Rock and Roll Cowboy

 

Mr. Lee Hart

             Kam Hwy is quiet. I look around for any evidence of winter and find none. The ocean rests, the sun is high and hot, and the same wanderers waiting for the swell to arrive are scattered around the North Shore—praying for surf. My husband’s Ford 250 is old, the AC does not work and his attempt to clear his junk out of the truck’s cabin went unsuccessful. I can see the dust on the dashboard slowly levitating and swirling around us as I try to concentrate on Sunset Beach, which lays on my right. We are on our way to the Honolulu International Airport where we are going to board a flight to the mainland. I am hot and sweaty, but the thought of meeting Lee Hart in the next day makes the cabin of the old Ford 250 bearable. 

      I live on the North Shore of Oahu, in the Hawaiian Islands, and of course, I am a surfer, or at least, I used to be, but since my daughter decided on a destiny of her own I had to change gears and go with the flow. Born in Hawaii, it is not a surprise, that my daughter can surf, but she decided that she needed to ride not only waves, but ride beasts as well. She is what we call here in Hawaii, a Paniola “Hawaiian Cowgirl” and we are on our way to the mainland USA to train with Lee Hart a Kansas Cowboy.

      We arrived in Kansas City, Missouri, in a cold Saturday afternoon, and the Cowboy’s girlfriend was waiting for us with her badass King Ranch by the terminal. As Pris drove us to Topeka, Kansas, she explained that Lee would be picking up Hickory, the horse that my daughter was going to ride in the World Finals of the Extreme Cowboy Race in Texas, the next day. “But don’t worry Elena, I am sure you can jump on one of Lee’s horses,” she told our excited teenager. The drive from Kansas City, Missouri, to Topeka, Kansas, is becoming familiar to me since it is my third time around. I sit on the back seat of the King Ranch amused by its comfortable space and luxurious leather seats. Lee’s girlfriend drives fast as she updates us on their latest endeavors, and soon, I become confortable with the speed, since every other car seems to be flying by, pushing eighty.

       Pulling in the driveway of Black Jack Creek brought me memories of the previous year when Lee Hart was just moving into his new ranch. Old, distressed and without running water but with “lots of potential,” we left Lee to a challenging undertaking—to get Black Jack Creek up and running. As the girlfriend’s truck zipped into the property, I could see that Lee had been quite successful in accomplishing his dream. Below, by the big grassy arena, a crowd of people with their horses was busy weaving through the obstacles, which Lee uses to train his and his clients’ horses. While we unload at their house, I continued watching the crowd cantering through the mazes, but saw no sign of Lee. Until that moment, I was still unsure if it had been a good idea to accept Lee’s and his girlfriend’s invitation to stay with them at Black Jack Creek, but when I saw Lee smiling as he got out of the barn seeing that we had arrived, I knew it had been a good decision.

       “You guys are family! You are staying here with us,” he said when I told him on the phone that we were coming to the World Finals of the EXCA in Texas, where my daughter had been invited to compete along with Lee. “And by the way,” he continued, “I am sponsoring Elena with her horse,” and he left me speechless. “You don’t have to rent a car either, because we are all going to drive together down to Texas,” he advised. Back home in Hawaii, I hung up the phone, looked at my daughter and husband’s faces and told them that Lee Hart had just invited us to stay at his place. You should have seen my daughter’s face—have you seen a kid in a candy shop, or in a country fair? Well… you get the picture. Horses, manure, grassy fields and wild deer, I could see . . . was all that went on inside her mind.

       Lee Hart is bigger than life, and I do mean it. His heart is so big that his well-defined chest, can’t seem to control it, and that’s why I called him “Rock and Roll Cowboy.” Lee will take on anything and everything. “No,” is a word missing in his vocabulary, and the reason why, is because he is a believer. There is nothing his horses won’t do either. You name it and he will train it, and so, having the honor of staying with him at his facility, and seeing him on his daily life was an opportunity of a lifetime.

       Waking up at Black Jack Creek was somehow surreal. The moon, shining through the old lofts window, where we bunked, was still high in the dark sky. I woke up with a dried mouth resulted from the new heater Lee had bought to keep the house warm. As I weave through the loft, I hear sounds coming from the first floor and walk down the stairs to the kitchen, where I find Lee busy, wearing some heavy-duty leather gloves. “Good morning,” he says to me, who still half asleep. “Morning,” I say trying to moisten my mouth. “Thanks again for having us, Lee” I say honestly and I walk to the cheap coffee maker I bought the night before to brew myself some coffee.  “Did you feed already?” I ask him, concerned about the horses. “Yep, he answers, inspecting the coffee, but popping open a can of Diet Coke.

