A REAL COWBOY

There are genuine cowboys and there are sidewalk *cowboys. Albert Linam was the real thing.

I first met the Linams when my brother married their daughter, Lora.  Albert was managing a ranch between Breckenridge and Cisco.  Shortly thereafter he began working at the dairy for my Dad and my brother.  The gentle Holstein cows were easier to deal with than the range cattle he had always worked with. They were milked twice a day with time off during the middle of the day.  They were predictable.  This work seemed easy for him. He worked there until he retired.

Albert and Emma Linam moved to the Breckenridge area in 1941.  They had three children, two daughters, Lora and her sister Luella, and a son.  Their son, John Edward Linam, was a tail gunner whose plane went down in World War 11.   The plane was over water and there was no recovery.  It was reportedly in the Bermuda Triangle.  As a boy, John Edward made model airplanes.  He was meticulous in their construction and detail. His nieces have three of them that were kept.

As a young cowboy, Albert was riding the range near Haskell, Texas.  He saw a strange animal loping across the grassland. It looked like the largest Jackrabbit he had ever seen.  He took off after it, threw a loop from his rope and captured it.  He secured it across his saddle and took it into town.  The creature was gentle once he roped it.

He had roped a kangaroo that had escaped from a traveling carnival.  There was a reward offered for the animal.  Albert didn’t know that, and he didn’t ask about it.  He only got a ticket to the show.

He was a modest man.  He never bragged about roping a kangaroo.  It was unimportant to him.  Many years later a reporter for the Haskell Free Press was looking through old records for material for a column.  He came across the story and wrote a column about the cowboy who roped a kangaroo with one loop.  That is how his daughters learned about the event.  They accused him of keeping secrets from them.

Albert remained a cowboy at heart.  One honor he was proud of was his induction into the Old Timers Association of the Texas Cowboy Reunion of Stamford, Texas, the largest amateur rodeo in the world. He had the honor of being president of the organization.

He had five grandchildren. The three who lived in Breckenridge were privileged to spend much time with him.  They enjoyed his old stories and expressions.  As they would approach downtown, he would peer through the windshield of the car and remark, “It looks like everybody and their dogs are here today.”  When the telephone rang, he would say, “Who in the hel,” and then into the mouthpiece, “lo.”  This was hilarious coming from this mild, non-swearing man.

Ken and I positioned ourselves on either side of him to assist him up the steep steps of the First Baptist Church for a funeral. He looked over at Ken and said, “The next time you come up these steps will probably be for me.”  It was.  Albert Linam left this earth on March 16, 1978, at the age of 83.

* A cowboy in appearance only.