Stress Combat Com

Dr. Brett was raised by his step father, Jay Riley and mother, Judy Riley on a farm outside of Amarillo and then a small town about 50 miles to the east, called Pampa, in the Panhandle of Texas. 

Mr. Riley is one of my closest friends and confident. He is my step father and I will always hold with the highest regards. He is a man of integrity and compassion, and in my eyes can do no wrong. Though as a kid I would have argued these points. Life was not easy growing up being raised by a man who came from the panhandle of Texas, cowboying at the age of 15, then the Army, where earned the title Airborne Ranger, then Seminary School and his evangelical calling. Playing country music, rodeo bull riding, and race car driving were his life. 

When he married my mom, I was 5 and my younger brother of 2 was diagnosed with severe autism. This man dedicated his life to giving my brother a life he would have never have had without Jay. And 30 years later he is still there, and my little brother, Ritchie has and is receiving a life that he could not have had, all because of this old cowboy.

... And another benefit of having Jay as my step father, I was given my own divorce song, which is playing now...

Here are a few thoughts from Jay.

Characters I have known...and others. 

The old saying, "it takes all kinds to make a world" is definitely a true statement.  I reckon of all the living creatures that inhabit the world, the human is the most unforgiving, heartless, and cruel ...the most selfish, egotistical, nosiest bastards that breathe gods good air...they seldom think of anything apart from the acts of sin and disruption of a decent life. horses and cattle just aint that way, they tend their business and do not give a damn about you lessen  you threaten them in some way....the animals of the wild are the same...crowd them and you might have a fight on your hands, otherwise, they will turn and walk away from you, they know you are only trouble anyway.....so....we humans make for good stories, since we seem to have less intelligence than any other living creature.

         did you ever notice how delighted a feller is when he hears of his neighbors misfortune, it just ain't normal....."ol Ben Watson went broke last week"..."knew it, right off"......."Hazel winters died yesterday, guess old bill can go ahead and hook up with that young gal now".......now I am not implying that all folks are that way, not in the least...there's a lot of good people out there...but you must admit they are a long way apart...men are bad enough, but I will stand before the judge in heaven...maybe....and declare to all present that a female can be the most deadly poison known to mankind...she can , on this sunny day, kill the man she loved last night. then sit upon his cooling body and eat a bologna sandwich...very few exceptions.....maybe my daughters...but, on second thought....they just looked like me, they act like their mother.....any of the three could have whupped Calamity Jane....

now, on with the first old buddy I remember as a kid.

   eck Robinson, probably one of the best fiddle players I ever knew, [not counting Bob

Boatright]..eck was pretty famous all over the country, they sure knew of him in Nashville and other big towns where music was located...but back then the musician got very little pay for his talents, even the big boys...so eck sorta lived as I did in Amarillo, Texas....poor to the bone...he lived at the time out on east tenth street, about where tenth and Roberts is....maybe a block or two further east, there were some little duplexes there, old and frame, ecks kitchen was in his bedroom, and we would sit on that old busted up mattress and play some fine old songs, he taught me a few more simple chords, more than "g", "c" and "d".....on my twelve dollar  "Stella" guitar my mom had bought me...."boil them cabbage down"...."mockingbird hill", and a bunch of them old "hoedowns".

    He taught me to make cream gravy with bacon grease, and with no lumps...and how to sharpen a double edged razor blade with a water glass....he held to what the bible said, and was pretty good at quoting it....I do remember him being a humble feller and treating everyone the same, with kindness and respect...but by that time, he had lived a pretty long life, didn't know his age, but his hair color was dominantly white, [leastwise, what he had]...I have had the good fortune to have been friends with a few

movie stars and recording artist in my day...Ben Johnson, Andy Devine, slim Pickens, Sheb wooley and a bunch of Nashville cats....but if I had to pick two favorites out of them all, it would be eck and Ben Johnson....don't know where he got off to back then, I went to cowboying for the frying pan ranch west of Amarillo, and moved to several ranches over the next few years trying to make a living on horses that were much better cowhands than myself...but wherever eck is, if there is a fiddle handy, he is trying to show a youngster what he can about music...good old man....

