THE COWBOY

I grew up on Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel and Wanted Dead or Alive. A real man looked like Matt Dillon, Wire Pallidan or Josh Randall (i.e. James Arness, Richard Boone and Steve McQueen). There’s a simple explanation for this. Pop said having a television in the house was “sinful.” So every Saturday night we were all over at Uncle Dent’s watching the westerns. Guess they weren’t “sinful.” But I kind of liked the cowboys, and western music, Home on the Range, I’m An Old Cowhand, Red River Valley and the rest of those good old songs we sang on Friday afternoons at club meeting at Bandyville School. Later in life I became a fan of the Rider’s in The Sky. I saw them with my friend Clara at John A Logan and in Paducah. Very impressed with ‘the cowboy way.’ In 1989 I was struggling with my mother’s third stroke. I was working at Dr. Hyde’s office in oncology. I didn’t have time for much else. My dear Aunt Helena, who had spent most of my life giving me advice or telling me outright what to do, said to me one day, “You should go out with Harry’s nephew.” I said, “No thanks, too busy, not looking for a man”. So she backed off for a bit. The nephew’s name was Gary Frey. His mother Marie was Uncle Harry’s sister. Uncle Harry was Aunt Helena’s sixth (6th) husband. I didn’t think much of her marriage record, but Uncle Harry was a very nice likable guy. I was over for supper one evening. Aunt Helena was at the sink. Uncle Harry and I were still sitting at the table. He put down his iced tea and looked at me. He asked, “Well, now tell me, Doris Ann, what kind of a man are you looking for?” I immediately replied, “I’m NOT looking for a man. Did that once, had enough, not interested. Period!” So he looked away and we talked about other things. She remained quiet, which was pretty unusual. I suspected they were up to something. So after awhile, he resumes his questioning, elbow on the table and asks, “Well, now, Doris Ann, just tell me. If the right kind of guy just came along, what would he be like? What would get your attention?” So the ‘imp’ in me, says, “Hey, just play along, maybe then he’ll leave it alone.” So I sat back, and gazed out the patio doors and said, “Hmmm, well, Uncle Harry, I think maybe about six foot and blond hair, a guy with pretty blue eyes, built strong, and you know, he just needs to be a cowboy. You know he needs to look like a cowboy. He needs to walk the cowboy walk, and be true and strong and down to earth. Now, I don’t care if he messes with horses, because I don’t want him to smell bad. But he definitely needs to live ‘the cowboy way’.” Uncle Harry never blinked an eye, just looked away and said, “Okay.” In July 1989 Mother passed on. I was standing by her casket at the visitation when Aunt Helena came in with Uncle Harry and behind them was Uncle Harry’s brother Jack and a tall red head. Aunt Helena introduced me to Jack and Gary, the nephew. I noticed a western cut to his suit and he did have on dress boots. Red hair, tall skinny guy and his ears stuck out. Very polite, he offered his condolences, took my hand. That was about it. The next morning I called Aunt Helena, and accused her of bringing Gary to meet me at my mother’s wake. What in the world was she thinking? She informed me that Jack and Gary were there because, after all, my mother was her sister. Time passed and it was early September. She had started all over again, telling me, every phone call, what a fine guy he was, a coal miner, and said he didn’t drink or smoke and that we’d be so good for each other, that he loved country music too. She said he was lonely since his wife died. She said that I needed a good man. She kept it up, over and over, wanted to give him my phone number. Ever have one of those moments when you spout off something out of your mouth and then wish immediately that you could take it back? You’d like to crawl down a hole? Well…… One day the conversation went something like this: Aunt Helena: “He is really a nice guy and you two would be good together.” Doris Ann: “Well, enough, Aunt Helena, why would I listen to you anyway, you’ve been married SIX times ?” Aunt Helena: “Well, I finally got it right!” Doris Ann: “Okay, you can give him my phone number. If he’s got enough guts to call me, I’ll go out with him and see if he’s got any balls!” Whoa, shut my mouth and crawl in a hole. I’m just looking for a cowboy ! Not a skinny red neck coal miner. NO Way ! So she did and he called on Wednesday evening. Asked me out for Thursday night, but I had a class at J. A. Logan. Asked me out for Friday night, but I had plans with a friend from the office. I’m thinking, “No way, he’s going to ask me the third time.” Well, he asked me out for Saturday and I had nothing so I said ‘okay.’ We had a date for 4pm Saturday afternoon. He said he’d be there. Saturday morning I picked up the house, got cleaned up, and just about chickened out. I called Aunt Viola. (I figured she’d be more likely to listen to my reasoning.) And told her I didn’t want to go and that I was about ready to call him and just drop it. She said I shouldn’t do that, that she met him at Mom’s wake and thought he was really nice and besides that I had told him I would go. So I shut up and waited. My front bedroom looked down on the drive way. I’m sitting on the side of the bed watching out the window. It was 4pm and no dirty coal miner’s truck in my driveway. Good, maybe he’s not coming. But at 4:15, a pretty blue Ford BRONCO with silver trim pulls in. The sun is glaring over the house roof top onto the Bronco front window so I can’t really see inside. The driver’s door opens and below it protrudes a long leg in Levis and a cowboy boot. WHAT! And then he gets out. Next I see the leather belt and a cowboy belt buckle, a western shirt. Then the tall skinny red headed cowboy reaches into the BRONCO and pulls out a tall green vase with a dozen red roses already arranged. I’m ready to head for the back door. He rings the front door bell. I go to the door, open it and he puts the vase of roses in my hand. I just stand there, looking at them. Then I looked at him, and I said, “Really, Gary, you shouldn’t have.” And he just looked back at me and said, “Why, aren’t you worth it?” If I had run for the back door or crawled into a hole, I’d have lost. It took me another six months to believe in him, but I finally came around to ‘the cowboy way’.

Gary Frey Applebutter

We Make Apple Butter OK, you get a Gary Frey story . He loved apple butter. His mom use to make it. She put a whole bag of cinnamon drops in each large batch. so Gary said maybe we could make it. so we went to Murphysboro in the fall and got a couple (?) bushels of apples. Oh, then we went to Walmart and bought an apple peeler, then I borrowed crock pots from friends. Well we got all the apples peeled, (I think he wanted Jonathans?) and filled up 7 different sized crock pots. So the new directions said cook them all night then take the lids off the last couple hours, so they'd cook down, less liquid I think. Oh the house smelled wonderful ! So finally it all ended up in a huge blue spotted tin pot which was actually the canning pot. Then he dumped in the cinnamon drops, yeah a whole bag. Then we cooked it down and canned it and he loved it. I had fun....