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I frostbit my ear yesterday.

There was a combination of mechanical failures involving my old 8N tractor, and I found myself working out there where the little voices start talking to you, with nothing but a baseball cap covering my head. The NOAA radio said that a Canadian Clipper was going to be coming through with a hundred percent chance of snow and seventy-mile-an-hour gusts. Well, as I was hunched over the tractor-it did. I was working on the 6-volt generator side, the generator being the one my father told me years ago that I should replace with an alternator-this being the same man who, when he climbed into my manual transmission truck with the mechanical lock-in lock-out hubs, said, ‘Grow up,' and I got the old tractor started and pulled undercover before we got completely layered with snow and blown to Nebraska. I did that but not before I couldn't feel part of my head.

By the time I got back in the house, my wife leaned to one side and looked at me. "Your ear looks really white." This from the woman who, no matter the physical ailment, from hangnail to headache, always gives the advice that you should go sit on the toilet and it will feel better.

I went over to the fire to warm up. "Yeah, I think it got a little wind-burned."

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I was once cautioned in the strongest of terms by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to not wear my boots in court because we had enough of a problem with the NYPD being seen as a bunch of cowboys. I now have a ranch and live in Wyoming, the Cowboy State. I had a PRCA card at one time and have worked in just about every aspect of cowboying in my youth. So, why is it I feel so hopelessly inadequate in comparison with my fictional protagonist in the cowboy sense?

I started thinking of a framework, a theme with which I could compare the two of us and came across the Roy Rogers Cowboy Code. I thought that maybe I’d go head-to-head with Walt Longmire and by the end, tally up and see who comes closer to being a cowboy, Walt or me.

Rule #1 Always be neat and clean.

I’m pretty sure that Walt comments on his lack of sartorial splendor on a per-book basis; that he’s fortunate that he wears a hat in his chosen profession and is saved from personal fashion disasters by wearing a uniform shirt and ubiquitous jeans, but he’s also in the public eye a great deal. So even if he sleeps in the jail, he must portray a certain professional integrity of person.