         One of the outfits I worked for back then, was the Elliott cattle company, by then, my first wife and I had two daughters, one was a toddler, the other was in her first year of school....lived out north of Amarillo on a ranch, in a great big three story house, with quilt boxes built into the walls, and many other interesting things...it was called the old Stogner place....we later found out there were more  guest there than we care to know about...I was an agnostic when it came to spiritual beings walking around the house all times of the day and night...my motto was..."show me one and I will believe".....that was over forty years ago, never saw but one of them, but I am no longer an agnostic concerning ghost....nooosirrreee....them boogers are out there...anyway, that's another story....I use to get cattle in sometimes all night long, had to receive them and logue them, check for sick ones and doctor...then sleep or no sleep, had to go to the herring ranch which is now under lake Meredith, [leastwise, part of it]...they had an old cowboy that lived down there in a line shack, can't remember his name, I think it was "plain Bill"....but he reminded me of another fine old cowboy up on the JA's at clarendon by the name of Tom Blassingame..[this is yet another story, and a great one at that]. plain bill liked to joke around a bit, and since it was just the two of us down there, there's a giver and a taker of any joke, I was not the giver.....as I would be getting up from the ground, trying real hard to breathe and hurting in spots I didn't know were there, old plain bill would yell....."I forgot to tell you that lined back dunn likes to buck a little, that's why I named him  "Buck".....

          Old plain Bill would cook a roast the day before, lots of roast, roast and beans, sometimes he would throw some carrots in, he was really a good  cook, then he would set it out on the table early that morning so when we got in at noon, it would be on the table...[we needed very few laxatives those days]....I was chewin in to a big hunk of that roast one day, and was it good, just something about cowboy cooking that's better...I asked him about settin this stuff out so early, that Meredith lake bottom was a hot place to be in July, and the flies were plentiful also....he said, "son, there might be a fly get on that old roast, but if you just look at it good, I used a lot of black pepper, see there, its all over that roast"........I saw all the pepper and answered, "and that pepper keeps them flies off that roast huh?"...........old bill reached up and scratched his chin...

"probably not, but you can't tell them fly specs from that pepper........

      i learned some mighty good things from him though, he was a good cowboy...and let me say now, a good cowboy is not a wild cowboy, a wild cowboy will most generally do more harm than good, to the stock and the other cowboys...and his mount.

     Plain Bill, would talk me through these things, we would come up to a feeding ground, or a waterhole and he would be talking to me in a quiet tone while building a loop from his rope,  not swinging it, just cautiuosly making a loop that hung down by his side...."point that old calf out to your horse, and let him know which one you are after, this old pony will put you right on him...then without acting like an ass...just lob that loop on that dogie, you ain't skeered him to death, along with the rest of the bunch, you ain't winded him or the horse, step down off you horse vaccinate that calf and let him up...taking care of cattle is a cowboys job, not runnin them to death".....

      "Hell Bill, that calf you are pointing at is a half mile off, how do you know he is sick?".........."son, look how that old steer is standing, nose dragging the ground, he ain't grazing, look at them ears all drooped down, when we get up to him you will see his old nose running, may be a little bloated, could have some pink eye, might even be a case of screw worms working on his skull"......yes, i picked up a lot from plain bill, cause he was glad to pass it on...once again, i don't know what happened to plain bill, i know he is departed and hope he is cooking those angels a big old roast, covered with black specs.....

