Most of my cousins on my mother's side of the family are cowboys and farmers. Some of them are very intelligent, and the one who is a veterinarian pioneered arthroscopic surgery on race horses. His brother, my cousin Norman, was a math genius in college and could have gone far in the field of computer science. But his dad told him computers were just a fad and he was better off being a cowboy.

So Norm worked for the Ute Indian tribe, running their range cattle. They wintered in Cuba, New Mexico, and then he trailered them up near Blue Mesa Reservoir in southern Colorado (near Gunnison) for summer range.

Things were going along for him until the late 1970s when a neighboring rancher, who had been rustling the Utes' cattle, disappeared. Norm was the last person seen with the guy, and he was a suspect, except they never found a body, so it's just a mystery. Norm moved to South Dakota, got married, and has lived there ever since.

He has an upholstery shop and breeds pedigreed cow dogs.

Some of you may remember the Christmas letters I post once in awhile - the ones by the woman who cans 100 quarts of tomatoes a year from their garden - that's Norm's wife.

Norm in 1984:


Norman's family didn't have TV when he was a kid, so they learned to entertain themselves with wood carving and learning how to crochet, even the boys. The other day on Facebook I noticed he had posted several pictures of doilies and handkerchiefs with tatted edges, and turns out Norm taught himself how to tat from videos on the Internet.





He embroiders, too, but says he doesn't feel as competent as he does with the tatting.



Tatting is one of those skills that generally has to be taught by someone - it's hard to learn out of a book, but I guess videos are almost as good as in person.

He also makes fancy bridles: