Ambulance rescues cowboy’s meaningful hat

Jack Kellogg has been in the hat business for more than 40 years, but he had a first this week.

He was at his Hatman Jack’s Wichita Hat Works in Delano when a man came in and said, “I have a customer out in the ambulance.”

Kellogg went outside to meet Tex Bedford, a 76-year-old who was lying on a gurney in the back of a private medical transport vehicle waiting to discuss his hat.

“All I can tell you is it was a first in my trade,” Kellogg said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

Of course, it wasn’t just any hat. It was Bedford’s most tangible link to a son who died several years ago.

And as Kellogg talked with him in the ambulance, Bedford was exact in how he wanted his hat to be shaped.

“He said, ‘I want a Gus crease, and I want a low tailwind with a slight bull rider in the front,’” Kellogg said. “‘And by the way, would you put me in a stampede strap?’”

Kellogg knew just what he meant.

“He happened to know how to speak my language,” Kellogg said. “It’s very colorful language.”

What Bedford meant is he wanted a crease in the hat like Augustus “Gus” McCrae had in “Lonesome Dove,” not the Hoss Cartwright rounded top the hat previously had.

The low tailwind meant he wanted a roll in the brim that comes toward the front of the hat, and a slight bull rider meant he wanted a little dip in the brim in the front only.

A stampede strap is a chin strap that a cowboy typically uses to keep his hat on in any circumstance, such as a stampede. Bedford expects to have need for it one day.

For now, though, he’s confined to a bed on his daughter’s ranch northwest of Peabody. Bedford isn’t sure what’s wrong – if it’s his hips or something else – but he’s been this way for a year. He was in a wheelchair before that.

There’s a reason the hat means so much to Bedford.

Around 2006, Bedford said, he asked his son, Darrell, what would be a meaningful present to get him.

“A Western hat like you wear,” his son answered.

So Bedford and his son made the almost hour drive to Hatman Jack’s to get one.

Bedford had been making up for lost time with his son. For more than three decades, Bedford said, he worked for Associated Milk Producers in Hillsboro.

“I was really dedicated to my work,” he said. “I almost lost my wife over it.”

Then Bedford started doing long-distance hauling and his son joined him for a while on cross-country trips.

“We got to know … one another,” Bedford said.

A couple of years after Bedford gave his son the hat, Darrell Bedford became ill.

“We spent a lot of time together when he got sick,” Bedford said.

Darrell Bedford died in 2008, and the hat sat in his room for years until his mother had a garage sale.

“I got home and saw the hat out there,” Bedford said. “She had it marked up for a dollar. It’s about a $300 hat. … I said, ‘My god, woman, what are you doing?’”

His wife reasoned that the hat didn’t fit him.

“So one day I just called Hatman Jack, and I explained my problem,” Bedford said. “He said, ‘Sure, we can fix that.’”

His next issue was how to get there.

Ulysses-based Critical Care Transfer was bringing him to Wichita on Tuesday for some medical appointments.

“Normally, we have to go from point A to point B,” said Debra Barbo, who owns the company with her husband. “Occasionally we can detour as long as it’s on the way.”

Bedford said he didn’t always suffer from medical issues.

Earl Lester Bedford was once a 6-foot-2, 170-pound 15-year-old, “hard as a rock” with strong arms from milking cows on his family’s farm in Tunkhannock, Pa. He used to watch Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy films.

“I just thought that’s what I wanted to do someday – be a cowboy.”

School used to let out early when the rodeo came to town, and once he went early to talk to a cowboy.

“I said, ‘Hey, what do I have to do to be a cowboy?’”

The cowboy grabbed an old hat and pair of boots from his truck and gave them to Bedford.

“He said, ‘OK, you’re a cowboy.’”

That night, Bedford said, one of the cowboys who paid an entry fee for a bull-riding contest didn’t show.

“They were fumbling around trying to find somebody to take his place, so this cowboy put his arm around me and said, ‘Here’s your opportunity.’

“He said, ‘Get on there, Tex.’ They put me on that bull, and I was so scared.”

Bedford said he hung on for eight seconds and received $25 – a big sum in those days.

“I don’t know whether I had a gentler bull or was I just scared so much I just hung on for dear life.”

His new name stuck, and he eventually went on to earn a living on the East Coast rodeo circuit for 11 years.

These days, Bedford is far from the cowboy life. He said he’s stuck in a room that’s about 8-by-12 feet and has only a narrow view out of a window obstructed by curtains and a shade.

He naps on and off and said he finds himself watching the designs the light makes on his ceiling.

“That’s not me,” Bedford said.

He said he’s also ballooned to about 300 pounds because “the only thing I’ve got to do to entertain myself is eat.”

Bedford said the Veterans Administration is helping him with a scooter and a lift for his truck as soon as he’s able to sit up.

“Listen, girl,” he said, “I’m not going to lay down in this bed forever.”

Bedford got his hat back Tuesday. It’s a connection to his son that he can keep close.

“I miss my son so much,” said Bedford, growing emotional.

“It’s the only thing that I’ve really got that reminds me of him.”

This story was originally published September 3, 2015 at 7:07 PM with the headline "Ambulance rescues cowboy’s meaningful hat."