That old boy’s from the old school, that’s for sure…. a ranch raised cowboy’s cowboy. He grew up in the saddle, and was punchin’ cows before he really had walkin’ and talkin’ mastered. (I’m not sure he ever did figure out those last two little details.)

If he’s not just about the toughest hand I’ve ever known, then I’m not too sure who would get that designation. How many cowboys have you ever seen not only mounted and pickin’ up at a rodeo with a full body cast and a busted neck, but doin’ a heck of a job of it?

The rodeo cowboys of today are without a doubt some of the best athletes in the world, but most of them didn’t have the opportunity to learn to be a hand the way that Ed did. There are lots of guys that call themselves cowboys that couldn’t even drag his saddle to the barn.

Ed is also a humble man. Even seeing his name in print here will probably make him shudder, and in true cowboy fashion, he really does his best to keep a low profile and not call attention to himself. It’s a dang good thing he’s good natured too, or he would have killed me for the stories I’ve already told on him. To hear him tell it, he’s still learnin’ this cowboy stuff, but being in his upper 70’s like he is, he should about have it figured out by now.

One of his earliest heroes in life, the one that taught him to rope and ride and helped to give him the grit and try that he’s had all these years might surprise you. It was his Grandma Redwing. I doubt if you’ll find many top hands that will attribute their cowboy attitude and try to one of their Grandmas, but Hilda Redwing has certainly led the generations that have followed her with a measure of grit that most of them just wished they had.

“My Grandma Redwing was twice the hand I ever thought about bein’,” I’ve heard Ed say on more than one occasion.

She was born Hilda Ryan, the daughter of ranchers Jack and Delia Ryan. Although she was a small woman in stature, her reputation as a cowgirl is still casting a long shadow on the north side of the Bear Paw Mountains where she lived her entire life. She and Ed Redwing were married in 1904 and ranched on Bull Hook Creek.

“She always wore her hair tied in a bun on the back of her head, and many times I’ve seen the bobby pins flying out of her hair when a horse would buck with her,” Ed commented.

A horse that would buck was just considered a challenge by feisty little Grandma Redwing. At an age when grandchildren begin gathering around your knees, most ladies begin to slow down some…. not so with Hilda. It just couldn’t seem to get too wild or wooly for her. Most gals her age would have been a lot more content with a couple of knitting needles, but she saw an unruly and “unride-able” bronc as just another challenge.

On many occasions her grandkids can remember Grandma getting bucked off an ornery jughead several times while out gathering cattle. Each time, she’d just climb back on board and give him another try. “Don’t you kids say nothin’…. You hear me?? You didn’t see nothin’!” (Well, she wouldn’t want everyone to know she’d been bucked off…. it was hard on her pride. Besides it makes sellin’ the horse harder, too.)

So, you’d think with all of these rough and tumble genetics, that Ed Solomon would have been just naturally tough. Well, I really hate to tell you this, but that’s not the case. He got tough, because he HAD to be tough…. or Grandma would have killed him.

A lot of folks don’t know that Ed was almost single-handedly responsible for the successful trailing of a herd of freshly weaned calves to town to the stockyards at the ripe old age of four. Here’s the story:

The Redwings had just cut the calves off the cows, locked the mamas in the corral, and took off trailing the calves down the road to the railroad corrals. Although I’ve heard of several guys doin’ this in the past, I’ve never had the guts to try it. It just looks like a wreck waitin’ to happen to me.

But then, it was just another little challenge for Cowboss Grandma Redwing. Besides she had some pretty good help, among which was a budding young cowboy; her grandson Ed Solomon. He should be good help by now, after all he WAS four years old.

Ed was mounted on a sorrel horse, and at least began the morning with full intentions of making a hand that his Grandma would be proud of. The details of the horse and the morning are a little obscured by time. I don’t know if he got cold, or maybe his feelings got a little hurt when Grandma hollered at him about being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Ed got to bawlin’.

I really hate to blow his cover like this…. I know most folks think he’s bullet proof, but his career as a successful top hand really began that day….. as a crybaby. Grandma didn’t have much patience for crybabies, and the louder he bawled the worse things got. Those calves were a lot like chasin’ chickens…. they were going everywhere but the right way…... that is UNTIL they heard our little four year old hero bawlin’ his face off.

Apparently his young baritone bawl sounded just like their mama’s voice and he couldn’t chase them anyplace. They started following him…. bawling as loud as he was….. (almost.)

That’s when Grandma Redwing put her vast experience on the range to use. She knew it wasn’t any use to holler at Ed any more to try to get him to shut up, and she was way too busy chasin’ calves to cut a switch and “give him somethin’ to bawl about”, so she just put Crybaby Ed Solomon out in the lead, with orders to, “Head for town… you know the way!” The calves just followed him like a bunch of marching soldiers, right into the railroad corrals. I doubt if they’d ever have made it without him.

Edmond Solomon is the toughest cowboy I know. But as Paul Harvey would say, “Now you know the REST of the story.”

Keep smilin'...
               but don't forget to check yer cinch.