Built With Cowboy Quality
Name recognition products didn’t just happen in our present age. Long before radio and television, even among the cowboys and ranchers of the Old West, certain brand names meant quality built.
Quality Western Hats and Boots
John B. Stetson made hats. He fashioned wide-brimmed, high crowned, beaver felt hats like no one else ever had. They were so well made that a man only had to have one Stetson in his lifetime, unless some footpad or sneak thief stole it.
Another man, Joe Justin, settled into an old Spanish fort at the Texas side of the Red River, and began creating boots in 1879. Without help from an advertising agency or basketball star endorsers, he managed to gain such a reputation that a pair of Justin’s still denotes quality boots.
Quality Spurs
Over in El Paso, another Texan began practicing his craft. As a young boy in Childress, P.M. (Pascal Moreland) Kelly listened to the cowboy punchers complain about what was wrong with the bits and spurs they used. Determined to do better, P.M. Kelly set out with a few tools and his younger sister to make quality bits and spurs. He sold everything he could make directly to the cowboys who lined up to purchase them. Owning a pair of Kelley’s set a man in the highest class of punchers.
Try buying a pair of Kelly bits or spurs today at an auction and you’ll have to get a bank mortgage to cover it. You see, it’s hard to beat a reputation for quality.
Quality Built Homes
Most of us spend our days building things. Oh, I don’t mean merely the shelves in the kitchen or the dollhouse for Suzy or the rebuilt ’55 Chevy convertible. We build a family, a marriage, a relationship, or a ministry. But I wonder what kind of reputation accompanies our construction?
Is your family the John B. Stetson of your neighborhood? Is your marriage going to last a lifetime like a pair of Justin boots? Are the things you’re doing for the Lord as everlasting as a pair of Kelly’s? Well, we’ll all find out one day.
The Bible says the day will come that heavenly fire tests the quality of each man’s work (1 Corinthians 3:13). Maybe it’s time to take a more careful look at what we’re building. You know, it’s not too late to figure out the effort required to do works to last for eternity.
Stephen Bly
Circa 1996
Cowboy Gear Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Fire and Man Image by ANDRI TEGAR MAHARDIKA from Pixabay
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