"Cowboy", a Unique Modern Minstrel, is Still Living His Dream...(June 16, 2006 SB SUN).. A Little bit of Local Color...

"Cowboy," a unique modern minstrel, is still living his dream By GEORGINE LOVELAND, CORRESPONDENT

The man called Cowboy was given a birth certificate that had no name on it. "They (his parents) never gave me a name! I guess that means that I can call myself anything that I want, right? I think so," he said. "I found this out when my mother and a notary did some `paperwork,' so I could join the Marines in 1946. I was 15. Mom called me Vern (Acree) and I answered to that, but I always liked the name Roy, and used that for a while; also, Johnny Colorado. Now, I'm just Cowboy." Cowboy was born May 10, 1930, in Borger, Texas, near Amarillo, on the vast and lonely Texas panhandle. His mother, Annie Lee Hawkins Acree, was born in 1893 to a musical family, in a covered wagon near Breckenridge, Texas, a tad southwest of Mineral Wells. Her father, Pete Hawkins, was a trail boss who was leading the wagons to Oklahoma at the time of the land rush. The wagons had been delayed because they couldn't cross over the north fork of the Red River due to high water and had to circle the wagons to wait it out. Finally, the settlers were able to make their way to Oklahoma and homesteaded a claim near Sayre in southwestern Oklahoma. One day, the singer/songwriter explained, "My father rode into town, and my mother married him, even though her family strongly disapproved." The couple had nine children, eight survived. "One day, during the Great Depression, my father went for milk at the next farm and just kept going." Annie Lee's family wouldn't help her very much. "We told you so," her parents told her, so two of little Vern's brothers dug a large hole in a hill on their claim and that is where the family of nine lived. It had dirt steps and a dirt floor. They all slept in a chicken feather bed in the back of the dugout and when the rain came through, Annie Lee would say, "Nobody moves!" She would put a jar under the leak and if any of the children even rolled over, it would spill all over the bed. They hauled water more than a mile and she would boil it over and over to wash the dishes without having to go back for more. "Facilities" were designated trees and bushes -- one area for the girls and one for the boys. Often, when it rained, critters would come in through the roof. "We dealt with centipedes, they were the worst, spiders, chiggers and snakes." When one of the children was bitten, chewed tobacco juice was used on the bite. Vern was shy and stuttered, kind of a loner. He made a pet out of a blue racer snake that he spotted while climbing a tree. Blue racers aren't poisonous, but they are fast and will whip around and chase whatever is nearby. The little boy and the snake chased each other for fun all the time. One day, he asked his mother what his heritage was. "Scotch, Irish, Dutch and devil, and mostly devil," she answered. "Now go away and leave me alone." The family never had much to eat. Their mother would gather roots, wild greens, grapes and plums, and the boys hunted rabbits and other small game with slingshots. Eventually, the eldest children left, and Annie Lee and the younger ones moved to a small house in town near a hobo camp. Cowboy remembers hanging on to his mother's apron strings when a hobo knocked on the door. The man had just a few pennies and wanted to work for food. When Annie Lee told him her story, the man turned around and gave her his pennies. "Ma'am, you need these more than I do," he told her. It was about this time that Vern set his heart on a cutaway guitar, decorated in Hawaiian style with a palm tree design, that he spotted in a local pawnshop. He had tried to create a guitar out of an old cigar box, but was defeated by the strings he tried to attach. "I've always loved sounds," he said. He "chopped" (picked) cotton and worked as hard as he could to buy that guitar. His mother helped him and finally, it was his. He has played guitar ever since. "Old-timers would cut the rattles off snakes and put them inside their guitars," he said. "It gave the music a special kind of `shushy' sound effect." Cowboy stepped out into the world at age 12 when one of his brothers sent him a train ticket to Portland, Ore. There he learned the ways of the city and his shyness started to disappear. His brother later moved to Shafter, Calif., where Vern attended high school. He quit in the 10th grade and returned to Oklahoma with the idea of joining the Marines. He served for three years as an ordnance expert and started his professional musical career during that time, playing in honky- tonks, clubs, at special events and anywhere that his band, the Feather River Boys, could find a gig. In 1955, they performed at the grand opening of Disneyland and in 1949, the Spade Cooley Show. Cowboy sang with Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers. He had a special friendship with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and their son, Dusty. They were "super people," he remembered. Cowboy is well-known in Rancho Cucamonga and the Inland Empire for his original songs and his performances at the strawberry stands on Archibald Avenue and Base Line Road, where he takes care of business and also entertains his customers. First-timers are amazed at his talents and are delighted by his humor. He is very proud of an autographed photo of Johnny Hammer, who was the lead guitarist for Merle Haggard. Hammer admired Cowboy's rendition of "Back in the Saddle Again," faithfully reproducing Pat Butram's recording. He finishes with a steer's bellow. Rancho Cucamonga Mayor Bill Alexander presented the photo as a surprise during a performance of the "Golden Follies" in Montclair. "I have played music for most of my life," Cowboy said. "I have been on television and made some records here and there, but I have never given up on my dream of creating a song that would catch on. Even at my age, I know I can do it. I think I've got some very good songs and I'm going to find out what people think. I think there should be a lot more music. People should whistle and hum a lot more. It would be helpful." To this end, Cowboy is working on a CD that will include "Cucamonga Blues," a local favorite, "Eating Strawberries and Drinking Cold Beer," "Skate Board Boogie Man," "Weekender" and "Jay Walking Man." He is working on the project with a former member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and others. "It isn't cowboy music," he said. "I'm a real cowboy, but I don't have cowboy ways. I'm always trying to jump the fence. It gets me into trouble." A few years ago, Cowboy suffered a near-fatal heart attack while working at the strawberry stand on Base Line in Rancho Cucamonga. Customers spotted his upraised arm in the back of the stand and called 9-1-1. He underwent a stent procedure and then a quadruple bypass. "My brain keeps saying, `I'm all right,' and my doctor keeps saying, `Stop jumping fences.' " The music man/philosopher always tells his customers and friends, when they are leaving clutching their baskets of giant strawberries -- "Remember now, God loves you and so does the Cowboy."