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losing Lusk

Here is kind of an interesting little story that happened in Lusk. It was written in the book THE WANDERING TRAPPING AND TRADING COWBOY, an autobiography by Ed L. Smith (1994).

Ed had been a Border Patrol agent in Arizona from 1948-1951, always riding his area on horseback. He resigned from this job, and he and his wife, Frances, decided to travel to Hot Springs, South Dakota, to look at a small ranch that was for sale. Back in 1951, communication was still very primitive. He hadn't corresponded with his parents back in Nebraska for several months. Anyway Ed and Frances were on their way from Arizona to South Dakota in their old automobile, and here are his words:

"We camped this side of Lusk, Wyoming the third night, and started out again early in the morning. When we pulled up to the four-way stop in the center of town, a car pulled up at the same time. Waiting for me to go first, they blowed the horn. It was my dad and mother coming home from California to Valentine, Nebraska, going east while we was going north, so we had breakfast together in Lusk. This is one for the believe it or not column. It wouldn't happen once out of a million times. After breakfast, they went east and we went north."
 
My brother and I had flown to Tulsa Oklahoma, then caught a bus over to Henryetta, where we were eager young students, enrolled in the bull riding school put on by Jim Shoulders. Our budgeting skills at the time were somewhat wanting and we soon found ourselves without any cash. The solution seemed obvious, so we made our way back to the airport in Tulsa, and cashed in our return tickets. One of the other students (a bronc rider by the name of Pat Miller) had driven to Oklahoma to attend the school and we caught a ride with him back to his folks ranch near Lance Creek Wyoming. The Miller family was kind enough to put us up for the night. The following morning dawned, cold and snowy, and Pat drove us to Lusk where we caught the Greyhound. And that, my friends, is the rest of the story... :wink:
 
Grandad said:
My brother and I had flown to Tulsa Oklahoma, then caught a bus over to Henryetta, where we were eager young students, enrolled in the bull riding school put on by Jim Shoulders. Our budgeting skills at the time were somewhat wanting and we soon found ourselves without any cash. The solution seemed obvious, so we made our way back to the airport in Tulsa, and cashed in our return tickets. One of the other students (a bronc rider by the name of Pat Miller) had driven to Oklahoma to attend the school and we caught a ride with him back to his folks ranch near Lance Creek Wyoming. The Miller family was kind enough to put us up for the night. The following morning dawned, cold and snowy, and Pat drove us to Lusk where we caught the Greyhound. And that, my friends, is the rest of the story... :wink:
Click to expand...

That is a nifty story. You could probably even make an interesting tale out of the rest of that adventure. :wink:

The part about the Jim Shoulders rodeo school reminds me of a guy from this country. He was getting a little long in the tooth at the time, but he stopped by the Gordon American Legion one evening. Someone asked, "What are you up to, Hank?" He replied that he was going to attend Jim Shoulders rough stock rodeo school. The bar clientele hurrahed him a bit, saying, "Aw, Hank, you're too old for that, and you know it." "You'll see," was all he said.

Fast forward about a week. Once again Hank entered the Legion to socialize. His contemporaries said, "Where have you been, Hank?" He said he'd been to Jim Shouder's school. "Oh, you haven't either." "Well, come out to my pickup and I'll show you," he said. They did, and in the back of Hank's pickup was population signs representing many towns all the way from Gordon, Nebraska to Henryetta, Oklahoma. He may or may not have been a rough stock participant, but he had in fact traveled to the proper town and place to take part. :wink:
 

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