           I remember one time down on the Lazy RG's ...jim fulcher was the foreman, down at the main camp, and he bunked me with an old gentleman i shall never forget, his name was Lou McClellan...he was on up there in years when i was a very young man...the ranch belonged to lawrence Hagy, an amarillo oil man, and quite successful at that...horace McClellan was the son of lou McClellan, Horace lived in the main house with his wife, and me and old lou had the neatest little bunkhouse you ever layed eyes on, all brick and a fine shiny bathroom, working for a rich rancher can sure be rewarding sometimes...i wish i could remeber horace's wifes name, she was the nicest old gal a feller would ever meet, and boy could she lay a spread, didn't have as many black specs on her roast as old plain bill did...she kept our bunk house spotless...now lou was an old time cowpuncher, and he had no second thoughts to sampling a little good bourbon every now and then, so i learned at an early age to appreciate the soothing qualities of a swig of old number seven...of which i can in no way blame on Lou McClellan.... we would lay there at night and lou would go to telling me about some of the old happening when he was a youngster as a cowboy, like crossing the Canadian river with a herd, back when you had to hunt for a crossing, and the catfish were big.....the winter snows and storms...back in those days, there were not many landmarks in the flatlands of the texas panhandle...with no powerline poles, no signboards, no satelite and radio antennas and when there was three foot of snow piling up, the fences would hide...many a poor soul has been lost, and frozen, strayed off course....mail carriers, going from Mobeetie to the LX"s or the XIT's, maybe the LS out by tascosa...they had and old post office out on the LX's, it was called the wheeler post office, i have been there to the ruins many times, old stacked stones and adobed in...then the stage would run from Clarendon, Texas, which was then located in the floor of lake Greenbelt, i had the honor of diggin in the old foundations there before they flooded it with the Salt Fork of the Red River....the old statge road ran between Clarendon and Mobeetie....there was a stage stop in gray county right on McClellan creek due north of Allenreed, Tex....then on to cantonement creek, where the first Ft. Elliott was breifly set up, and later moved to where mobeetie now sleeps...freight wagons would come down from Dodge city, kansas to Ft. Supply, Okla, then on over to Mobeetie..[old hidetown] and at one time was known as Sweetwater, but since there was already a sweetwater in texas, we wound up with Mobeetie, which is a comanche word for buffalo dung.......old lou knew a lot about these things and he was a big hearted old gentleman, he made a very good impression in my life and i am glad to have known him, and horace...these guys are kin folk to a senator called Mac Thornberry, and his dad was quite a cowboy also around donley county, they neighbor the JA's....i had the priveledge of going to school with his mom..a fine lady, even in the seventh grade...

    Man, what cowboys i have had the honor in knowing and working with, i think back now how lucky i was, some of them were just as ornery as you could get..."chief Banard, was one of the best horse wranglers the JA's ever had, but dam, he could get mean...wore and old dome crowned black hat, and he did not mind being an indian at all, wore his hair to almost shoulder length and then cropped off, black as ebony...had them old weathered wrinkles in a face that just screamed, :cowboy!!!

    He would be in the rope corral, a big old hoolian loop all fixed, that wild rag blowing in the wind, spitting that Gold Star...and from the waddies...."chief, I'll take popcorn"..

cheif, how bout old "two bits?"......"how about "gypsy?"....brother, he knew them ponys....so did Coyote morris, he wasn't mean just to be mean, he was good to us kids, younger than chief.... but i clare, you didn't get coyote mad at you, he could have whupped this Tyson feller who bites the ears off of people....but there was a bunch of tough boys on the JA's, great cowboys, but tougher than a rogue maverick from the battlecreek breaks...mentioning a few, starting with my hero, Charlie goodnight...i frequently visit his grave in Goodnight texas....he started the JA's, with partner John and cornelius Adair.....then there was John Rumans, he is buried in Clarendon, Texas at the citizen cemetary..Goodnight met Rumans at the raton Pass, when he and molly goodnight lived in Pueblo, Colorado....never a finer cowboy than john rumans....at their meeting rumans was operating a toll road for cattle and travlers through the raton pass, it ran right next to the river...Goodnight was reluctant to pay a toll to get through country he has passed through so many times for nothing...but finally worked an agreable deal with rumans, they became good friends and Goodnight brought this fantastic cowboy to the texas panhandle, and Rumans died here many years later.....there are so many good hands that were associated with the JA's....

Little Joe Wiley, buried at clarendon in the old cemetary across from the present one,

a good friend of mine that has gone to the south forty in the sky, Rex Long.....cowboy deluxe.....Jiggs mann..foreman...hepled the ranch through some tough old years and it is still going.....Jiggs has retired.....Tom Blassingame, was known all over the world he lived in a camp down on Battlecreek, near antelope flat...was there forever, there was no bull to Tom, just a very serious cowboy, i had known him all my life and knew one of his grandsons, so he would visit with me, and i also had an aunt who helped tom a lot, she helped me with him, after all the years cowboying, he would not retire, his wife had stated that she was moving to town, [Claude, Tex]....so he wished her well and saw that she was settled in the little city that produced the movie "hud"....then he went back to the camp on the ranch and stayed by himself for years....one day at a ripe old age, he saddled up his horse and went to check on some cattle, stopped to rest by a cottonwood tree  while his well trained horse grazed, he leaned back against the tree, and listened to the birds above him, heard the stream as it wound its way homeward, filled his lungs with good clean air.....and went home...may god bless tom blassingame........

