Amanda Ramsey and Bette Ramsey

Recorded December 3, 2020 Archived December 3, 2020 41:40 minutes
0:00 / 0:00
Id: mby020248

Description

Amanda Ramsey (57) and her mother Bette Ramsey (81) remember Buck Ramsey, Amanda's father and Bette's husband, who was a crooner and life-long cowboy. The mother daughter duo recall that even after Buck became paralyzed after a horse accident, he kept his cowboy spirit alive through cowboy poetry and his connection to the land.

Subject Log / Time Code

AR says that on January 3rd it will mark 23 years since her father passed and talks about her memories of being in the house she grew up in, and talks about her father being a cowboy. AR then asks BR what it was like before her father's accident in the early days of their marriage when he was still cowboying.
BR describes her husband Buck in high school who was a “crooner” who could make the girls “swoon” because he sang like Frank Sinatra.
BR talks about the accident Buck had on his horse Cinnamon, breaking his neck and crushing his spine, paralyzing him, and stopped him from being able to cowboy.
BR talks about receiving word that she was needed at the hospital because of her husband's accident, they had only been married a few months, and talks about arriving at the hospital in Amarillo.
BR recalls the doctors telling her they needed to do surgery to alleviate her husband's pain and that if he survived, he would have a chance to live, but would be paralyzed.
AR says that while her father was still in the hospital, she was born, and asks BR what she thinks her dad was able to hold onto from his cowboy way of life because she felt her dad kept the cowboy spirit alive in his heart.
BR says that Buck was lucky, she never knew anyone who had as many friends, and that his friends stuck with him throughout his time in the hospital, afterwards, and when he couldn't cowboy anymore.
BR recalls the first thing Buck said to AR after she was born, prematurely -- “well you’re not very dang big !”.
BR and AR talk about Buck’s singing and music.
AR says that her father encouraged her to write and write poetry from age 3 and up, and talks about her father going to the Cowboy Poetry Gathering and his discovering that whole new world.
AR recalls hearing from her dad that he was like a kid in a candy store after he attended the poetry gathering and that that's what inspired her to start going herself.
AR reads the first stanza of one of her fathers poem.

Participants

  • Amanda Ramsey
  • Bette Ramsey

Transcript

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00:04 Hi, my name is Amanda Ramsey. I'm 57 years old and I'm in Amarillo, Texas. Today's date is Thursday, December 3rd 2020 and I'm here with my mother Betty Ramsey and we're sitting in her living room.

00:28 I didn't little different order. Sorry.

00:33 Oh, hello. My name is Betty Ramsey.

00:40 I am 81 years old today's date is December 3rd the Thursday and it's 20 20, and I'm here in my living room with my daughter. We are located at Amanda Ramsey and we're located in Amarillo, Texas.

01:04 Okay, so

01:08 Full disclosure. I'm nervous about this.

01:14 We've talked a little bit about maybe what some of the ideas we wanted to cover but we really don't know what's going to happen. So I'm just going to come and jump in and see where it goes.

01:28 We have different communication Styles and different preparation Styles and that all kind of

01:35 Showed up

01:37 Linear thinking about this.

01:41 It's a date today is December 3rd, and we're approaching the holidays and

01:50 January 3rd is the anniversary of my dad's my daddy's death and it'll be 23 years since he died. And this is the house that I grew up in and

02:05 Because if covid-19 skin to be the two of us this year for the holidays, and I know that

02:14 It brings up a lot of memories for me about the times that we had in this house and what it was like to grow up with him and

02:27 Before I was born he was living in working as a cowboy and I only knew him when he was using a wheelchair after his accident. So I wanted to ask you if you would be willing to talk a little bit about maybe what it was like.

02:49 Before his accident in your in the early days of your marriage when he was still cowboying and kind of how how he was before that happened.

03:01 Okay.

03:03 I'm going to go back just a little bit further and tell you that I think you already know this but fucking I went to the same high school. He was one year ahead of me and I was pretty much like all the girls in high school. I saw him and I kind of got a crush on me because he was a crooner and sounded a lot like a young Frank Sinatra and so he could make all of us girls Swoon and I kind of had this little fifteen-year-olds schoolgirl Crush, but we were just friends because he dated all the beautiful girls in high school and I didn't think I could compete with those. So anyway, we were good friends for a very long time before we ever.

