07/25/2026
NATIONAL DAY OF THE AMERICAN COWBOY
“It’s the freedom. Where else can a man spend his days ahorseback—maybe never seein’ another human all day—doin’ what he knows needs to be done without havin’ somebody standin’ there pointin’ their damned finger at you.”
Will all the modernization and computerization that is hammering at the cowboy from all sides someday end his way of life? I doubt it. They’ll never make a machine that can prowl through a pasture, look at the grass and the condition of the cattle, and decide what needs to be done next. They’ll never develop a computer program that can tell if a cow is wet or dry, and then figure out which calf is hers. They’ll never come up with software that knows just how far or fast to push a crippled animal, how tight or loose to try to hold a bunch of trotty ol’ cows, or how to look at a track and tell not only the direction and speed that ol’ bull’s travelin, but about where he might stop and bush up.
No, God gave the ability to reason and use common sense to man alone. And there are far too many intricacies involved in the cow business and punchin’ cows to ever program it into a damned machine. If you could someday get the information all written down, just as you finished the weather would change or a bronc would blow up and buck through the roundup, or something else would happen to shoot your computer program all to hell. On top of this, they’ll never build a machine that can stand up to the abuse that a cowpuncher and a cowhorse take on a daily basis. A cowboy lives by an unwritten code of ethics that involves integrity, morality, and honesty. Does he set himself up as some kind of icon he thinks the rest of the country should follow or look up to? Certainly not. He figures that every man must decide how he wants to live. In that respect, maybe he’s the living cornerstone of America’s concept of itself.
Tommy Vaughn
Cowpuncher
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