Try
“He’s got a lot of try.” Coming from a cattle family, I’ve heard this said frequently by friends, family and others from a very young age. It is a simple phrase that I’ve heard applied to most anything in a western situation. This cowboy colloquialism basically means that whatever is doing the action is working pretty hard at whatever it’s doing. A roping steer has a lot of try if he breaks hard from the chute and runs. A horse might have a lot of try if you’ve been working him most of the day and he still manages to hold heavy cattle when you get them roped. A little kid has a lot of try if he runs his heart out working chutes like his dad. I’ve met a lot of people in my life that have a whole lot of try.
The concept of try has usually been applied to something western when I’ve heard it before, but as I think about it, people can have try no matter what they are doing. It is that intangible effort—that extra push—that people have. I think when people have try, they have a drive or passion for whatever they are doing. It’s not even about winning the battle, but being in the fight. I remember watching a cowboy I roped with from Kingman bulldog a steer at a local rodeo. When that steer ran right over him, he kept the best hold that he could to throw him for a longer time. I thought to myself that he definitely had try. In essence, try is the desire to give 100% effort for whatever you are choosing to do, no matter how tough it may be.
I tried to think about the person in my life that best exemplifies this quality, and a lot of people I’ve known show it quite clearly. However, when I think of having try, my grandpa always comes to mind. Grandpa put four daughters through college and made a living running his own Dairy for over 40 years. Despite being nearly 80 years old, Grandpa still spends his time raising cattle and farming to preserve the heritage of our family and the land his own grandfather homesteaded. That shows a lot of try. A few days ago, I was doing laundry at my aunt’s house when she informed me Grandpa was in the hospital. He had been cutting limbs when he fell from his tractor cab trying to shake one loose. I was worried at first, but once I had a chance to think I remembered that he was the closest thing to impenetrable I have ever seen. A day later, I went and visited him at the hospital in Abilene. He and Grandma promptly informed me that they would be going home that day, where Grandpa would take some extra time in his chair before returning to his usual routine of outworking the average 30-year-old man. I saw that he hurt as he got up, but as the 80-year-old man who had recently taken a pretty tall leap off a tractor stood up, I also saw a look of pure determination and grit that can only come from spending a lifetime working your heart out for those you love. That’s when I thought “he’s got a lot of try.”
It doesn’t matter what goal we are trying to achieve. It doesn’t matter what obstacles stand in the way. In the grand scheme of things, what matters is that we give our hearts to what we are passionate about. What matters is that we adopt that old, dust-bowl style spirit of work ethic that permeated the spirits of so many people who came before us, or that we deliberately choose to work wholeheartedly toward our goals. If we are truly passionate about the goals we set and the people in our lives, what matters is that we face our tasks with a little good old fashioned try.
Jacob Grinstead,
Kansas FFA Reporter