I like to come to these old bluffs.

They, bring back a lot of inspiration.

I'd just like to seen this old country about 1880.

And really know what it was like.

Yeah.

We take care of that 2300 acres down through here.

We're running about 80 mama cows on it.

I'll come down here and solve the problems for the world.

My name is Kent Rollins, live in Hollis, Oklahoma.

Cowboy, cowboy.

Poet.

Cook.

Actually started writing poetry, probably about 1984.

And I was horseback down here on the river and things just sort of went to come in through my mind of things that I'd see about the countryside or, And, I got home one evenin and just got to writing it down.

Smoke billows upward and disappear like a great ghost in the night.

Soon smoke gives way to flames.

And embers start burning bright.

Well, I think most of all the things that influences my work is being a poet or a storyteller.

Sour dough biscuits in an old cast-iron oven.

So start from the ranching industry part of it.

You see, cattle and cowboys.

They've always been my life.

Sort of like a union between a man and wife.

But a lot of it, too, comes from the old timers that I was around when I was small.

To get to be around those fellas and and relive some of the stories that they told me.

You really have to admire their future.

When you come down her to this old river and you say it and, you can look around you and this old country had to change.

No.

Whole lot since the 1880s.

And the time when all the cattle drives were coming through.

It gives me more of a peace of mind to know that what I'm still doing to make my living and to be a cowboy when I can come down here and fit into something that's already here, it just makes it that much easier to be inspired by something that you see.

If you can capture something down in line where it looks when you get through telling it.

It reminds people of a picture.

Well, you've sort of got your message across I think.

You getting better all the time aint you.

Hold my horse up to let him catch his to get me up here on top.

He had already done his share.

The top of this old river rim is skirted with mesquite, sage and shining There in the evening sun was like colors God painted on the page.

The river there that lay belo it shines like brand new glass in my mind I begin to wonder at the many things are so River had seen come to pass.

Many a cow and cowboy.

This old river had seen in cross many a cow.

And cowboy.

This old river reclaimed their lost.

Say you come to this old river.

And maybe if by chance yo sit there quiet and you listen.

You can almost hear them Kiowas dance.

Or maybe late one evening.

Right at dusky dark.

When the wind is quit a blowin aand gthenm old cows begin to ba You see a herd of cattle bedded down on the Texas side.

You hear an old cowboy singing a night herd song.

So it'll feel your heart with pr Say you are driftin like a tumbleweed in the wind.

Looking for a new place to start.

But you just don't know where to begin.

I guess you can do as I. And every day I come to this river for a brand new start.

You see, it's not a boundary at all, but a gate that'll open your heart.

A lot of the cowboy poetry and stuff that I write is, is serious.

Probably half and half from from serious nature to humorous to sometimes hilarious.

Hey, hey, get up, get up, mama.

Hey, hey.

Many a day that I've spent.

Whoa.

Hawling hay and fixing fence.

Many is the hour I spent a stra Bouncing my backside in the seat of a saddle.

As far as me Consider myself a great poet.

There's a whole lot better.

Get out, em trees.

Get out.

You know, as time went by, the chores haven't changed.

But my old body has It doesn't react the same.

The spills and the falls why they begin to hurt more.

Now, each day's work seems like a whole month's worth of chores.

This ain't Shakespeare.

And, I'd read a little Shakespeare when I was in high school and just really couldn't relate to this fella.

But, my poetry's not like that.

Watch the rocks youngin.

Has the ground got harder.

Or am I insane?

The things that used to be fun.

They now cause pain.

I think of the things that really do hurt.

It's the hours in the saddle that seem to be the worst.

It feels like there' a rock in the middle of my seat that sends a sharp, throbbing pain plum down to my feet.

I wanted to be to where anyone could understand it.

You didn't have to be a cowboy, per se, to know what I'm talking about.

From the common, ordinary person to the old cowboy that's worked on the ranch for 70 years.

I want somebody to to be able to get something out of it, no matter what lifestyle they lead.

He tells it like it is.

He aint ike these people that you know, read it out of a book, dream up something you know.

Ive coped with this problem for quite some time, and was ready to find a solution to this agony of mine.

I called the doc And an appointment I made.

I might have been a little embarrassed, but I sure wasn't afraid.

I explained to doc this little problem of mine.

He said, slip into this little gown, everything's going to be just fine.

This little gown, i didn't seem to fit and the part Sticking out was the part was the part where I sit.

I lay there on the table, my backside in there.

I said, hang on a minute, doc, is that necessary?

Does that part need to be bare?

Oh, he said, this problem we've got, it's really nothing to avoid.

It's really quite simple.

