Pop Goes West

Pop on his Harley

Pop, Earl, Earl the Pearl, The Governor, Big Earl, my father, tall, 6 foot 2inches tall, and leading man handsome; he had a shock of dark curly hair, piercing brown eyes and tattoos on his arms. He rode a motorcycle, a Harley, of course, and worked as a printer in a factory, and was also a part-time bartender.

Growing up in New Jersey. he used to sneak into the local movie theatre to watch whatever Western was showing. He saw and knew almost every Western hero: Hoot Gibson, Bob Steele, Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, The Lone Ranger, John Wayne, and later modern heroes like Clint Eastwood.

After my move to Texas, my mom and pop came to Texas to stay with us two or three months every year for more than a decade.

We took them on several trips. We went to San Antonio, stayed in the Menger Hotel, and visited The Alamo. When we returned to Brownsville, he called one of my brothers and said, “Guess what! I just got back from San Antone!” Another trip was out west to Langtry. We had to stop at every historical marker and read every word! We stayed overnight in Laredo, and then crossed the Pecos River to Langtry to Judge Roy Bean’s court and saloon: “The only law west of the Pecos.” I took a picture of Pop with his foot on a stool by the bar.

The best trip was to the King Ranch. We were told that we had to respect the fact that it was a working ranch. We took a several-mile tour of the ranch, and in the tour stopped at a camp that the cowboys used for breaks. The camp had a ramp with a raised mid-section and hooks for hitching the horses. My father walked to the top of the ramp, placed his hands on the railing and stared off across the vast ranchland. We could see from his expression that he was in one of his beloved Westerns!

As he stood there, a group of vaqueros rode up, wearing chaps and cowboy hats, and then hitched their horses. We watched them walk to the mid-day campfire and begin to drink coffee poured from large kettles; they also ate chunks of pan de campo.
After five minutes, a cowboy came up to my father, took him by his arm and welcomed him into their circle ….

Ruth Wagner February 2012