As I reached for my boots one morning last week, my thoughts drifted to my dad. I wished at that moment that we could have one more chance to visit. We never really did know each other as people, only superficially as father and daughter. I think he might be tickled, though, to know that I live in San Angelo, that I have three pair of western boots and as many pair of actual bootcut jeans. Of course my boots are only fashion apparel, as I have never lived on a ranch and can’t ever remember being on a horse. 

I began to wonder about why he turned his back on anything to do with ranching and rodeos after the war ended and he married my mom. His dad was a ranch hand, and my dad told my sons stories of living on Wade Phillips’ ranch in northern New Mexico when it was a working ranch, before the days of Philmont Scout Ranch. When my older son spent a week backpacking at Philmont with his scout troop, my dad gave him a picture book of Philmont and told him about taking his horse out early in the mornings as a boy and not coming back in until suppertime. 

He and my mom met in the Navy during World War II and moved back to northern New Mexico for a time when they were discharged. He did ranch work and competed in rodeos before my sister was born. But then, for some reason that I never remember being discussed, he took a job working for the Santa Fe railroad and then later working as an electrical engineer, thanks to his naval training during World War II. It seems as if anything to do with ranching became a closed chapter in his life.  Was he tired of getting hurt riding bulls and living off meager ranch hand wages? Was he trying to placate my California-born mom who grew up dancing to the big bands around Los Angeles instead of country music, who left him and returned to California for a time? Did he not want my sister and me to have anything to do with the lifestyle he had growing up? 

I wonder if he ever wished that he could go to just one more rodeo. Did he miss owning a horse, being able to ride out and enjoy the solitude and companionship of his horse, away from the stresses of work and financial obligations? I wonder if I had a chance to go with him to the San Angelo rodeo, would he tell me about living on a ranch as a young man, about competing in rodeos. It would be a chance to know him as someone other than the strict disciplinarian, the remote man who expected silence at the dinner table, who ruled the family finances with an iron fist, and who seemed to consider his primary parental responsibility to be the wage earner.  I would like to have known the Charlie Clark who grew up on ranches, the young man who loved horses and the great outdoors.