The Cowboy Book

About twelve years ago, before my husband and I moved into the house he grew up in, his dad had an attic cleaning day to clear out what had been stored away for years. My sister-in-law spearheaded the cleaning project and found this book in the attic. She remembered it being one of my husband’s favorite books as a kid and I was excited to share it with our son.

It doesn’t have very many pages and there’s only one or two sentences per page but reading through the story, I can see how it would’ve fascinated my husband as a young boy. It’s the kind of book well-suited to both of my guys—interesting reading and as my husband would say about the storyline, “not a lot of drivel.” It’s a good story with good details and illustrations for young readers.

I like to imagine what my husband was like as a young boy while being read this book. Eyes fixed on the pictures, intently studying every detail and taking in every word seriously as his mind gathered all the information read to him. Reading the story did the same thing to our son. He would look at each page with intensity because being a cowboy was of such interest to him and he was ready to learn something. The more I read it to him, the story became more of a review of what the book said and to see certain pictures over and over again.

 

My husband was born a cowboy and I can imagine the picture below being one of his favorite pictures in the book as a boy: cowboys are tough, and he wanted to be that kind of cowboy. (He is.)

It’s a simple story that talks about what a cowboy is, what he does, and the attire cowboys wear. Kids love books about what they aspire to be and I can see why my husband favored this storybook.

It was meaningful for me to have a story to read to our son that was also read to his dad. This book is a connection to my husband’s life that I wasn’t a part of  but have always been fascinated about because I didn’t know him then. Even though we’ve known each other for 17 years, there’s still some things about him that are a mystery to me, like knowing this was a book he loved as a kid; and I loved getting to find that out.