Clint Eastwood, one of the most famous cowboys of the 20th century, introduced Kendall Nelson’s book Gathering Remnants - A Tribute to the Working Cowboy with the words:
“Working cowboys are the embodiment of the true American spirit. They live a rugged, clean life: a difficult yet simple life”
Perhaps the series of scandals that have shaken the foundations of modern America (think Enron, WorldCom and the global fallout of the sub-prime mortgage market) mean it’s time for corporate America to embrace a new clean-living approach to life?
Bill Hartman, writing in the Texas newspaper the Taylor Daily Press, certainly thinks so:
Politics, Wall Street, Congress, big insurance, big finance, globalization ad nauseam. Lies, cheating, stealing, gouging, greed, cowardice and regulations. I am so tired of these and other disgusting words usurping news columns and air waves… The unlikeliest sounding guy has the finest and most sincere answers to our nation’s woeful ills.
So who is this guy? Hartman thinks author James P. Owen, a 35 year veteran of Wall Street, has the answers in his book Cowboy Ethics, which has at its heart a ‘Cowboy Code’ that should keep any individual on the straight and narrow.
So just what forms the Code of the West?
- Live each day with courage
- Take pride in your work
- Always finish what you start
- Do what has to be done
- Be tough, but fair
- When you make a promise, keep it
- Ride for the brand
- Talk less, say more
- Remember that some things are not for sale
- Know when to draw the line.
Can you live by the code and enjoy a clean and simple life?
Related posts:
- Goodbye George W, the biggest cowboy of all
- Buy your own piece of the Wild West. We’re open for business!
- Songs of the Cowboy: The Camp-Fire Has Gone Out
Tags: Clint Eastwood | Cowboy