       “Lee! That’s stuff is bad for you,” I try, but he smiles and takes a big gulp from his can and assures me that it wasn’t. I watch him finish the Coke as I pour myself a cup of the warm brew. Lee walks to the living room and sits on his chair in front of the heater to make himself warm.

       “Lee!” his girlfriend calls, from their laundry room-walk in closet. “I have the song you want me to play at the World Finals,” she says when she joined us by the heater. “What is it?” I ask expecting it to be one of the top country songs we had been listening on the Kansas radio stations—probably some song about a beer, a woman and a horse—I was wrong! Kid Rock’s “Cowboy” was Lee’s request.

       There may be, of course, more respected horse trainers and I am sure you may have heard about Buck. No? Go Google him. I am sure there are wealthier cowboys too, with fuller bank accounts, newer trucks and some big sponsor names behind their backs, but I can assure you, Lee Hart is one of a kind. One of good stock! Lee lives in the heart of the country; the land of Toto and Dorothy, the land of the Tornados, the land of the Rolling Hills—where the sunsets are red and gold, where everywhere you look you can imagine Tin Man walking down the long empty road, and, it was in this land that Lee was bred by cowboys.

       In his “not fancy” house, a picture sitting on a beautiful hardwood sideboard called my attention. Standing with a belt buckle that could be more like a shield, Lee Hart stood younger and skinnier between his grandfather and granduncle. Suddenly, all of the John Wayne’s movies became real and I finally realized that there is no stopping Lee Hart from popping his soda can and there is absolutely no stopping this Cowboy—not in his ranch, not in competition, nor in life. His bright and mischievous eyes, glowing in the black and white photo, kept true to him. The same bright and mischievous blue-green eyes I saw when he popped the can and told me that it was the only thing that had been faithful to him, referring to the sweet, carbonated and caffeinated drink. He was wrong! His eyes are still faithful. Through his eyes, I see that he still has the same dreams he had as he stood next to his older generation in the black and white picture, but maybe the dreams are just a bit clearer now—colorful.

       I met Lee Hart the first time I was in Kansas. The Rock and Roll Cowboy was kind enough to lend us, “The Hawaiians,” horses to compete in our first EXCA world finals. A large group of people, who had flown from Hawaii for the competition, sat anxiously on the veranda of the historical Cottage House Inn, in Council Grove town on the Santa Fé Trail. The town’s history goes back to the earlier eighteen hundreds as there was the last stop for supplies, before the pioneers moved further West. It was in that town that Lee Hart was raised, the town where Daniel Boone’s grandson traded with the old adventurers. Waiting for Lee Hart’s arrival, sitting on the confortable chairs of the old Inn, all we knew about him was that he was a Kansas Cowboy, and that he had won the World Finals of The EXCA competition the previous year. I had watched Lee Hart’s winning run on his horse Buster, on YouTube, but when the white truck, pulling the six horse trailer stopped in front of the Inn steering some dust in town, I had no idea of what to expect.

       “Welcome to Kansas!” he said, as he walked on the deck of the Inn with the sounds of his spurs announcing his arrival.

       Wearing Wrangler Jeans tucked inside his tall, red cowboy boots, a white shirt and a black Cowboy hat, he patiently shook hands with all of us. After all the introductions were done, Lee stood in front us inspecting the trouble he had got himself in, since all he knew about us was that some adventurous group of people who lived in Hawaii, needed some horses for the competition. Lee agreed to help. Like I have said; too big of a heart, too many people to please, and he did it with finesse making it look effortless.  

       “Let’s go see the horses!” he said, and got back in his truck, with an entourage of “Hawaiians” following him.          

       It was the beginning of an everlasting friendship.

       This was three years ago, and as I drank my coffee, and Lee got warm by the heater, I questioned him about his life and I asked him about his kids. “They were here over the week,” he said, and I saw that he was already missing them. The kids live with their mom, whom Lee says, “is an amazing woman.” We hear my daughter coming down the stairs from the loft and as she sees us she asks Lee the same question I had asked him earlier. “Did you feed already?” and she walks to the kitchen, where she looks out the window, to the barn. “Yes!” he answers, clearly disappointing her, since she believed it would be her chore. “You will help feed tonight.” He makes her smile.

