like the daddy goes to work early in the morning and he comes home at night and the kids don't know where he's been. Maybe, you know, he's been at the office. Well, big deal. They don't understand that. Out here, they know what daddy's doing, and a lot of times they even go with him, or we all do.
(The following narrations occur over footage of sons working with their fathers roping and branding calves and of wives and whole families working together with the cowboy. They continue through Lynna’s remarks and through Gail Steiger’s song, with shots of two boys trying to rope a calf, of Harry and Lynna talking together, and of him playing with his boys with a frisbee and with bows and arrows, and of his son helping him take bales of hay to cattle, and more shots of the boys trying to cowboy. Then during the song, footage of boys helping their dad toss fodder to the cattle from a vehicle. The unobtrusive background music continues to tie the shots together.)
HARRY: My oldest boy was about seven or eight years old when he started helping us quite a bit here. That was probably one of the most enjoyable moments in my life. He was right there helping me. At the same time, he was learning a trade that he can make a living with and learning it firsthand experience. You need to set an example for him in the way that you do your job, so they can see, you know, do everything to the best of your ability, you know? And just make it a point that they know that. That's one of the really, the nicest things about this job that to me, that the whole family can go and help. And today, a person will find out that the best help he he'll ever have, or the most dependable help and the most fun help to work with, really, is his own family when every one of them can be involved. And that way, well, if something goes wrong at work and you come home a little bit cranky, well, if the whole family, they know, they know just what it's about, you know. They understand a lot better. The more you do together, the more you'll really understand each other, and the more you'll appreciate each other, and therefore, you just get closer.
LYNNA: He's more concerned with the boys, you know, and what they want out of life. You know, he's hoping, of course, they'll cowboy, but we talked about it once before, and he says, well, he hopes like I do that they will be cowboys and live this kind of life. But in case one of them decides to go a different route, you know, well, we'll just have to accept it. And I thought Harry would, you know, kind of feel bad towards that. But I don't think he would, you know.
GAIL (singing),
My son, he's getting bigger every day
I wonder if he will grow up to be
Anything like me
My son, I'm going to show him what I can
I'll try to ease the way
With a helping hand
Ah, but I know mostly
He's going to learn it all his own
No telling how far
He'll wind up traveling
Away from home
My son, getting bigger every day
Wonder if he will grow up to be
Anything like me
Yeah, I wonder if he
Will grow up to be
Anything like me
Winter
(Commentary over shots of a blow-torch and the making of spurs, feeding a horse with a feedbag, and saddling up a horse and riding out with provisions on a second horse and with dogs into a snowy rugged landscape. Music plays softly throughout the remaining scenes.)
57:12
BILL: It all goes on. Never, never really run out of something to do on a ranch. If you look for something, you can always find something that's broke down or needs repairs. In the wintertime, you keep salt out to these old cows, and work on your fences and keep some wood cut. And if you got troughs or you got dirt tanks, well, you gotta chop that ice and make sure that your stock can get plenty of water. These cows go to calving from December or January on. Well, them lions eat them calves on you. When I find a kill or lions kill a calf for me, well, I get my dogs and try to catch him, get him out of the country. Fall turns into winter, and then winter turns into spring. These kids, they grow up, and us old fellows get older. It all goes on. The cow business has really changed through the years. There was a time when most of these outfits was little outfits, a time when my dad and his dad had an outfit in this country. And my dad bought an outfit that had been homesteaded, back in the ‘20s. It's in part of this outfit right now, the country that he bought years ago. This is a business that has been handed down through the years through the cow punchers' families. Some of them have went to higher paying jobs and done other things, but them that was really, truly wanting to stay with it, have. That's the makeup of what the cow punchers we have today. The best ones. This outfit's for sale right now. But that's just one of the things, one of the changes that the country's going through. Even though things are changing as fast as they are, long as there's cattle in the country, they're going to need somebody to take care of them.
(A guitar starts playing and GAIL STEIGER sings this song, followed by a harmonica and backup rendition, as a series of credit starts rolling, each entry with some still shot of cowboy life.)
He could have had a good job with the county
His mother often said,
And she never tired of wondering
Why he chose a cowboy's life instead.
And that young girl that he married,
Why, she must have lost her senses, too.
He's took her out there to hell and gone.
But somehow she's making do.
You can travel and in fast lane.
You can decide to take it slow.
It's just a matter of believing in
The worth of what you know.
And having the courage
To choose your own road.
Your own road.
[CREDITS]
Produced & Directed by
Gail Steiger
Music by
Gail & Lew Steiger
Edited by
Phillip Gessert
Cinematography by
Ed George
Story Assembled by
Lew Steiger
Still Photography by
Lew Steiger
Hank Schrieber
Post Production by
The Reel Thing
of California, Inc.
Phillip Gessert
Steve Moore
Sally Banta
Jerry Weldon
Anne Lewis
Bernard Caputo
Opticals & Photo Cards by
Title House, Inc.
Songs Produced by
Dave Brown
Michael Morgan
Engineered by
Dave Brown
Re-recorded at Cannon Sound, Los Angeles
Doug Turner, Leamon Gamel
Michael Altman
Thanks to
Barbara & Gene Polk
Spider & Cross U Ranches
Lois & Bob Millican
Yolo Ranch
Bill & Mary Murphey
Lee, Katy
Harry & Lynna Chiantaretto
Todd, Chad, Ty, Petie
Chuck & Leona Harvard
John & Patty Chiantaretto
Lewie
Jay & Trina Runston
Barney, Amber
Ken & Georgia Foster
Justin, Scott Simmons
Snow scenes filmed by
Johnny Dust
Barney Wells sequence edited by
Sally Banta
Musicians
Gail Steiger
Lew Steiger
Garry Greer
Gary Bruzzessi
Brian LaChance
Thanks also to
Sam Steiger
Ken Polk
Hank Schrieber
Tempest Recording
Pantheon Recording
Jerry Kieckow
John Hesterman
Color by
Foto-Kem
Negative Cut by
K and W
© Copyright 1987
Margaret T. Morris Foundation
Steiger Brothers
