Tony, I think it’s a cowboy thing. You know, John Wayne, the Marlboro Man, and Ronald Reagan in their big white cowboy hats. Ron DeSantis’ wears cowboy boots with lifts in them and city slicker heels, not riding heels. Trump donned a white cowboy hat and Trump cowboy memes popped up like crazy (google it and giggle).
When you are riding the range, or driving cattle, you get dust and pollen in your nose. Your sinuses clean that junk out with a post-nasal drip in the back of your throat (and that tickles like crazy, so you have to spit that stuff out your mouth). If you spit on your horse, the dust will turn to mud and that is super hard to get off. If you’re going to spit on horseback, you have to spit really far. You need a big lugee to cross the distance, but with a little practice you can learn to do it. Yes, cowgirls spit too (you kind of have to).
Cowboys don’t carry boxes of Kleenex and there are no washing machines on the trail. Like masks we wore during covid, cowboys wear kerchiefs to keep the dust out of their nose and mouth. Using your kerchief as a hankie is a bad idea. Snot will dry and glue your kerchief to your beard and mustache.
Cowboy culture has rules. One of those rules is no spitting in town, no spitting on sidewalks and no spitting in front of girls and women.
When it comes to white masculinity in America, the cowboy set the standard. The rugged, independent, outdoors-man with a rifle in his saddle, a Marlboro in his teeth, and a really good spitter who doesn’t need anyone or anything but his horse, his boots and his hat.
America urbanized, and along came cowboy posers; urban cowboys, city slickers, dime-store cowboys, rhinestone cowboys, and all hat and no cattle presidential candidates in big white hats and cowboy boots.
Spitting is all about looking like a man. While I could be wrong, I married a cowboy so I kind of doubt it. Cowboys are a rare breed among men. About a week ago, Turkish Olympic sharpshooter, Yusuf Dikec went viral. I saw that man shoot and thought, now there’s a cowboy.
