THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

I find it a little painful to be among cowboys now – of course, there are not very many of them to be among.  Those who survive are anachronisms, and they know it.  Most of them live in suburban hells, and yet are stuck with a style that lost its pith more than one hundred years ago.  Many of the men who survive as cowboys now spend their lives being nostalgic for an experience – the trail drives – that even their grandfathers missed.  Rodeo, the only part of that experience that is accessible to the public, is a kind of caricature of cowboying.  The fact is, the American West was settled in one long lifetime.

Larry McMurtry in Rubin/Prince