This week I’m hosting Arlene James with The Cowboy’s Christmas Gift in Yuletide Cowboys (worldwide) and Virelle Kidder with Is That You, God? (US only). If you want to enter the drawings for any of these books, please leave a comment on your post with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (November 22nd) evening.
Interview with the hero from The Cowboy’s Christmas Gift in Yuletide Cowboys by Arlene James
1. Matt Ender, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
You sure you want to know this? Really? Okay, here goes. I’m a calf roper and horse trainer whose two career paths intersected at just the wrong moment in just the wrong way, with the result being that I just about lost my thumb. You know what happens when a horseman loses his thumb? He loses the ability to hold a rope or a rein or a picking string, let alone to hold those things against the weight and power of a calf or a horse. Thankfully, a savvy surgeon was able to put everything back together. He set the bones, put all the muscles, tendons and flesh back in place. It’s not pretty, and it put an end to my best season of rodeo to date, but I’ve got a grip. Thank God!
2. What do you do for fun?
Working with horses is all I know and all I ever wanted to do. I’d rather be doing that than anything else I can think of. I can be a big old cut-up, but when it comes down to pure enjoyment, I always find that on horseback.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
Laundry. I’d rather buy new than wash the old. Some of my jeans stand up by themselves. LOL.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
Failing those who depend on me. My dad died in an accident when I was a boy, and I always feared that I failed him. Grandma Sheryl says otherwise, but it’s hard to let go of something like that.
5. What do you want out of life?
I want to help Grandma save and build the ranch. Funny, there was a time I couldn’t stay far enough away from the old home place, but since my injury I’ve come to understand that I’ve been foolish about that and somewhat irresponsible, too. That’s all changed now, though.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
Faith and family, in that order. I had to get the first one straight before I could figure out the other, though.
7. Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite type of book?
I read lots of training manuals and agricultural and business stuff, as well as the rodeo news. For entertainment, though, give me a good old-fashioned western. The occasional thriller is fun, too.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Man, I can be real slow on the upswing. You know? Sometimes you’ve just got to spell it out for me in big block capital letters. I guess I just don’t trust my own feelings sometimes, and I don’t read other people’s feelings real well, either. I think we all ought to have to wear those mood rings, like back in the 1960s, so everyone knows exactly what’s going on, except I’m not sure those things worked all that well.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
Do horses count as pets? My stud, Blue, is just about the finest roping horse that ever was, and in some ways he’s my best friend. He’s my fortune, too. He’s going to breed up the best line of roping horses in history, and I’m going to train them. You wait and see. We already got ropers signing up for Blue’s offspring.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
I’d have to go back to that day my dad died, and this time I’d be there. Maybe I couldn’t change anything, but I’d be there. Maybe the tractor wouldn’t have rolled over on him then, or maybe I could’ve brought help in time to save him. Maybe all I could have done was hold his hand, but at least he wouldn’t have been alone, and I wouldn’t carry all this guilt for not doing what I was told that day.
