I See by My Get-Up

Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 1987. First Printing . Trade Paperback. Very Good. 5 3/4" x 8 3/4. Gersh, Bill - Cover. 155 pages. Frist Printing of the University of Oklahoma Press edition 1994. Fronispiece photograph of author on a bucking horse at age five. Tight book with no marks or stamps. Photographs by Elaine Querry and Foreword by Larry L. King. When Ron Querry left his job teaching English at the University of Oklahoma, he took up ranching, armed with a Ph.D. and a pair of tender feet. This is his account of his ranching career in New Mexico, in the course of which he married the beautiful lady rancher next door and learned the 24 hour a day job of dealing with a herd of stubborn cattle as well as assorted horses, dogs, cats, tumbleweeds, rattlesnakes, and neighbors. The stories of his misadventures are warm-hearted and funny, with moments of defeat as well as victory---bittersweet picture of life in the latter-day West. Contents in 20 Chapters: My Heroes Ain't Always Been Cowboys, Twas First to Beer Drinkin, Adios to All That Concrete, Home on the Range, Romance in the Branding Pens, I See by My Get-up That I Am a Cowboy, Farrier-A man Who Shoes Horses, Why I Gave Up Dipping Snuff, Where the Deer and The Antelope Roam, Looking for Trouble, On Doctoring Livestock, A Visit to the Bank, Big Red, Roundup at the Next Ranch Over, On Civic Responsibility, High Society Santa Rosa-Style, Comet, Beat the Drum Slowly, Get em up Move em out, and Take Me to the Green Valley. Plus Introduction and Afterword. Querry is the author of the novel The Death of Bernadette Lefthand and also set in New Mexico.