     C.H.Long was ranch manager and working cowboy on the JA's for years, and as i have stated about all the other ones, an excellent cowboy...i really liked C.H., he was a good and decent man, mam' and sir dominated his conversations...always neat, and when he shook out a loop, something was going to get caught....one day they all walked out of the dining hall after one of thier fine ranch cooked meals, of buffalo, elk and naturally , beef...home made rolls that would melt in your mouth, and the best cobblers found anywhere in the world......one day they were walking from the dining hall to the horse corral after thier midday feast...C.H. and his father, were standing near the gate to the horse corral, the elder Mr.Long was eating a bananna, when the remuda rushed the opening they saw, and C.H's dad was trampled to death...that was a sad day for the ranch...a few years afterwards, a cowboy was making an effort to retrieve a calf from a pond, the old pony spooked and the cowboy was found later drowned, many a cowboy has been hauled into town for injuries, taken to the Adair Hospital[named for Cornelius Adair, the ranch owner]...then there was the doctor rushing to the headquarters on a stormy night, only to plunge his model "A" over old red cliff, dowm by the mulberry creek.....i can't leave out old Joe Ritter, faithful cowboy for years, and when he got to old to do what he wanted to, Monte Ritchie retired old Joe and made him grounds superitendent...Little joe wylie died on the ranch also, and a few more.

    my aunt and uncle were on the JA's for a long time, she was head cook for the dining hall, and the big house, was known by the cowboys as aunt Ruth, and damn, she could cook.....her husband, Jack Lewis was a cowboy there then, needless to say, they were my favorite kin...i owe my life to jack lewis quite a few times. they are still living  in Clarendon and retired....and they must get credit for raising a bunch of deluxe cowboys, thier son, Steve Lewis, no better cowboy can be found, old or new...been with the qein saberanch, the Bells out in new mexico, the WS's in new mexico...the RO in clarendon, and the JA's, and they all want him like today...the only problem with old steve is, he likes old charlie daniels, they are good friends, now i know old charlie too, and he is a good man, but a little too rock for my tumbling tumbleweeds attitude...if you ever go through Clarendon on a friday afternoon, old steve has a chuckwagon and he parks it at the local grocery store and sells the best brisket you will ever eat.....

        Getting  back to the JA's for a bit, Old C.H. Long was the range boss, wagon boss, hell, he was just the boss....many, many years ago they were all out with the wagon, and boy, what a wagon, them guys treated that thing like the MGM grande in las vegas   ....old Sid Gettis was a good cook, but dam, he was ornery, so the guys were always trying to get back at him for something or another... since my old friend Rex Long has passed on, i think it is safe to say that i always suspected him as the culprit in this deal....old cookie had a great big old can of cinnamin.......and some fool cowhand sneaked around the wagon and poured the cinnaminn in the red pepper can and vice versa.....guess what hit the fan when the apple cobbler was served.....if you ain't never been out with a range wagon, you do not know how wonderful a good apple cobbler can be... and as i found out the hard way, you do not cuss or pass gas under the fly...take my advise, this ain't good....they have what they call a chapping, they hold you over a bed roll and buddy, till you been whipped with a pair of chaps, you aint been there yet...but you sure become aware of where the gas flows, and what you say...

   Another funny thing, this old boy, i can't recall who it was, but he was taking a nap one day after lunch, another cowboy took some axle grease off the wagon and with a mesquite stick, smeared it all over his fingers, then tickled his nose with some grass, it was wrestling time.

   earlier, was telling about my friendship with cheif banard....years and years later, i had a dance to play in Boise city, Okla... and we got there a little early, i had often wondered what happened to old chief, we were in a little bar there called "The Friendly Bar".....which was to my notion, a damned lie.....i ask the bartend if he ever heard of chief Banard, i had heard he was down at Dalhart with the reynolds cattle company, working for manager Tom Black[a real horse whisperer].....the bartend answered without hesitation, "hell, i am surprized he aint in here with me now, he has gone crazy as a damned bat in his old age, but still meaner than a fenced bobcat"........that was good news to me, cause, i really liked old chief....got to talking about him a little to some fellers in the bar, and old chief had taken up window peeping, he had been in jail three or four times for it, must have had a crush on some little old gal up there....old Roland Herring, a fine fiddle man, not no Boatman, but a good fiddler...was with me on that trip...sure enough, after a couple of hours, old chief stumbled in the front door, he went straight to the bar and sit down, them old bars are a little too dark anyway....i swallowed real big, and told old roland to sit there a bit...i walked up behind him, boy did he look hard, old handlebar mustache in need of a trim, same old hat, i would suspect, a solid black shirt with a big red neck scarf....I got right behind him,.."Indian, I am going to whup your ass!!!!! the best i remember, istarted hauling my ass about that time, but he saw me....."well you little sum a bitch, where you been"

