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MARTIN: |
Modern cowboys don't do the same work, do they, Mr. Grant? |
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GRANT: |
No,
no. But you see they spend their days on horseback. |
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MARTIN: |
They don't have to drive the cattle to the railroad anymore. |
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GRANT: |
No.
It's hard work, but not as hard as it was in the old days. |
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MARTIN: |
Many people think that cowboys were heroes. |
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GRANT: |
I
think so too, Martin. Can you imagine how difficult it was? It was
just a few men against great difficulty. Often it was the cowboy
alone with his horse, especially at night. |
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MARTIN: |
What were some of the difficulties? |
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GRANT: |
The
weather. It was always too hot or too cold. It was windy or wet.
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MARTIN: |
And
they spent day after day on their horses. |
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GRANT: |
That's right. Are you getting tired? |
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MARTIN: |
No,
I'm fine. |
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GRANT: |
The
food was terrible. There were no towns. |
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MARTIN: |
Why
do we imagine it was a wonderful life? |
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GRANT: |
Because the cowboy was independent. There were wonderful stories
about them too. |
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MARTIN: |
Tell me your story, Mr. Grant. I want to hear the history of your
family. |
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GRANT: |
Sure. My great grandfather went to Oklahoma. He was a very young
man, maybe only seventeen or eighteen. He took a homestead of a
hundred and sixty acres. |
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MARTIN: |
Did
he have any money? He was so young. |
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GRANT: |
He
didn't have any money. But he had a wife. |
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MARTIN: |
How
did they live? |
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GRANT: |
We
don't know. They didn't live very long. But they had five children.
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MARTIN: |
What happened to the children? |
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GRANT: |
One
went here. Another went there. My grandmother went to live in
Colorado with an aunt. |
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MARTIN: |
When was this? |
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GRANT: |
This was in the eighteen nineties. This was the best time in the Old
West. |
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MARTIN: |
What happened to her in Colorado? |
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GRANT: |
There were very few towns. But her aunt and uncle lived in town. She
became a school teacher. Then she married a cowboy. |
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MARTIN: |
Then what happened? |
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GRANT: |
Her
aunt and uncle were very unhappy. |
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MARTIN: |
Why? |
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GRANT: |
They didn't like cowboys. People in the East and in Europe liked
cowboys, but many people in the West didn't like them. Most of them
were poor. They were dirty. |
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MARTIN: |
They weren't like the stories? |
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GRANT: |
Not
exactly. |
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MARTIN: |
When did she marry the cowboy? |
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GRANT: |
Some time between nineteen five and nineteen ten. |
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MARTIN: |
What happened to them? |
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GRANT: |
The
cowboy made a lot of money on a cattle drive. He was my grandfather,
of course. They bought this ranch. I was born here. |
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MARTIN: |
When? |
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GRANT: |
In
nineteen forty-five. |
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MARTIN: |
But
what about your parents? |
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GRANT: |
My
father was born here. He wasn't a rancher. He was a doctor. |
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MARTIN: |
But
you wanted to be a cowboy. |
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GRANT: |
Always. I never lived with my parents. I always lived here on the
ranch with my grandparents. |
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MARTIN: |
The
Old West wasn't so long ago. |
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GRANT: |
It
wasn't so long ago to me. My grandfather and grandmother lived in
it. Sometimes I still live in it. |
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