How many of you think that real cowboys are only from the western states?I've heard a couple of people say that there arn't any real cowboys in north carolina.That makes me very mad.I wasn't raised as a ranch hand(sometimes i wish)but i was raised with the hart and soul of a cowboy i like to think!I think your heart is a big part of being a cowboy.Please tell me what you guys(and gals)think.

I suppose we all wish we were. If we didnt we wouldnt own lots of expensive large animals, hay balers, trailers,tack,tractors and real estate. If you have to work cattle to be a cowboy, I guess were not. When I trailer my horse half way accross the country, pack into a wilderness area, Set up a camp and listen to elk bugle and coyotes yip while we sleep under the stars. I think I might have a little cowboy spirit in me.
sgs

Being a cowboy has nothing to do with cow's but what is in you! I have never lived on a ranch or farm. But I found the Cowboy Way six years ago and find it to be just what I needed in my life. Being a cowboy is a way of life.

Check out this site. See if you fit the part.

http://www.billpalmer.com/cowboy.htm

This also goes for cowgirls.

I agree with all of you. I wasn't raised on a ranch, my parents tried to help. I could claim I am (a cowboy)through heratige, my great-grand-dad was a cowboy through and through. Ran the families ranch for a month by himself at age twelve. But heck, heratige doesn't mean anything unless you want it to, my brother for instance, is a skater. Not a bad kid, just likes rap and all that. anywho, bein' a cowboy has almost NOTHING to do with where you were raised. But everything to do with what's inside.

Case in point, read the book "The secret life of cowboys" by Tom Groneberg (a little depressing at times, but all around a good book)

Anyway, I think I've said enough of my two cents.
Later ya'll

Trigger...I probably can't say a whole lot more than what's already been said...it's either in your heart, or it ain't. If you tell the truth & value honesty & integrity, if your walk matches your talk, if you respect women & treat them like ladies, if you extend a hand to even a stranger not expecting anything in return, if you treasure a freedom that you have to live to really appreciate it, if you'd put your horse(s) or any critters first before yourself, if you believe in & trun to God cause you know that without Him nothing you see would be possible,...well, I hope you get the idea. It all comes from inside.

BTW...something else...ask those who put you down where they think cowboys in the "west" came from to begin with. My great-grandad was a Montana cowboy, & came from Ireland. I think that's even a little further east than North Carolina.

My son once told someone that I was the only real cowboy in Ohio. I know that's not true but I think I do live the cowboy livestyle. I don't own a single square inch of ground and work for someone else helping them with the cattle. We run around 200 head of commercial Angus/Simmie cattle. We calve in mid Feb. to mid April. Most of our cattle calve in a 45 day period because we heat synch them. I love to go out at three in the AM to check them. I also love to go out spring through fall and check a horseback but I don't get to do that as often as I'd like. Paul

I made a mistake on my last post, he wasn't 12, he was 8 (my great-grandpa)

oops

Well,you guys and ladies have been raised around ranching.I've been putting myself there cause i feel if it's in my heart then i'm a cowboy.I love being around the life style,the smell,the work involved and everything that comes with it.I will have my own farm someday(not enough land in north carolina to be called a ranch).Thats how i feel.

to be western you just need to love the tradition and the feel of the cowboy style.

To be a cowboy, you do need to work with cows, hence the part about cows in the name. To be a cowboy it doesnt matter where you were born or raised its what you do for a living. I was born in Louisiana, not exactly cowboy, and raised in Texas, Wyoming, Scotland, and Norway. The Sundance kid could be counted as a cowboy, he grew up in Detroit but was a famous cowboy.

There is a difference between some of what you have described and cowboy. Alot of you described camping, free spirit, yadi yadi, camping with a horse makes you a packer or a hunter/trapper. Owning a horse ranch and or cattle and land, makes you a rancher. Cultivating, harvesting the land that makes you a farmer, so do goats and chickens and such. Sheep make you a shepherd. Owning no land and working other peoples cattle while horse back that makes you a cowboy. So all in all you can be from north carolina and work on someones farm or ranch and work their cattle
horseback and be a north carolina cowboy.

[ January 30, 2006, 05:54 AM: Message edited by: rafterMK ]

I forgot to say, but if all you do is rodeo, then you arent a cowboy, i dont care what the rest of you say, nowadays rodeoers are no more cowboys than your waffle iron.

My hat is off to the words of truth!

heyI'm from Nc, if our confused weather don't make you a cowboy or horse man nuth'n will lol