03:54 Started dating and got serious and once we started dating and got serious. I had grown up. This part of the world is cowboy country Bluegrass Country cattle industry has been a big industry. We export a lot of bees east and west and raise a lot of cattle have a lot of feedlots, but we're surrounded by big ranches and you have to have a big Ranch in this part of Texas because at one time at 2:20, I don't know what it takes now, and they used to have mother cow calf.

04:44 Branches, and they don't do that as much anymore either. But anyway.

04:51 Buck and I got married we started out living on one of the big ranches, but shortly after that.

05:01 If we lived in a small town and then he got a job at another Ranch where we had our own little.

05:11 Cow Camp and we were living there and he was happy as a gun drop piece to get up early in the mornings before crack of dawn playing and singing and just happy and up and then he had a horse wreck.

05:32 So can I ask a clarifying question when you first started dating was he already working as a cowboy at that point or did you know of his interest in being a cowboy when we first started dating? He had started working as a cowboy and he was working on a different. He was working with a friend of his step dad on the big Ranch upper and outer part and enchanting in so yes, he was working as a cowboy and and he

06:09 I got there and he would come home and visit with Anda.

06:23 And so anyway

06:26 You know, he worked on several ranches around the Panhandle.

06:31 Before we had that little cow camp and and he had to work and it was it was just a

06:40 Unimaginable Red Key West

06:47 Horse was tough math and and was bad the buck and my but didn't really like to ride that horse. But he had been told by that manager he needed to ride it then and and was given a bit by the ranch and the horse was named Cinnamon and cinnamon started bucking and a buck down into a creek bed, which was filled with sand and he was lunging and not pulled up on the Range and the bit broke because if they've been soldered back together and the bit broke and he was just up in the air with nothing to hold on to and the horse lunged entering against a creek bank and he couldn't roll out if you hadn't been thrown in Sandy would have rolled out, but it get that creep bank and it broke his neck.

07:47 Immediately

07:49 And it crushed his spinal cord and

07:54 And he's crushed and up and he was paralyzed and he knew something was wrong. He never went into shock and the other Cowboys game, you know, maybe he wouldn't let him pick him up. He made them make a sling.

08:15 Or him and put him on that plane and put him in the back end of a pickup and take him to the hospital and never went into shop.

08:28 And I was a home economist for one of them.

08:34 Local electrical companies and worked in Dalhart

08:40 Not

08:42 Not Dalhart Dumas, Anda and I was on my way.

08:51 Started out from the camp and drove in and I needed gas. So I stopped to get gas and one of the workers from

09:02 Where I worked drove up beside me and said Daddy you need to get in the car leave your car here at the station. I've been told to drive you to Amarillo and I got in the car and he told me.

09:19 My husband has had a horse accident. And this was how long have you been married not very long. And so anyway.

09:36 We drove down and I can remember talking to the guy driving and saying oh, I hope it's not as back. He's been having some problems, but I didn't think too much when I got to the hospital hospital the Catholic hospital and they still have the nuns and you know, the nurses and everything because it was banned by the Catholic how far away was Dumas from Amarillo.

10:18 It's about a 45-minute drive maybe an hour, but it was still maybe 30-45 minutes from where he pick me up and we got there and

10:37 In a win in the emergency part of the door and I saw the lady yet. And I told her I was mrs. Burke Ramsey and I needed to know where

10:54 My husband was as I was mrs. Ramsay, and I need to know where my husband was. You mean the one with a broken neck and that's how

11:11 I found out that it wasn't just a simple thing if he had a broken neck and I was flabbergasted and of course I was upset and then

11:26 The Doctor Who was is kind of?

11:31 Are you reminded me of a little banty rooster? He was an English doctor that wore his three-piece suits, you know what that's dead and everything but he was a very good doctor he was in there.

11:45 And he met me at the door outside the room that I had talked to him and he came out and he said

11:54 Your husband is stable. Luckily. He never went into shock. He said sometimes if people go into shock, you know, I died and so he said but he said we have got to go in and relieve some of the pain because he said he he has a broken neck put his hands up like this and he showed me. He said it's been over eyes. The spinal cord has actually been pulverized and he said it's causing him a tremendous amount of thing and we have to go in

12:40 And relieve that pain for him and he said as long as he doesn't go into shock.

12:48 And gets through

12:51 The operation

12:53 He has a chance to live.

