Although the state run media drop hints the recession is behind us, I have been turning little used items into cash. One evening after dinner, my trophy wife and I were making a list of potential garage sale items when she asked, “What about your thousand dollar chaps, any chance you could part with them?”

I looked across the living room to the post where they hang and said, “I don’t think so. Even world famous cowboys like Larry Mahan don’t have thousand dollar chaps, I better keep them.”

“Whatever,” she said as she excused herself from the table.

I slid my chair back, grabbed my coffee cup, and walked over to admire my trophy chaps. I sipped my coffee, brushed the dust off the silver conchos, and quietly thought about the agonizing memories hidden deep inside the steer hide.

My trophy chaps story begins one June morning thirty years ago. I was building fence that summer and I was driving the tractor with the post-hole digger through the barnyard. My older brother, Dana, crawled over the fence and hollered, “Hey, I just shot that brainer steer; drag him down to the bone pile, please.”

I whipped into the corral, chained the steer to the tractor and dragged him across the meadow. I skidded to a stop, hopped off the tractor, and flipped the steer towards the bank. To my amazement, all the hair on the down side of the carcass had been stripped clean and there shone a perfect, hairless, double-rafter brand scar. “Wouldn’t it be great to make a pair of batwing chaps with your brand scar on the leg?” I quietly thought to myself. “If I were to drag this steer around the pasture again, I would have all the hair off the other side and the hard part of the tanning process would be done.” So I did.

That evening I explained my plan to my trophy wife as I proudly unrolled the green hide to display the magnificent brand. She dutifully smiled and shook her head; as usual she lacked my level of enthusiasm for another of my projects. Undeterred, I grabbed the phone, called Tandy Leather Company, and ordered a deluxe, do-it-yourself, leather tanning kit. For the grand total of $19.95, plus the use of Mom’s old laundry tub, “Double Rafter Tannery and Leather-Crafters” was in production. It is great starting a business from scratch.

Within two days my operation hit its first snag. I discovered there is not enough chemical in the deluxe kit to tan one entire steer hide, so to keep things balanced, I ingeniously carved the chap leggings, belt and accessories from the hide prior to the tanning process. This way I wouldn’t waste tanning chemical on leather that would eventually be discarded as trim. (This is comparable to amputating the chuck and flank steaks off feeder steers so all digestible energy goes to the growth of the prime rib; it sounds great on paper.)

The second week of my tanning enterprise, I discovered that multiple chemicals had to be precisely added over a three day period, and I was headed up the mountain fencing. This meant my wash-tub-tanning-factory had to be hauled to the Lodge Grass Cow Camp in the back of a pickup. I was determined, so I hauled it.

Once back in the valley, I worked tirelessly every evening finishing my hand-tanned, custom batwing chaps. At last they were ready for their maiden ride, and I boasted to everyone I would be proudly wearing them the next morning. I came to regret that. In the pre-dawn darkness I strapped on my trophy chaps and made the shocking discovery that green leather shrinks dramatically when it is tanned. My batwings looked more like chinks.

Hopelessly cornered by reality, I buckled my chaps and stepped out of the dark tack room before the hypercritical eyes of my brothers, parents, wife, three cow dogs and seven barn cats. The ribbing was unmerciful. My batwings were stiffer than I had anticipated and I looked like an arthritic cowboy with two chunks of brown rain gutter duct taped to my thighs. When my behind hit the saddle my chaps stuck out like the wings of a B-52, the sight of which elicited another round of jocularity from the crowd. I was glad everyone else was having such a great day.

At last, we were out in the pasture gathering cows where I hoped the heavy abuse of riding through the brush would soften my batwings. Such was not the case. They were just as stiff at noon as they were at five that morning. By midday we dropped the herd and rode back to the ranch. Feeling completely humiliated, I swung off my horse thinking the worst of the morning had passed. I was wrong. As I peeled off my batwings I discovered the reddish-brown leather dye from my chaps had completely bled through my britches. Now permanently red from my shins to my hips I trudged to the house for lunch under the same uproarious laughter that began the day. Even the barn cats showed little concern for my self-esteem.

That evening, in a moment of quiet humility, I walked to the barn and hung my batwings on the wall directly under a crack where the roof leaks. I figured a little weathering might soften the leather so I would let them age a short while---okay, a long while.

Fast forward thirty years. I was in the Meadow Lark Gallery having a chuck wagon photograph framed. Gary, the gallery owner, was demonstrating previous works where he incorporated different objects into the frame exemplifying the art piece. As he is an expert in western art and memorabilia, he studied my wagon photo and asked, “Do you have something like an old pair of chaps we could incorporate into the frame?” A tiny light flickered in my head.

“Yes, I do. I’m headed to the ranch this weekend, I’ll see what I can find,” I calmly replied. Two days later, I drove to the ranch and began rummaging through the barn. Suddenly the sunlight beamed through the gaps of missing shingles and there they were, my batwings---just as stiff as they were the day I hung them. I jerked them off the nail and whacked them across a fence post a couple times to beat off the dust and dislodge a mouse nest or two. The snaps, buckles and conchos rattled just like new.

The next morning I walked into my friend’s art gallery dragging my batwings behind me. “Will these work?” I asked as I tossed them on the table.

“Wow, those are incredible!” He excitedly blurted from across the room as he quickly stepped forward to examine the chaps. “How old are they, and do you know the maker? I can get you a thousand dollars for these at a collector’s auction.”

“Oh really?” I replied as the buttons popped off my shirt. “Yeah, I know who made them alright. As a matter of a fact, I know they are a one-of-a-kind.” (At last, I found someone who understood the true value of fine, handmade leather work.) “I think I better take them home because they are too valuable to chop up and use as a picture frame.” So I did.

I told you this story because the 2010 campaign season is just around the corner and I wanted you to hear it from me first. The socialists always accuse me of being born with the proverbial silver-spoon in my mouth. (It is on page one of their “How to Defeat a Conservative” playbook.) Obviously, they know about my thousand dollar chaps, but now you know the rest of the story. I have trophy chaps because I earned them!