       Slowly we made our way to the barn and I watch the Cowboy get busy moving horses around. Feeling the need to help, I start to muck, which, by the way, has been my chore, for the last three years. Lee brings a colt out of a stall, and starts to work with him. While moving manure and peeking at Lee and the colt’s connection I admire their relationship.

       “I am going to win my Futurity run on him,” Lee says when he notice me watching them. I don’t doubt him. If anyone can do it, he is the one.  

       “Lee, any horse I can ride?” I ask playfully for having yet to master the art of equitation. “Sure, go get Dude.” I inspect Dude and decide that he is too big for me, so I ask if I could ride Jelly Bean, the pony. “If you can catch him, you can ride him,” Lee teases me knowing how hard of a ride I was getting myself in to.

       As I ride Jelly Bean in the big open grass field, where obstacles were set for training purposes, I ponder how in the hell I ended up where I was—In the heart of the country, watching the Cowboy teach my daughter everything he knew. I endured the ride on Jelly Bean taking breaks to watch Lee train his colts and by the end of the morning, Jelly Bean and I had made friends. Lee had worked a hand full of horses, and my daughter was in seventh heaven.

       As we put the horses away, some of Lee’s clients arrive to train. A pilot, a beautiful stylish grey haired woman, a retired executive of some well known telecommunication company; are just a few of Lee's many followers. They come with their horses, they spend the day and then go home a better rider. Lee, not only trains the horses, he trains the horses’ people too, and when the horses and their people pull out of the Black Jack Creek ranch they are a better team.

       Lee Hart is a Cowboy of very few words, but the few words he uses are wise. He just finished reading Buck Brannaman’s biography, and assures me that there is no one like his hero, Buck. What Lee doesn’t know, is that he, Mr. Lee Hart, Kansas Cowboy, is himself many people’s hero. Craig Cameron, one of the greatest American Cowboys, calls Lee Hart “Mr. Hustle.” Bill Cameron, EXCA judge, wrote that one of Lee Hart’s 2012 World Finals runs was one of the best in the EXCA history—like I said: there is no stopping this Cowboy, and Lee’s utmost adventure is still to come; the Calgary Stampede, in Alberta, Canada. Lee Hart’s performance throughout his career has earned him an invitation to participate in what is considered by many, one of the greatest horse events in the world, and Lee will be there in 2013. I remember one morning sitting by the heater, in his living room at Black Jack Creek, when Lee was talking about the Calgary event: “Only the best of the best are invited to participate,” he said, not realizing that he was one of the best of the best. The collection of belt buckles displayed around his house, proves so. Bronco rider Champion, EXCA Champion, Ranch Rodeo Champion, you name it, Lee Hart has got it.

       My week at Black Jack Creek slipped away, it went too fast and too soon, but I will never forget it.  It was a week of Jelly Bean, cooking, mucking stalls and watching Lee do what he does best—train horses. By the end as I watched my daughter applying what she had learned from the “Rock and Roll Cowboy” on the colts Lee trusted her with, I understood why in the hell I ended up where I was. Surfers, Cowboys and Rock and Roll have more than a few things in common. The cowboy thrives on his horse, the Surfer thrives on his waves and Rock and Roll thrives on the uncertainty of tomorrow. Tomorrow the Surfer doesn’t know how the waves are going to be, the Cowboy doesn’t know what problem to fix; if the horse or if the horse’s person and Rock and Roll will keep reinventing itself through new generations. When the horses are done, Lee will send the horses and their owners their way. I asked Lee one last question. “What is your approach Lee?”

       “The problem is . . . sometimes it is not the horse,” and Lee Hart will wait or people will wait for the trainer to train them and their horses.

       Before Lee pulls out of the Texas Arena where he won the Futurity on the colt he told me was going to win, with one more buckle under his belt, he asks my daughter, my husband and I: “Will you guys get me up on a surfboard when I come to Hawaii?”

       Off course we will.

       As I get back to Hawaii, now with Sunset beach by my left, I find Kam Hwy busy with surfers from all over the world. What happed? I ask myself. It’s been only two weeks and the place is a madhouse.

       It takes me a week or so to realize that the crowd is not a different crowd from the previous years’ winter. The same surfers, with their same dreams, have arrived to surf the giant waves.

       I must get back in to gear, but in my mind, I still can see Tin Man walking on the empty path in front on Black Jack Creek where a Cowboy is busy going on with his day.

       Kansas Cowboy. The best of the Best!

Since this has been written Lee Hart married his girlfriend, moved to a much larger ranch, won many more buckles and is succeeding in what he loves