b'Cowboy WisdomCITY COUSINBy Pete FloresTexas rancher, passing on Cowboy wisdom and serving the Lord.Iwas in Jr. High about the time that my city cousin came out to the ranch for a weekend. I was kind of excited to have company, not many youngsters my age would come to visit. Well, he shows up and he is ready for ranch life. He wanted to know what we did for fun at the ranch. Brother and I proceed to tell him the fun things we would do, there was no time for TV or toys, and well a rope was our favorite toy.We tell him about rodeo. He was excited and wanted to play rodeo. We always had steers in a pen to feed them and they made some awesome meals. When no one was looking my brother and I would ride the steers. We called it the rodeo game; actually, we were pretty dang good at rodeo. Cousin wanted to play rodeo and to the steer pen we go to start our game. Of course, we had to show him how it was done. We catch a steer and my brother makes a great ride. It is my turn and we catch another steer. I make a pretty dang good ride also. You see we had an audience never had an audience before. We proceed to explain to our city cousin the ins and outs of riding a steer. He is ready wellwe all thought he was ready. We catch a steer and put cousin on the steer, one jump and he was eating dirt. We kind of laugh and tell him to pick himself up and try again. Well, he picked himself up about another four times and tried but he just could not stay on that ole steer. No problem, us ranch fellers could help him out, yep we sure could. We take the saddle off the horse and we saddle the steer. The results were the same. He ate dirt one more time. My brother has a great idea, Lets saddle the other steer. The other steer does not buck near as hard. We saddle the other steer and put cousin on the steer. Turn him loose, wellsame resultsabout two jumps and he ate dirt again. It was time to discuss the situation of why my cousin could not ride the steer. We concluded he needed a little bit of help. So we catch the steer and put cousin on the steer. Brother holds the steer as I tie his feet under the steer. His feet are very well tied; there is no way he is going to be bucked off this time. I put in the last knot and tell brother ready. Brother lets go of the steer. One jump and cousin is going sideways, second jump and he is under the steer. One small problem, the rope was hung around the saddle horn and now our cousin was being dragged under the steer. Brother and I look at each other and about that time Grandpa shows up. We catch the steer and grandpa helps us turn our cousin loose. That ole steer stepped all around him and dragged him around the pen for a ways, but did not hurt him.As I look back on life, all the times my brother and I were riding the steers, I think that grandpa was watching us ride. Since no real harm was done he would let us ride. Believe me, he was there keeping a watchful eye over us the entire time. I have to smile at myself as I look back on that day. I bet my grandpa watched the entire sequence of events that day and he must have gotten a pretty good laugh at what we were doing. Yet, when we were in danger he came to help.I learned that in life the Lord has given us talents, different kinds of talents. Together the talents make the Body of Christ whole. Grandpa was watching over us the entire time, and so does the Lord. I also learned not to judge folks if they have different talents than mine. They have talents I do not possess. 34 November 2022'