  we visited for a long time, guess who was buying the rounds? talking bout old things and the hard times chief had fallen into...the drunker he got, the harder the times got...told me he had whupped old Squirrel Scroggins down at clarendon before he left, now old squirrel was a bad feller, spent time for mansslaughter and was called the "west texas Jawbreaker"....old chief said he just couldn't stand it, not knowing if he could whup him or not...."did you realy get him chief?".........the old indian started laughing...."the last thing i heard him say as they helped me outside the bootleggers house, "either quit or kill me, don't make me a dam either way"........i found out later that he was telling me the truth, they have a little bar out north of clarendon and went in there many years ago, and old man scroggind was in there, still hoisting them old beers, of course he was much older then, he told me that two men had scalded his butt in his life, chief Banard, and your daddy son"......i knew my dad had fought him, but i was a baby and never knew who won the fight.....old squirrel bit one of dads thumbs off, they sewed it back on with black thread and it got infected, liked not to saved that thumb...but pop died with all his fingers in sept.1996. Dad said the reason he never claimed the victory, he was afraid he would have to fight him again.

   there was a song came on the juke box there in the friendly bar, and old chief was pretty soused up by then, i just simply stated that i liked that song, i will never forget it, cause i still have the record...45's had just come out and the record was G-13, Hank Thompson singing "tears are only rain"......"well,Haaaall, I'll jist git it for you, youngun, ".....he got up went outside a minute, came back in with a gun that looked like one of those old buntlines, real long barrell, after seeing what he had, old Roland had to go pee....i had seen the gun before, chief had found it on th JA's years ago, it wouldn't fire, you couldn't even load it....the barkeep knew it, cause chief had been in jail for doing the same thing a year or so earlier....i forgot to mention the man was changing records on the juke box.....chief walked up behind him, stuck the gun to the old boys head, "I want G-13, and purty damned quick".....i wound up with the record, the barkeep ran us out of the bar, the record man just flat ran out of the bar, and i was right behind him, trying to give him the record and apologizing like hell....that was the last i ever saw of chief banard, he died a year or so after that, and i think he died in jail, there in boise city....

   i must include some of the best bronc riders i ever knew, they are still alive and working on the wagoners spread down in Vernon, Texas...three brothers, wes, Boots and joe oneal...boots is the oldest, wes is the middle and joe is the youngest, but all equal when it comes to cowboying...then theres Shawn Davis, past president of Rodeo Cowboys Assoc., not just a rodeo hand, but a wirey hand on anything he tackles, he is still active in the business, not riding broncs, but hell, five times world champion ought to do...he put Lewisville on the map....

    Ben johnson.....what could be said about ben except..pure gold.....Sam, the lion....he didn't even like the movie, or the part, cause he wasn't horseback...but don't let me hear you say, he was just an actor....he could cowboy with any of them...in fact, he was a much better cowboy than he was an actor, god just blesses good folk.....we were sittin in a dressing room in amarillo, texas in may of 1972, i had picked him up at the airport, we were involved in beef promotions at the time, old ben was tired, this dressing room was a motor home, they had it stocked with sandwiches, and all kinds of goodies, but we found the Jack daniels..it was a big old bottle that swivelled up and down, it just kept goin, and goin, and goin,.......bless you ben, not for being famous, but for being a hell of a man in all ways..a few of us know how many people you went out of your way to help.

   bobby lynn boatright, i don't know what kind of cowboy that yahoo is, but he sure looks nifty dressed up like one....never see him without a load of starched  shirts and two or three fiddles, absolutley, without a doubt in my mind, the best fiddle player i have ever heard and worked with....a considerate gentleman that i am proud to call a friend...we could all learn from bob, and not just musically...thanks buddy .....

Places in the heart.......great fiddle....

still works with the old BOB WILLS ORIGINAL PLAYBOYS..TOMMY ALLSUP

toured for years with LEON McCAULIFF AND THE TEXAS PLAYBOYS

played in numerous movies, and just about every major artist in the business

a math professor at weatherford college,