Jim stands at the door with his hat in his hand. He's in town to visit my aging parents. He is thin, too thin for his 5'10" height. Without his hat, his nearly bald head is pale, in great contrast to his tanned, weathered face. Dressed in dark blue jeans, new boots, and a crisp white shirt, he seems awkward, ill at ease, but happy to see us; happy to see that Mom and Dad are doing fine.
Jim is a cowboy. Jim spent his teenage and young adulthood, nearly 20 years, on my parent's ranch. When the ranch had to be sold, Jim moved with wife and kids, first to Colorado, then back to Nebraska, then Jim moved on without his family, to the mountains of Oregon, he's been there for 10 years.
To look at Jim today in my parent's living room, he is not an especially good-looking man. He is what he is -- a middle-aged, thin, balding, nearsighted man. Jim is not comfortable indoors, his element is the outdoors. Outside in the country, wearing soft, worn blue jeans, a faded western shirt, and his old cowboy hat covering his two-toned bald head; his thin, sharp, angular face is ruggedly handsome. Out-of doors he exudes a confidence, a sureness of himself that is not present inside the house.
When I first knew Jim, he was, in my opinion, very un-cool. Jim came to work, for the summer, on my dad's ranch, when he was 12 -- I was 10. He was the oldest of 5 boys. Jim's dad was a part time farmer and a friend of my dad.
Jim did not want to farm and so he came to put up hay and chase cows on our ranch. He was, at age 12, a sturdy, round faced kid, with square black glasses. He was either shy or didn't like to talk; he barely spoke. He went to country school, which was not cool. I, on the other hand, talked nearly all the time; I was on the edge of being one of the popular girls at my Catholic school. But I was not self-confident enough to befriend an un-cool, round faced, bespectacled, country boy. He might think I liked him and that would not be cool. So we spent those first couple of summers keeping our distance, working together when we had to, playing together in the evening, only in a group with my sister and brother and the current full-time hired man's kids.
Our ranch had about an acre of cottonwood and elm trees; nestled in these trees was our two story, four bedroom house, about 50 yards to the north was the hired man's 3 bedroom house. To the east was the big hip roofed barn, with a milk room/bunkhouse on the west side. Jim lived in the bunkhouse attached to the barn.
Jim arrived at the ranch every May as soon as school was out. He stayed all summer, going to his folks on Saturday nights and returning to the ranch on Monday morning. He became a part of our lives.
Jim and I sparred back and forth most of the time. I considered Jim (if I considered him at all) nothing but a dumb boy. He thought I was too privileged, being the boss' daughter. I did not have to milk the cows or do 5:30 a.m. chores. I worked in the hayfield but got off early on Saturday afternoon. I had to do evening chores, but sometimes I had other plans and didn't have to help.
My sister Lisa was a year older than Jim; they became better friends because Lisa didn't worry about being friends with an un-cool kid. She was cool.
When Lisa was 17, I was 14, my brother, Roger, 9, and Jim was 16, Dad employed a new full-time hired man. Jack Walker, came with a wife and 4 kids; Peggy was 15 and the boys, Kerry, Alan and Brian, were 12, 10, and 4. For two years we didn’t need to leave the ranch to find fun. We should have been beyond the age of playing, but we weren’t. We played almost every night. We rode horses; we rode the milk cows; we played hide-and-seek, and tag and baseball and Red Rover. We climbed on the roofs of the sheds, we actually played cowboys and Indians. We three girls roped the boys and tied them to the corral fence. We had a 'neighborhood' right in our yard. It was in those two years that I came to appreciate Jim. I looked at Jim like a brother. He still wasn't 'cool', but he was all right.The year Jim was a senior at the public school, I was a junior at the Catholic high. Jim moved to the ranch full-time. The Walker family had moved on and Jim had a work-study program where he worked on the ranch in the morning and went to school in the afternoon. He lived alone in the hired man's house and ate all his meals with us. Jim had changed by the time he was a senior. He was on the wrestling team. He still wore glasses and was not real cool, but he was tolerable. I even acknowledged him around my friends. Jim had a steady girlfriend and I had learned how to be friends, just friends, with boys.
Jim married Phyllis after they graduated high school; she was a hardworking girl with a heart of gold. The next spring they had a baby. The hired man's house had a family again.
The following year I graduated and went to college. I came home for holidays and summer vacation. I came home for good 4 years later, bringing my infant daughter. I worked in town and we lived on the ranch for the next 7 years.
Ranch hands come and go, two or three years and they move on. Jim was different. Loyal? Stubborn? Contented? Afraid of change? He just stayed. For 20 years he stayed.
Then came some hard times. The economy of the 80's was tough on Dad. High interest, low calf prices, plummeting land equity, and his penchant for race horses, had eaten him alive. He was past retirement age and couldn't afford to retire. I had two children and a disastrous relationship. Jim and Phyllis could not stretch their paycheck to keep up with their growing family. Roger went to college, got married, was setting up a mechanic shop, and doing what he could at the ranch. The ranch was sinking and we were all deciding how to jump ship.
Dad was in turmoil, he had sold most of his cows and was leasing out the pasture, he didn't really need Jim and couldn't afford to pay him. Jim knew it was time to try something else. All he knew was cowboying and he had only one boss in his whole career. It was a big leap. He found a ranch job in southern Colorado. Dad didn’t want Jim to move so far away, but knew he couldn’t stay.
My own life was not easy. I moved to town and was working 3 jobs, making house payments and keeping just ahead of the bills. I was trying to keep my personal and financial problems to myself; mom and dad had enough worries.
A few days before they left for Colorado, Jim and Phyllis were finishing packing and I was watching their girls at my house in town. It was about 8 p.m. when Jim came to pick them up; it was cold and starting to snow. He put the girls in the pick-up and came back to the door. Jim stood in my doorway, and said, "We might not see each other before I leave, so we'd better say good-bye now." We stood and looked at each other; I had tears welling in my eyes, his cheeks were wet, from snow or tears, I could not tell. Jim did not display emotion and had always been a man of few words.
There were no words to say good-bye; we realized the ranch would soon be gone; the life we had known for 20 years would be gone. The ranch had been our anchor, we were now adrift.
Twenty years! From a 10-year old "privileged brat" to 30-year old "world-wise woman", Jim had been there. He was there when I went out with boys that weren't worth my time; he'd seen me in curlers and beauty masques, in bib overalls and swimming suits. He'd witnessed my Irish temper in outbursts against my parents, my boyfriends and life in general. Jim had turned his head when I'd cried over the death of my white collie, probably so I wouldn't see him cry, too.
I'd gone away to college and to Kentucky and Pennsylvania and I'd come home again. He was there. His little girls had been my daughter's first best friends, playing in the same dirt and corrals where Jim and I had played.
We didn't speak, Jim hugged me and I held on tight, I thought couldn't let go. If I let go, I was letting everything go. Jim went down the steps, got in his pick-up and drove away.
Life went on.
The bank got the ranch, my brother bought a corner of it to build his house and raise his family with a few cows and horses. Mom and Dad had an equipment sale, bought a little house on the edge of town and have grown old in comfort.
I got on with my life quite happily.
Most holidays I go home to the little house on the edge of town to visit my folks. That is usually when Jim is back visiting his kids, he always stops to see the folks. I've known Jim now for nearly 40 years. He might be a 50-something cowboy from Oregon, whip thin and tough, ruggedly handsome, but to me he's just Jim, the boy who grew up on our ranch. He's still not cool…but I have come to love him.