12:58 But he will be paralyzed from the armpits down because of where the injury was so they knew even before the operation he would still be able to use his arms they did not but they said that he is paralyzed from the armpits down. We don't know how much of his his arms you'll be able to use but he should be able to do you said we don't know it depends on how the nerves you know, what nerve damage is there and he said but he'll be a paraplegic and he said it's likely he will never walk again and I knew that but they had said we're not we haven't told him we're not going to tell him we want you to get to the operation and we want him to you know.

13:52 Cute positive good for about

14:00 Eight weeks your dad. He did make it through the operation and I went into seen but

14:08 Of course, I was cheerful and I went in to see him right before he went into surgery in that said fuck. I don't even know what to say and

14:21 He started reassuring me, you know, it was going to be okay, and you know he

14:30 He's going to go in and they were going to just relieve some of the pain and he was going to be all right. So anyway, he did make it through the surgery and he had to

14:42 Lay on his back on one of those egg carton mattresses

14:53 Actually now they didn't have them in Cotton mattresses back. Then he had to be turned he could lay on its back for a while and then they were turn in upside down in the bed would turn upside down and this is so he didn't get any kind of.

15:13 Bed sores or anything. That was before. I know he was so in every so often and only only family members.

15:33 Or I know that eventually they allowed Stanley to go in because Stanley started leaving work every day at about 4 and going by the hospital. Could anything back then because it was an old hospital and their electricity was limited and they could not allow their patients to have anything any of

16:10 The juice away from all the equipment that they had and he was in the ICU for about eight weeks. How long was he in the hospital total that first time he was in the hospital for

16:24 About

16:26 Eight or nine months and he was really sick of it because your family went out without telling anybody he went out and researched and sounds after a while and after about first 8 weeks couple on a TV that was battery operated and bought about the TV and brought it to him so he can play his back but the other thing he couldn't that that nerve pain is not like any other pain and I wouldn't have I never had it until just a couple of months, you know years ago when we were dancing in that worked my hip at the Michael Mart.

17:26 Murphy Cowboy dance when I was dancing with you and you know, what happened to me and that nerve pain is so unpredictable and it it's excruciating. It takes your breath away. It makes you want to scream. But anyway. Kind of late.

17:44 Life is back with only a towel over and because he could not stand anything to touch his body. That's how

17:55 I guess that's how much the nerves were damaged. And so anyway, I know that but it wasn't that he had bunk house being broken in poking into the nerves. But as thin as the nerves begin to repair themselves, he didn't have as much pain, but he had a lot of pain all this life.

18:35 So so he was in the hospital for about eight or nine months before?

18:44 He was released and during that time. I was born while he was still in the hospital. Yeah, because then

18:51 After

18:53 I know that changed everything in the obviously he couldn't Cowboy anymore and you you went to work.

19:05 And you lived in town?

19:08 Right now and I grew up in this house, but there were a few years before that. But what I want to know is even though he was using a chair and living in town.

19:24 What?

19:27 Do you think?

19:32 Of his Cowboy Way of Life. What what kind of held on during what do you what do you remember about living in town was he able to

19:44 Can I hold on to that way of life or?

19:49 I don't know. It just seems to me like growing up with him. He always kind of kept that alive in his heart and he did because for Wednesday that goes you very lucky.

20:04 I've never known anyone to have as many friends or be as well loved as he was all through the years and his friends stuck with him his Cowboy friends his high school friends and he had lots and lots of people visiting him throughout his stay in the hospital. And and yes, you were born and you may not remember this but one of the poignant moments of you being born, do you remember me telling you what he said the first time I ever saw you because you were tiny little thing and so you were this tiny load that he didn't even know that I was there being born, right?

21:04 Didn't get to anticipate you and but you know, I was busy having you so I didn't have anything to do with it, but the nurses and the doctors in the people didn't it? Because you were bored like at 5 in the morning or some early hour, and so but when he did get to see you and woke up and came down to see you.

21:28 And they handed him you to him the first thing he did he could hold you just in the palms of his hands and he just looked at you with those great big eyes and said where you're not very damn big and you weren't cuz you only wait about 5 lb and and I compared it to like a sack of sugar because back then a sack of sugar weight about 5 pants and I could pay you in The Mixing Bowl, you know, and some of your first bad as that your grandmother your grandmother's gave you they did put you in the mixing bowl today with you because you were tiny. And so anyway, well early days when we were back and forth all the time, Chris Buck wanted to see you everyday and so yes, you spend a whole lot of time in the hospital.

