The moment when Paul Kramer”™s romantic little hobby became something more occurred while urging his horse out of a draw in the Wyoming wilderness. While ducking low to avoid an overhanging branch on the upward slope, a branch caught his collar like the iron grip of a ranch foreman, yanking him backward and sending him crashing to the dust.
The new CEO of Westport-based Catapult Action-Biased Marketing was hurt but good ”“ and on his own more than a mile from camp. What”™s more, his horse showed little patience for a rider who could not keep his seat.
“That horse looks back at me and basically says, ”˜I”™m out of here,”™” Kramer recalled.
It was not exactly a scene fit for the cover of a Louis L”™Amour novel. Hardly an expert cowhand, about the only thing Kramer had going for him was persuasiveness born of a career in marketing. Through some fast talk and faster thinking ”“ including rattling some rocks in his Stetson to simulate grain in a feedbag ”“ he managed to corral the horse and limp his way back to camp.
As it turns out, Kramer had fractured a vertebral bone ”“ not life threatening, but nevertheless a reminder of the perils borne daily by the men of the West of yore who more often than not had to shake off injuries suffered on the range.
Kramer has seen it himself ”“ there was the time a burro kicked the arm of the outfitter guide who was leading Kramer and fellow trail riding enthusiasts, fracturing the arm. For the guide, Kramer”™s group represented a $7,000-plus payday ”“ and the guide gutted it out, with Kramer”™s friend Ron Thomas fashioning him a splint from a soup ladle.
Kramer has ridden with Thomas and a half-dozen other friends for more than a dozen years. It started out as a cordial, wedding-day suggestion from his in-law Uncle Charlie to come out to the Arizona horse ranch for some riding. Having never stepped into a stirrup, he spent the next four years fending off Charlie Moore, until the day came when his wife Catherine announced she needed a vacation, and chastened him to man up, cowboy up or do whatever it took to get out there.
Uncle Charlie changed Kramer”™s life. With just a handful of riding lessons under his belt, he found himself that spring taking in the sights, scents and sounds of a blooming San Rafael Valley from horseback, Mexico”™s mountain ranges visible off to the south and Arizona”™s Huachuca Mountains to the north.
The moment has never left him, and neither has his passion for the saddle and trail.
It has been an experience that has tracked the arc of life with its triumphs, trials, laughs and tears. Kramer began riding spring and fall in Arizona and other Western wilds, falling into step with a “posse” of likeminded trail-riders.
Three years after first showing Kramer the ropes of the range life, Charlie Moore died of cancer. His ashes were spread on a ridge not far from the slope where he dared his nephew-in-law to overcome his fears on his first trail ride and negotiate down a modest slope that might just as well have been Pike”™s Peak to Kramer.
The taciturn ex-Marine Ron Thomas took Kramer under his wing ”“ Kramer won”™t soon forget his uneasiness after receiving a gruff phone call from Thomas, instructing him to come out a day early that year for “a little talk” in his words. Upon arriving in Arizona, Thomas gave Kramer a tongue-in-cheek tongue lashing over his Western garb, and took him shopping to outfit him with a proper hat and attire.
The burro kick that prompted Thomas”™ field splint comically occurred in a tree. Under Kramer”™s watch, the burro “Turtle” attempted to scramble up a steep slope, only to have the weight of its pack send it tumbling backwards over a small precipice and into a tree below.
Kramer chuckles at the memory, only to have his eyes well over Thomas”™ current predicament following heart surgery gone awry.
“The friendships that you make when you are riding the range ”¦ and the opportunity to talk about life, politics, business ”“ it”™s a richer experience because you are waking up with these gentlemen and going to sleep with them, and you are at times in literally life-and-death situations with them,” Kramer said.
After years of riding along Western mesas, canyons and valleys, Kramer has fully adopted the wardrobe Thomas picked out for him all those years ago ”“ and the lifestyle it represents. He wears Wranglers, boots and big belt buckles to work; his small office is festooned with a cattle skull, photos from trail rides and other art; and he has adopted his management style to reflect what author Jim Owens calls the “Cowboy Ethic.”
“When dealing with a horse, what I have learned is sometimes to let it have its head,” Kramer said. “I brought that to the business world, in that there is more than one way to get home. At one time I was quite a controlling manager, but ”¦ now if there is more than one way to get there, I let people find their own way.”
