A COWBOY NAMED JACK

by Kristina Ringold Taylor

 

Hang up your rusty spurs Jack

It’s time to call it a day. 

No more do you need to roam

Broken bones and broken homes

Is the price you had to pay.

 

Hang up your dusty hat Jack

You have ridden your last ride

Was all in work of the day

Now is the time you can play

And hold up you head with pride

 

You were King in the saddle Jack

You let the broncs pitch and sway

In the saddle you were tall

For you always gave your all

Let younger men have their day.

 

Came Sioux City Sue, you were her downfall

Though she wern’t a female of NO kind

Though named be, she was a he

With plenty of fight to be

The meanest BULL on the line

 

No one had ever rode him

He threw them just where they stood

They never lasted the eight

They all got thrown at the gate

You vowed you’re the one that could

 

I recall when you mounted

Sioux City’s big old broad back

He reared and cut back his eyes

For that old bull realized,

You’re the one he couldn’t sack

 

But the fight was strong in him,

He’d give the best kind of ride,

So proud, no reason for shame,

You both played a win lose game,

Poetry in motion, Rawhide.

 

I think was the name they called him

That made that old bull so mean

He was determined to show

Wanted everyone to know

Nothing’s ever as it seems.

 

So store your spurs and tack Jack

From wild to tame to a T

Find you a place in the sun

You old tough son of a gun

See how sweet your life can be

---

Milford Johann Von Witt, born in Germany in 1907, he came to the America west at age seventeen.  Wealthy and well know family in Germany, he was well educated and he spoke five languages fluently, French, Italian, Spanish, English and his native German.  After settling in Arizona, he added three American Indian languages, Navajo, Hopi and Apache.  In Germany he and his family raised horses for show, jumpers and hunters.

 In America, he was known as Jack Witt.  He was 6 ‘ 3 “ and skinny as a rail but strong as the bulls he rode.  He often joked if he drank a red soda pop and stood in the sun, you’d take him for a thermometer. 

He liked to laugh and joke but if any man thought this made him an easy mark he was quickly proven wrong.

Jack was a true rough and tough as they come, cowboy of the old west.  He was always honest and fair, but could also be the meanest SOB around if someone crossed him.

He was a rancher and in his younger years a rodeo performer, bronc and bull riding and calf roping.  His ranch was in the White Mountains of Arizona near Clay Springs, Arizona, The Lazy J.

There are people about Clay Springs today that still remember him and tell tales about him.  

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