22:28 And that may have been why you could sleep about anything because there was always noise in the hospital, you know people without people coming in doing different things. So yes.

22:50 And we all did we we had we had Christmas giving in Christmas in the hospital in New Year's and so that was not a good year for rest in the beginning. But then yeah they were but you asked me about him hanging on to his cowboy thing. Well because he had a great mind and was it Avid Reader all of his life and grew up on the farming Ranch light switch. That's why that's what most people that didn't have the great big ranches. If they had Farms they had cattle they raise cattle and they raised wheat, you know see the cattle and so it was kind of a farming.

23:50 Operation that his dad was the manager of

23:54 And that was in Brewing it before they moved to town when he was in junior high and he never forgave his dad removing them into town in junior. So many got to go back out and work on ranches and got stuck back in town again. Got stuck back in town again, but he started reading and writing in

24:23 He always wanted to ride he loved writing in journalism in and singing journalism in and singing were always his Forte because he was born in a family. They went to the Primitive Baptist Church. They learn the shape note singing that can sing. All the different parts in every Gathering was like a Thing song. Yeah. I remember that was part of our family gatherings. And yeah, I remember Christmases and his sisters and his brother were all getting in harmonies. And yeah, and of course, I mean, I remember growing up with him playing music all the time. Yeah. Well because we're always Gathering and I don't know I guess.

25:18 For me

25:20 This living room

25:23 Was kind of like a Cow Camp like it seems like he just you know transferred his is Cowboy life into the living room and he had everybody over here and there were people singing and playing music and you are always cooking and feeding everybody and yeah, it was so much easier for him to stay where he had wheelchair access to everything because back then they didn't have the laws for wheelchair access use the restroom or spend the night that didn't have. It was really just in him all the actor their fault that they do now.

26:11 He because of his interest in all of that and the writing and everything. He started going back to his memories and writing and that when he was growing up. He played the piano because he was musically inclined anyway, and he played the piano by ear and he had Perfect Pitch and he sang and the interesting thing that I didn't know until I started asking your sisters even after he died. They didn't all when they were all growing up, you know going to the Earth radio and Insignia funerals and you know,

27:11 They can sing and I'm not even sure he realizes that he could stay until he got to Junior High and not in the choir in the choir director figured out that he could sing and he sang in the choir and then he was in a quartet and they run around anything about the stupid places that they could go back then you know the quartet and then by the time he got high school he was singing solo with a band and actually he was too young to be singing in some of those nightclub, but he was the lead singer and he would pay me singing with a van. He started writing stories and poetry but he didn't realize he was really a poet.

28:07 Until

28:09 He started.

28:11 Writing poetry and taking

28:15 A toy train riding class from Mrs. Robinson. It was a great Amarillo historian that had about 10 kids. I've been in

28:26 And was very impressed with his poetry and told him he was a poet and he needed to focus on that and that's when he started and then somebody I'm not sure who told him about the Cowboy Poetry gathering in Elko and he and convinced him. He needed to send his poetry his Cowboy Poetry Gathering and he did and

29:00 That was the beginning of his career as a cowboy poet and singer-songwriter because

29:10 You know, he he wanted to resurrect all the old cowboy songs much, but he played the guitar what he couldn't believe you anymore cuz you didn't, you know, Eddie in the water.

29:56 Blues and jazz and he said that he had a lot of influence from well that was in the high school plays a lot of jazzing and songs in actually. He said he learned how to phrase from all those old women 40s singers that and those guys if if you heard people like Tony been in some of those guys they learned from the opera singers about phrasing and that's really important as a singer is the phrasing you phrase things and sang. You know that

30:53 Remember

30:54 There was a lot of

30:59 Dylan and Bob Dylan and Ray Charles and another high school friend another high school. So so he

31:19 When I was growing up he was playing music and he I mean that he was writing poetry and he got me to write poetry from the time. I was three or four years old. I couldn't write that he had so I know I know he started all of that.

31:37 In my early years, but I was already grown by the time he started going to the Cowboy Poetry Gathering and that changed.

31:55 So I just remember having gatherings in her house all the time when I was growing up in it.

