I dashed out into the rain to retrieve an iPad out of my pick up. The rain was cold, each drop was an icy bullet on my near hairless scalp. As I galloped back into the house, for some reason I remembered what a friend of mine had observed about Texas rain. He had spent time in Swaziland, Africa. There, he noted the rain which came off the Indian Ocean was warm and soft. No one ducked inside or quit their outdoor activities, they just went about their day as if nothing had changed. But, he said, in Texas the rain is cold.

Then, as I sat on the porch with a nice warm cup of coffee looking out at the rain I pondered the lives of those Texans who volunteered to become drovers, herding thousands of Longhorn cattle up through the hills and prairies of central Texas, through Oklahoma and Kansas to the newly built Union Pacific Railroad. Out in the open, day and night, they frequently got soaked to the skin. I imagine the rain was just as cold then. There was no carport or porch or barn to retreat under. There was no warm shower to climb into, and no dry clothes. Even in the summer, during a rainstorm, Texas can get pretty cool in a Norther. I picture those “rannies” huddled on their horses living minute to minute, praying for the sun to come out. Once I was in a similar situation moving cattle in New Mexico near the Texas Panhandle. My partner was in an older cowboy, a former brand inspector. As we huddled in a light rain shivering he said 

“Why couldn’t I have died when I was a baby, then I wouldn’t have to endure this misery! “