Living the Cowboy Life for a Day

Aug. 12, 2006 — -- At some point, probably every American male has dreamed of being a cowboy. It's part of our culture, our history, our national mythology.

Think of the imagery: The rugged outdoorsman on horseback. Cowboy hat and boots. Rifle and revolver. Well, let's skip the rifle and revolver.

For most of us, it's just a dream and it fades as we grow into adults.

But this summer, I had a chance to live my dream, if only for one day.

I was assigned by "Good Morning America Weekend Edition" to attend a cowboy camp. Producer Alexa Pozniak went on the Internet and found the Forest Hill Farm in Muscatine, Iowa.

It fit just what we were seeking. It offers week-long camps where campers get to ride horses, feed horses, tend to horses … you get the idea. They sleep in tents on the sprawling grounds overlooking the Mississippi River. And in addition to all the horse play (pun intended), there's instruction in such cowboy activities as roping -- make that: ropin' -- and driving cattle.

We arrived just after dawn. This was the second day for the other campers, who turned out to be a dozen teenaged girls. They were sitting at picnic tables, chowing down on a strange, creamy substance that resembled nothing I had ever seen before.

Dave Skipworth, who has run the camp for nearly 20 years, explained that it didn't really matter what it was. All cowboy food is called the same thing -- chuck.

Whatever this chuck consisted of, it was so greasy it immediately soaked through my paper plate. But it wasn't half bad -- or else I was hungrier than I realized.

Next, Dave took me aside to give me some lessons in roping. For practice, a mock cow's head with horns was attached to the end of a rectangle of straw. Dave took a lasso and explained the over-the-head windup. The key, he said, was in the toss. The idea is for your arm to point toward the target as you follow through.

"When you throw it, point it," he said.

Dave then tossed the rope 25 feet and it landed around the mock cow head. He yanked it and it tightened around the horns. Very cool!