It's a thing we call a hemorrhoid.

A hemorrhoid well Doc what might be the cure?

He said nothing major, but we're going to have to cut it off, that's for sure.

Cut it off.

I cried with fright!

Hang on a minute, doctor.

I think a second opinion might be right.

Second opinion?

Well I really don't think there's a need.

And that's when I gathered my hats and boots and from his office I left with a sudden burst of speed, felt his eyes lucky to get ou there with my life because no, not going to get near my backside, especially with a knife.

As for this little problem.

I ain't got rid of it yet.

One thing's for certain, I won't go back to that crazy vet.

There's so many things that inspire me when we do cowboy work.

Whether it be, from horses to cattle to shipping time to cooking, to an old fenc post to brand new baby calves, it's something that just i sort of sticks out in your mind [Cows mooing] I think in life and anything you do, it's better to be able to live something if you're trying to get that point across to people because it's it's real.

It's not fake, it's authentic.

And, that's what I think people like to hear.

[cows mooing] I guess in a way, I'm I'm drawn back to that, to the old times, some of the old ways tha the Cowboys had, it was not eas It was hard.

Calf fries the benefits of morning work.

We still, go and cook on some working ranches during spring works.

Sour dough biscuits.

You got beans You got to have biscuits and Cookie always had sour dough, and you feed, 12 to 15 cowboy on a normal working ranch crew.

And you start over the next day.

You know, this ain't no Hardee's.

Nor is it a Mac-e-dees.

There ain't no drive u window in a menu you won't see.

You know, it's part of an old poem we got.

It takes hours and hours to prepare this food like old Cookie did.

Especially when you're feeding large groups.

We'll have, besides beans, cherry cobbler peach cobbler, sour dough biscui New York strip steak and, baked potato.

So I think we're going to eat a little better than the boys did back ion the trail driv The people tha settled this country years ago, everything was cooked in a Dutch oven.

Coals underneath, coals on top till they got a wood burning stove.

Lets eat!

Y'all come and get it!

People have to have a little entertainment.

To make the job go better.

Sure, we make a living at it, and this is what we do.

Besides ranching and cowboying i cooking and entertaining.

So what you think?

I think it's wonderful.

I think Ole Kent, is a wonderful cook.

I mean, I wasn't there 125 years ago to know what happened aroun the old cattle camps at night.

And that's an old rabbit or a possum that's been run over about 170 times and baked in the hot Oklahoma sun till he's like a Frisbee with fiur on em.

[Laughter] I'll nearly guarantee you there was somebody there who told stories.

There was somebody there, maybe wrote a little poetry He had his shirt off and boots found me a fig tree.

T another generation is to get to preserve and relate a part of America's heritage.

Had nobody died yet.

So we're in pretty good shape.

this trip.

It stands there, below the hill.

Invasion from the past.

Once a sturdy structure, but now it's fading fast.

Made of rock and mud.

It once stood proud and tall.

Now the chink is crumbling.

and the walls begin to fall.

These rocks.

They came from the Wichita mountains.

They hold them by the wagon loads.

But now there's not even a trace of a wagon or a road Built by a Texas cattle man.

A headquarters for his spread Its miles and miles from grass.

he had from the salt fork to the red.

Many a herd of cattle.

This man turned out to graze.

As he fought life's many battles and his family he tried to raise.

Well.

I bet this old rock house was mighty a welcome sight.

When he had been gone a horseback and was trying to get home for night.

As he rode up to the doorway, I can almost hear his little wife say, Johnny, your Pas home .

Go and saddle this horse and throw him a bite of hay.

Well, she met him at the door with a kiss and a smile, for he had been gone.

Seemed like an awful long while.

She asked with a trembling voice.

How did it go?

He said, well, it could have went better, but I guess it didn't have much choice.

You see now I lost a bunch there at the river.

It was running fast and deep.

Maybe I should have picked me a spot where the banks weren't slick or steep.

By the time I got to rest to market, the price, it went way down and when I got through paying the bills, when there weren't enough money for all the folks in town, How will we make it?

She said.

We never will get by.

I just want to quit and go home.

I don't even want to try.

But that time I heard somebody holler, youngin are you going or not?

Get back on that old horse.

We still got to get these cows to the lot.

Well, I reached for my old reins and swing in the sa to take a seat.

As the sunwas sinking fast there in the west?

I turned to look once more.

Was it really there.

Or was it gone?

Or was it a vision from the past I'm always happy to see a Sunset means it's get close to going home time.

As long as there's cow and as long as there's cattle, I think there'll always be a need for a cowboy.

There's a million sunset every night if you just get to see it.

And I'm fortunate to get to see a lot of them.