32:04 When when he went to the Cowboy Poetry Gathering and discovered that whole new world of the cowboy culture and cowboy influence and there were people from all over the country and even other places in the world. It kind of felt to me like

32:25 Are living room just got bigger and you know it it was just it was like we transferred the living room to Elko every year and well that just sort of became our family gathering place. And you know, I'm going to tell you that Elko opened up.

32:48 New Horizons for all of us is expanded us to International the international world.

33:02 Horse people at people that raise cattle and horses and whatever they raise Yaks or whatever come to Elko and do their poetry and do their songs and their stories and and it it made such a difference in our lives. And in any of those guys that would come true because that was really he was revered out there after he started doing his poetry because I think he kind of you know, a lot of Cowboy Poetry was was people making fun of themselves because the way it started was they just cowboys would sit around the fire and write these poems and and they were pretty stoic and they didn't open themselves up to

34:01 You know the the pain in the

34:06 Anger and the emotions as much and fuck.

34:12 Did in his phone and his poetry was serious, but he butt and he and he was worried cuz he did right, you know as much like laughing poetry and I told him I said, you know, not everybody cares about laughing all the way through some of those poems that you would just laugh yourself to pieces in the audience. But when you would read it read it, it didn't stand up. It was like dog roll, you know, and it was a lot of people just thought it was all dog grow. But when

34:50 And a lot of it some of it did stand up but bucks or tree stood up and he wrote about things and and it just went to people's hearts. Well, you know, I think like a lot of people he always

35:09 Look to the Cowboy and the hero and

35:14 You know he I think.

35:17 He

35:18 He was that he had an adventurous spirit.

35:22 That never stopped and he was brilliant and he had one or lust and if so, I think he was suited to that lifestyle and you kinda sorta was able to keep that up even using a chair but

35:42 I think it's that kind of gave him a chance to

35:49 Really be a cowboy again, even though he wouldn't work in a working cowboy riding horses. And but I think he got to relive that and is riding and his music researching all those old songs and

36:07 You know, he he loved.

36:13 Bringing the cowboy to live in in dispelling the myths the Hollywood myths about the cowboy and talking about the influence of the Pharaohs and the black cowboys in the

36:29 You know that indigenous people here on this land Workforce people and

36:41 Celtic influence in all of that, you know, he brought all of that in and he got to meet so many of those people that he didn't learn more the history in the lingo from others. It was like he

36:58 Well, we have a lifelong learner and he got to share all of that and keep learning more and he was like a he called me after that first Gathering said he was like a kid in the candy shop and that's what I decided. I had to hang up to an international world, but that he but the the Texas Cowboys O A Lot To The Vaqueros. Well, all Cowboys do a lot so much of everything come from chain from the Carrows and and when we had that were part of Mexico

37:58 Your dad I didn't really know that we were going to do that. This is just a spontaneous. But I do know that when we were talking earlier, he was the one that impacted our lives so much in and we talked about that. And so I guess we've ended up talking but he was useful. He was I mean, he was a he was a baby.

38:33 Yeah, and you have time to read any of his just maybe a little.

38:42 I know the the poem is most known for his anthem.

38:48 And I'll just read the very first stanza cuz it's a long Tom. You better hurry cuz we don't have much time.

38:59 And so he starts out this kind of gets an idea. He wrote really I think from the heart.

39:09 And in the morning, I was riding out through the brakes of that long plain and leather creaking in the quieting would sound with Trott & Trott again.

39:21 I lived in time with horses falling I listened well and heard the calling the Earth. My mother Bay to me though. I would still Wild Ride Wild and Free.

39:34 And as I flew out on the morning before the bird before the dawn, I was the poem. I was the song.

39:44 My heart would beat the world of warning. Does Horseman now Road all with me and we were good and we were free.

39:55 So that's I think my favorite line in that is I was the poem. I was the song Set.

40:01 He really that was the way he expressed himself and that poem is is very relevant today because of all of the climate change in him what we are doing ravaging way of living in harmony with the reason he loved the cowboy was because they were so accepting of tolerances if you were if you were there at the right place at the right time.

40:38 And did the work you were you were accepted and it what doesn't care about color or differences. They cared about you being there.

40:53 You know if they're back watching them by word or deed.

41:07 Just think of all the brothers.

41:15 It's nice hearing.

41:17 What was nice hearing your dad, especially I guess.

41:31 Just the way it happened.

41:34 So

41:38 Okay.