Cowboy logic helps get grip on the news

Certainly one of the more shopworn of the stock of compact discs that rattle around inside my well-traveled pickup truck features the dulcet tones of recording artist Michael Martin Murphey, who began singing cowboy songs while sitting around the campfire at a Texas ranch when he was 15 years old.

The lead cut on the CD is called “Cowboy Logic.” It was written by Don Cook and Chick Rains “to try to capture the way cowboys think – which isn’t necessarily better, but quite different,” Murphey writes in a blurb inside the CD jacket. “The way they think inspires us – especially during hard times.”

The catchy tune tends to bounce around in my head when there is an absence of more productive thought there, which is to say rather often. It memorializes the cowboy philosophy toward life in general, as the late beloved Will Rogers did, and much the way that performers Glenn Ohrlin and Pat Richardson will today and tomorrow in their popular “Cowboy Traditions” sets at the annual American Folk Festival on the spiffed-up Bangor Waterfront.

Murphey’s work immediately came to mind when I received a recent e-mail from an old cyberspace pal. Also titled “Cowboy Logic,” the posting that undoubtedly has bounced around the Internet for some time lists such sage pieces of advice as “It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge,” and “A bumblebee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.”

It occurred to me that as a means of lending perspective to the news of the day it might be a swell idea to match some of the cowboy truisms to the news items in the morning newspaper. Thus, these pairings:

News item: John Mark Karr tells reporters in Thailand that he was present when 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey died in her Boulder, Colo., home 10 years ago and that her death was an accident. Now that Karr has been charged in the death, a lawyer representing Karr’s family insists that Karr was in Georgia during the Christmas week that JonBenet was killed. Cowboy logic: “Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back in.”

News item: As Saddam Hussein’s genocide trial continues in Baghdad, a Kurdish villager curses the former Iraqi dictator and his co-defendants for the death and destruction they allegedly meted out 20 years ago during a campaign against Iraq’s Kurdish minority. Cowboy logic: “Meanness don’t jus’ happen overnight.” Corollary to this one, after getting a glimpse of Saddam and his crew in the dock: “Always drink upstream from the herd.”

News item: A man from Bermuda who stole a boat to travel up the St. Croix River and cross from Canada into Maine at Robbinston after being denied entry by Canadian authorities is sentenced at federal court in Bangor to a year in prison. Cowboy logic: “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.”

News item: A mysterious beast that was “evil looking and had a horrible stench,” according to a woman who saw it, was found dead after being struck by a car in Turner. Wildlife officials and animal control officers were asked to examine the carcass that one resident described as “half-rodent, half-dog,” but declined and it was subsequently picked clean by vultures, to the dismay of researchers who study creatures not recognized by science. Cowboy logic: “Don’t interfere with somethin’ that ain’t botherin’ you none.”

News item: An analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures says the battle for control of the closely divided Maine Legislature will likely come down to “seats you can’t even predict,” with neither party gaining a sweeping majority. Discontent with Republican leadership at the national level and Democratic leadership at home will likely figure into the equation. Cowboy logic: “Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.”

News item: Fans of the slumping Boston Red Sox, still in a state of shock from last weekend’s five-game sweep by the thoroughly detested New York Yankees, continue to point fingers at those allegedly to blame as they worry about the team’s chances of making the post-season playoffs. Cowboy logic: “Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway.”

The cowboy’s bottom line, near as I can figure, is this: Every path has a few puddles, but the biggest troublemaker we’ll probably ever have to deal with is the one watching us from the mirror every mornin’.

Still, things should turn out just fine if we remember that life is simpler when we plow around the stump.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.