#49: John Langmore - Cowboy, Lawyer, and a Life Behind the Camera

Um, I already just have a ton of questions boiling up to follow up on from before, but I think the best place to probably start would be, before we've got into your career here now, um, I'd like to understand the world that you grew up in and how, um, cowboying became a s- part of your story.

Yeah.

Um, I suppose it's a bit of the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, although, you know, honestly, I don't...

Like, I can't even recreate in my mind where I got my passion for cowboying.

It started young, you know, and it was definitely...

It, you know, my father fed that passion.

His grandfather was a Teddy Roosevelt Rough Rider and was also a cowboy in Central and South America, you know, a real character e- e- even back then, and my dad was around him growing up, and he kinda fed my dad cowboy stories.

And my dad had the chance to cowboy on a ranch when he was a kid on a, on a well-known, it doesn't exist anymore, but on a well-known ranch up in the panhandle of Texas called the Roe Ranch, or the RO.

You know, so he had one summer of it and just it was kind of like a passion for him, and then he became a photographer, and he did a book on the cowboy in 1975.

Um, super well-known book, beloved by cowboys.

I still get notes from people telling me that, you know, my dad's book, you know, introduced them to cowboying and made them go out and become a cowboy and, um...

So, you know, my dad, when he traveled around the West photographing for his book, he would send me notes and make phone calls, and I went with him to a couple of ranches.

And I was also reading Will James' books as a kid, who's a, you know, was a working cowboy and a great author about the cowboy life, and he was also a, a gifted artist, so he did his own artwork in all his books.

And I just really, you know, I would buy Will James' books every time I found one in a used bookstore.

I have a collection of them.

They're right up there, as a matter of fact.

Um- Yeah, no, no, I've, I've got all of them, you know, uh, right up there.

And so I read those, and I just, I wanted to be a cowboy.

But, you know, I was growing up in the suburbs of Richardson, Texas, um, about as far as way away as you could get from working cattle ranches.

And, you know, I just somehow built it in my head that, yeah, I wanna be a cowboy, and so I told my dad that.

And, you know, [laughs] I guess I was damn serious about it.

And I remember getting a postcard from my dad.

He was out in Montana at a pretty legendary rancher's ranch, this guy named Benny Binion, who's kind of a notorious outlaw.

And, and he sent me a postcard that had a Charlie Russell picture on the cover that was painted right on Benny's ranch, you know, or very nearby in this area called the Missouri Breaks, and Benny had a pasture that ran in the Missour- Missouri Breaks.

And my dad said, "Hey, this guy said he'll give you a job as a cowboy." And when he came home, he said, "Hey, look, I told Benny you were 13." I was 12.