Cowboy Cobbler

By Don Roundy

 

I run this little business

And it’s where I hand-make boots

I get called the Cowboy Cobbler

Someone thought that that was cute.

 

Sometimes folks get asking questions

Which are mostly all the same

So I’ve practiced up some answers.

But there is one drives me insane.

 

“Are you the Cowboy Cobbler?”

It is often asked of me

Well, I guess to answer proper

I’d say yes, but then you see

 

I don’t think that I’m a cowboy.

Only once I branded steer.

I don’t ride bulls, nor rope their babies.

Riding horses hurts my rear.

 

If I tried to be a cowboy

I’d look just like a dolt

But I grew up in the country

And I’ve been bucked off my own colt.

 

 

Perhaps we can’t define a cowboy

Long gones the trail drive crew

There’s western dressers-there’s some B.S.’ers

And B.S. ain’t worse than what they chew.

 

Maybe Grandpa was a cowboy

And there still remains some folk

Who are ranchers, or rodeo riders

They keep the term from total croak.

 

But what to do with this term ‘cobbler?

Ain’t that those who fix footwear?

I make them, and renovate them

Yet I’m termed as shoe repair.

 

What I am has near lost meaning

Why just the other day

I searched for the word ‘cobbler’

Just to see what it would say.

 

And after definition number one

Said to work with footwear stuff

There was definition number two

Which made me feel a little gruff.

 

‘Shotty workman, to patch up coarsely

Mending on the boot or shoe.”

Webster gives that definition

Tell me, what am I to do?

 

 

I think of times I worked so careful

Just a sweaten’ every stitch

Or drafting pattern to custom measure

And being proud this is my nitch.

 

Or on the phone with happy customer

And he likes the way they wear

And he tell me I’m an artist

And he wants another pair.

 

Nope, modern cowboy stole the meaning

Of an old historic word

And there’s so many kinds of  ‘cobbler’

To claim that title seems absurd.

 

So in answer to your question

I just work here in this shop

Making boots and shoes and saddles

Yet that title just won’t stop.

 

In New York I’d be a cowboy

Because I run that kind of biz.

But to a Cowboy I’d be a cobbler

Or whatever the hell it is.