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Ix). 4H ALE
Claude N
Like a R
When I finally found him. Claude rIe 'an w';s
I 'niny a against a coral ence with his long
skinny cigar stuck in a little notebook.
si.. .lb 1 1 a. s us ti;i, e tihe
average gain in a herd of yearlings his tow-
boys had brought u1p out of the San Antonio[iver boitorn to 1 nc ighred a t'anch head-
quarters at Mcl'addin, about 'tt mile snuth
of Victoria.
You don't try to talk to a
ciw man when he's figurin'
weights, because w h a he's
really figuring is dollars and
vents and the only talking he
wants 10 do is to himself.
O I STOOD AND waited
and w atched the riders go off
to unsaddle.
There's a certain genuine
fha' or you can detect around
the headquarters of a ranch
that's a ranch in the old Texas Mc( (
Tradition, inc lihat was operatin' m. mO a
c: ntury before every rich man in this stale
' ant in thp cattle business.
There's nothing fancy in sight on McCan's
rlace. The corrals are old and substantial and
worn from use. Every iem around the pens
and the barns has a purpose, a use. No frills,
no decorations. -
You see the genuineness in the riders. too.
In the way their hats fit, like an old saddle on
a tood horse. In the 'way theN sit their ponies.
as if they were more comfoitable th're than in
an easy chair.
This same genuine flavor you see also in
C' iode McCan himself.
'I'I TRI'TH IS I'M a little glad I won't
h, aound McCan %xhrn he reads this, because
he won't like it. I can hear him growl about it
now. But I'm going to say it anyway.
I've known McCan since about 1948. though
I hadn't seen him in 10 years. From the day
I li ta saw him, I tnought be looked more like
a Texas rancher ought to look than any man
I ever sat;. Not lust his appearance but his
speech and his manner, and it always seemed
right to me that he is the real thing, a true
cattleman by birth. And he is certainly that.
The McCan name is known to cow people
everywhere.
I looked him up and down while he was
hiding there with his head in that notebook,
i had to grin a little at the way he was
i -,ed.
a a pair of brown dress slacks, stuffed into
.k boots with tops almost knee-high. And aIcCan Can Look
anche' in Pajamasand open at the neck and shon- ', C HAS a 'nnay of rarou
ing the dirt and sweat of the'something and t h e n stopping
day's work in the corrals. Then with a certain finality and then
a dark red tie with yellow you know he's not going to to
checks. And the felt Western ahout it any more. He's n-'
hat. much on long sentences.
NO DUDE cattleman would I recalled the last time T san
show up in a corral dressed like Ihim he was involved in a fight
howHdeaup along with other Texas ranches"
that. He'd he afraid somebody to keep the government from
would laugh at him. But a real putting price ceilings on li' r
cow man like McCan could go cattle, and before that it v ~,
out to work cattle in his pa- a fight to keep foot and mouth
disease from getting into Texa'.
amas and he'd still look like1 He poured coffee in the kit-
a cow man. Just the same as he; chen. "There's always some-
looks like one when he's behindithing to fight. Now it's cattle
a desk in his office at Victoria Iimports. Thing about the cattle
where he spends part of his business now, cattle've h e e n
lime. goin' down for a year and four
Now McCan looked up from months. Well, most of these r i
his notebook and grunted. When; tle go through the feedlot. All
he holds his long cigar straight right, that means these feed It
out it almost touches his hat men have lost money on.,,
brim. He's a leather-faced man, might say three crops of cattier
not really wrinkled but lined But they'll pull through. Tl'
and creased. If there's a typical always do."
Texas cattleman's face in this THAT WAS the longest :per,
state, McCan's got it. I got out of him. We drank It
"Well, that bunch, those litle coffee and he said. "You wv
ones," he said, looking at the to ride around and look at i
yearlings in the pen, "gained (lace?"
108 pounds in the last. 56 days. I So we got in the car again and
You want some coffee?" !McCan talked a little about hock
We got in his car and drove he herds cattle with a helicop-
up to the big house. "We've got ter. But that'll have to wait 'til
a place in Victoria We live o0''1hrrsdad nn'.
here in 'smmer and generaL,
mots n to n aiut 1h t
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[McFaddin Scrapbook], book, Date Unknown; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth821523/m1/61/: accessed July 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting McFaddin-Ward House Museum.