Cowboy Obits

Cowboy Obituaries:

The life of the American cowboy is alive and well -- as proven, in abundant irony, by a pair of this week's obituaries. We lost a couple of men this week, both of whom had chosen the Western way as their life.

The first one was only a youth, killed while practicing for a rodeo. Stuart Mazanec took his mortal wound when a bronco rolled on him, bruising his heart. He was seventeen -- a young man who loved coyote hunting and riding. Tex Ritter wrote his eulogy long before he was born, poor fellow, in Blood on the Saddle. Sudden death has always been a part of the life, a life which therefore only honors the young men brave enough to choose it.

The other was Joe Beeler, the last of the founders of the Cowboy Artists of America. His creation lives on, and is doing quite well for itself. Mister Beeler died at the age of seventy-four, and he died well: suddenly, in the saddle, while helping a neighbor at branding time.

As always at such times, with such men, we mourn and celebrate at once.