Without going into great detail, I must admit my office is a bit messy. OK, so it is really messy. It is the way I like it because I know where everything is laying or what it is laying under. Sort of.

Some things get hung on my limited wall space. Those, I tend to forget about completely. I stare out my windows not the walls. Occasionally, one of those prized yet ignored wall ornaments jump out and surprise me. That’s where this story comes from.

If you are in the cattle business or just watch from the sidelines you are aware things have been rather unpredictable market-wise lately. I have been in the business more decades than I care to admit, yet sometimes I feel like a beginner. An item on my office wall dating back to when I was a beginner in the cattle trading, buying, selling and marketing part of our industry caught my eye. Perhaps it might interest some of you as well.

In my mid to late 20s I met an experienced order buyer and occasional cow trader named Dick Davis. We didn’t hold any real classes on the subject but he let me follow him around and observe.

One day, however, he gave me a textbook of sorts in a highly unusual format.

It is an 11-inch heavy pewter plate, embossed with what I chose to call, since there was no title assigned to it, “The Cattle Buyers Prayer.” Please allow me to share it with you.

“Lord,

Help me, a dealer in livestock, to always be able to keep my word.

Give me my share of easy ones, if there is such a thing and protect me from those who are too smart for me.

Save me from dust pneumonia, ptomaine poisoning, long roads, lawsuits and fights over weighing conditions.

Give me more powers of persuasion, so I can talk these ranchers into being easier on me, talk my banker into paying my drafts, and convince my wife there’s a future in this business.

Above all give me the nerve to buy when they’re cheap and sense enough to sell when they’re high.

Deliver me from a slipping market, kicking cattle, slamming gates, short checks, liars, and help me be a credit to the profession.”

Amen.

I have vivid memories of Dick’s stories of trading bulls for hand woven blankets with members of the Hopi and Navaho tribes as we sat in front of a large coffee table whose lid raised to expose dozens of the beautiful blankets piled within.

I haven’t seen or heard of Dick for years. He could have become a writer if he had wanted to but I’m going to bet he kept on buyin’ and sellin’ ‘em. If by some chance he is no longer with us, may he be buried in a big green pasture near the best set of receiving corrals ever built out of big posts, heavy timbers and gates that all swing easily with a set of good honest scales.