First thing, know that’s not my headline. I stole it from Rachel Gabel. It’s the title of her opinion piece that appears in Colorado Politics HERE and the Denver Gazette HERE. I’m stealing it because it’s poetic. I’m stealing it because it damn near made me cry. Please read the piece to get a perspective on rural America that you may not possess. I’ve never met Ms. Gabel, but I’d like to, if for nothing more than to thank her for this column because she nails it. I bet we could visit for just a few minutes and find we know a lot of the same folks. Rural Colorado is tight that way. And it’s getting ever tighter.
What did Ms. Gabel “nail?” Rural America. While I am best known as a broadcaster and public servant, before I moved into the metaphorical B.S. of radio and politics, I started in the literal B.S. of cattle production. My first jobs were at Miller Feedlots and Beebe Draw Ranch, both in LaSalle. At Miller, I was by-God general labor. I drove feed trucks, dump trucks, and front-end loaders. I scooped feed bunks and cleaned pens and processed cattle when they would come onto the lot and again when they would leave, decidedly fatter.
At Beebe Draw, I was a ranch hand. Yes, a cowboy. Not as cool as Yellowstone, but I’ll let you think that if you want. I fed cows, bred cows, moved cows, doctored cows, and, if need be, helped them deliver their babies. Once mama had a calf, I vaccinated, castrated, branded, and tagged – all under the watchful eye of a black baldie cow that would eat my lunch if it wasn’t for the Priefert panel separating me from her. You didn’t think I was that cool, did you? Trust me, I’m not. But I do know what it’s like to get up at 2:00 a.m. to check a pen of first-calf heifers, to get up at 4:00 a.m. to feed a pen of steers, to help flip a breach baby, or pull a calf and watch it take its first breaths.
Much of who I am from a standpoint of work ethic, determination, and tenacity was forged ankle (and sometimes calf) deep in the literal B.S. and you don’t know how many days I wouldn’t mind giving up my desk and neckties to see the sun come up over a pasture dotted with cow-calf pairs. That’s why this broadcaster/politician can say with a good degree of authority that Ms. Gabel nails it. It’s obvious that she has been there, too.
Not only does she accurately reflect the atmosphere of a sale barn, but she also accurately reflects small-town economics.
Back to Miller Feedlots. Jim Miller employed the young men of LaSalle. If you wanted a job and were willing to work hard, he’d find something for you to do. He gave to the FFA and the Pride of the Valley Marching Band. He sat beside you at church. Had lunch in the booth two down at the Farmer’s Inn. He knew your family. He knew who you hung out with and would advise you if you were in bad company. He was involved. Cows build towns.
That’s why I am sickened by the ever-expanding Colorado Urban/Rural divide. The governor and his husband take shots at rural Colorado – their appointees and lackeys call us lazy – and then try to tell us that there is no divide. Our communities are languishing. Our way of life is growing extinct. And the glorious ruling elites in the glorious Denver-Boulder capitol complex say it ain’t so. As my grandfather, a butcher, used to say: “Don’t piss on my foot and tell me it’s raining.”
Fuel is at an all-time high. Feed – an all-time high. Fertilizer – an all-time high. Yet the contracts paid by the big-four meat processors do not change. That’s why entire herds are hitting sale barns. The cornerstone of the small town just can’t make it and no one seems to care. Guess what happens to the cost of a good steak or even a hamburger in the next few months? We’ll feel it at the grocery store. The small town will feel it to its foundation.
You need to be aware. You need to let politicians know that the current state of things is not okay. Because cows build towns.
