Friday, June 15, 2018

Our Past Is Present June 15, 2018


June 15, 2018
            You are reading “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.
            Today’s program includes two stories about "Ways Early Cowboys Dealt With Their Cook," who was sometimes referred to as “cookie”. Henry Young was a cowboy, who was born in 1865 and left home to be a cowboy at the age of 25.  He stated in an interview: “We had our own cooky.  “Dog Face” is the only name I recall we had for him.  He was a good cook and made dandy sour-dough bread and was a good bean cook too.  Lots of times he fixed us bean-hole beans.  That is, beans cooked in a hole.  “Dog Face” would dig a hole in the ground, line the hole with stone, then build a fire in the hole and keep it burning for several hours.  Those stones would get piping hot, then the hole was ready for the beans.  He put the beans into an iron kettle with a tight cover, set it in the hole and covered it with sand.  There they would be left for several hours.  He seasoned the whistle-berries with bacon and molasses.  I am telling you, those beans were fitting to eat.  Beef, beans, a few canned vegetables and dried fruit was the chief chuck on which we lived.  Half of the time we ate the chuck sitting on our haunches behind the chuck wagon.”
            Next we want to share some Chuck Wagon Etiquette with you this morning.  Here is a list of things to do and not to do around Cookie:
            No one eats until Cookie calls.           When Cookie calls, everyone comes a runnin’.
            Hungry cowboys wait for no man.  They fill their plates, fill their bellies and then move on so stragglers can fill their plates.   Cowboys eat first and talk later.  It’s okay to eat with your fingers – cause the food is clean.   Here’s one more:  No running or saddling a horse near the wagon.  When you ride off – always ride downwind from the wagon.
            We are sure the cowboys in Geary County know all of these rules.  They make sense – even to us city folk.
            And… that’s today’s story on “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.
           

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