Probably until last fall I had never seen the west. I really don't know much about cattle except what I've read in books and the limited experience that I have had with these big beautiful animals. I am in no sense a cowboy except for my life growing up in the rural hill towns of Albany County.

Real cowboys roam the west or at least the imaginary west. Cowboys don't really exist anymore, but there certainly are farmers and ranchers out there who wear their stetson with pride. There are movies like Gun smoke that remind us much of how the west must of existed, before technology conquered and destroyed the west as we once imagined.

Yet to some level, I still embrace much of the frontier spirit. I love the woods, even if I'm not a die-hard hunter or somebody who comes out here to exploit the land for economic benefit. I enjoy the quiet, and moreover the lack of rules and regulations – except those natural ones handed down by mother nature. I have a great deal of respect for whoever works the land out here in the mountains, or who hunts or otherwise is benefited by the land.

I have nothing but disdain for the liberal eastern establishment, even if I partially grew up in it. It's the small part of rural America and the cowboy spirit in me to distrust being told what to do by the elite powers of the east, even if I agree that there needs to be regulation on big business that overpowers acts of the individual.

Someday I may own some land of my own. Maybe even buy a couple of head of cattle, sheep, goats, or other animals. I'll still probably have a cowboy hat, and be chasing them around on a quad or in my pickup – but I never will be able to get back to the land of the wild west.