‘It’s Been a Wondrous Career’

Jack Sorenson remembers the day his cowboy lifestyle collided with his dreams of being an artist. He was 9 years old and helping to break a horse on the family’s dude ranch and frontier town located on the rim of the Palo Duro Canyon—not far from Amarillo, Texas. He remembers being bucked off that horse—and he remembers what he was thinking as it happened.

“Between the time I left the saddle and the time I hit the ground, I had the thought to protect my right arm,” Sorenson says. Now, as he turns 70, the toll of all the tumbles he took breaking in a total of 96 horses during his youth has caught up to him.

“I’m paying for it now,” he says. He’s been sleeping sitting up for several years because of the pain in his left arm—but he’s hopeful that the surgery to repair his torn rotator cuff will fix that. And he’s grateful that he was wise enough to protect his right arm, even as a child.

Read the full article in the September/October 2024 issue.