Marlboro Man - Transcript

Most people who live in Nebraska Sandhills grew up there. So harsh and foreboding are these vast grasslands, the locals like to think, that few would have the nerve and the grit to move here.

To an outsider like Margaret Fouletica, a young single businesswoman from Malibu, a visit to the Sandhills was like a trip to the Twilight Zone. Never in her wildest dreams did she expect to stay.'

[John Sibbitt:] "Margaret."

[Margaret Falotico:] "Yeah."

[John Sibbitt:] "Clean the overflow out on this one, Hon, so it'll run over in there. On the inside. Yeah, right there. That's it.

"Margaret's pretty mean with that pitchfork. She's good at that."

[Margaret Falotico:] "Oh boy."

[John Sibbitt:] "There's that Los Angeles cowgirl."

[Margaret Falotico:] "Yeah, I hope they appreciate it, those ol' cows. I don't just clean out anybody's sink."

When Margaret's Uncle Frank died and her family inherited the 112-year-old Lynch Circle Ranch north of Hyannis, Margaret volunteered to settle the estate.

[Margaret Falotico:] "It was 1995 and I just really came to make an inventory of what... what we had. And I thought, well, I'll just spend a week out there and I'll get my list. Bring it home and then I'll know how much we've got.

"And after the first week I realized this is going to take more than a week because there was so much stuff. So I thought, well, take a month. And then... I... I looked over the situation and my... one of my brothers came out and I realized that it was going to take even more than a month. In fact, I knew it would probably take a year and I was just heart-sunk."

The first year Margaret contended with feckless ranch hands, snowstorms, estate taxes and sick cattle. She was in trouble and she knew it. She turned to a fellow rancher for help.

[John Sibbitt:] "She was so alone when she was down on the ranch out there. Her folks was clear in California and she just had hired men. And there was times when there was nobody out there on the ranch but her. That didn't seem like a good thing.

[Margaret Falotico:] "That's how I met John, was I thought... I will just escape, but I will talk to someone who people had told me to stay away from because he was such a shrewd businessman. And if I began to tell him any of our business he would for sure abscond with it or something.

"And I decided, look, just come out and look at my cattle and just sort of help me figure out what to do because I know we can't continue the way we are.

"The first time we met was in the post office. And I was getting my mail and John was getting his mail and sorting through it. John was... oh, you didn't have this jacket on but you had jeans and your scarf, hat just so. I remember you were... you took your mail and I said, you look like you just stepped out of a western. And then you looked at me and I thought, oh what a stupid thing to say. I don't even know this man and it was just...

"And you squinted your eyes and you said... 'Ma'am, I am a western.' And then he just turned around and left. Then I found out that was John Sibbert."

[John Sibbitt:] "Yeah. That was our first meeting."

"Well, that will hold 'em for a couple days."

[Margaret Falotico:] "Hey, John, did you ever like take a lick out of there yourself?"

[John Sibbitt:] "I like it, yeah."

[Margaret Falotico:] "John used to be a cow in his former life. I know that's really not a... a way of thinking most people believe in and I don't really believe in it but... after you talk to John you know that it must be true. And when I started asking him questions about ranching on my ranch I used to ask him about his life as a cow.

"And what was the name of your cow? What was your name?"

[John Sibbitt:] "Agatha."

[Margaret Falotico:] "But anytime I had a question about cows on the ranch, and you started to answer my question... I'd say, I don't want to hear from you. I need to hear from Agatha. And then you... and then you would... you would immediately... You would turn into her."

[John Sibbitt:] "Remember the cow on your ranch that was standing in the waterhole with all these cows and I said, that cow is going to die."

[Margaret Falotico:] "Not only did you say she was going to die, you said she was going to die in twenty minutes. She died in fifteen."

[John Sibbitt:] "She did."

[Margaret Falotico:] "Yeah."

[John Sibbitt:] "She was standing there drinking and I said, she's going to die. She had that look in her eye. I can... I can tell. See, I was a cow."

[Margaret Falotico:] "Yeah, well don't you get that look in your eye is all I can say."

[John Sibbitt:] "Okay."

The man Margaret would marry would have what the writer Gretel Erlich calls that odd mixture of physical vigor and maternalism. Like other ranchers he is a midwife, a nurturer, a provider and a conservationist. She had found a Marlboro Man with fringed chaps, crooked spurs and a belt buckle the size of a salad plate. He also had the paradoxical tenderness she may not ever fully comprehend.

"And after a year I realized how much I didn't know."

[John Sibbitt:] "Yep, you did."

[Margaret Falotico:] "So I had nothing but humility. I... well, there was no... I didn't want to pretend anyway, but..."

[John Sibbitt:] "But once Margaret found out that I was telling the truth and... wasn't lying to her, and I didn't want anything. Just the truth and educate her, we did. And as we went along the... went along this educationally, naturally I feel in love with her."

[Margaret Falotico:] "Oh-h-h."

[John Sibbitt:] "And I got her to be my partner."

[Margaret Falotico:] "Got so we'd drive over the ranch. We'd look at the cattle and... and then got in the airplane and fly over it and... and talk about, let's use this pasture for winter and let's use this for summer instead of vice versa, and change it around and... And of course, that's... she had piles of hay on the ranch that hadn't ever been used so... and I got her... She didn't know what to do with it and it didn't take... I knew people that want the hay and brought cattle there and fed up her hay which... paid her expenses. It was easy to help her.

"We can say anything to each other. We under... understand each other. Exceptionally well for... an old cowboy and a young beautiful girl.

"On an emotional side, if I would get low and lonely... You... you would always just say, you have to cowboy up. Right. That's just how it is out here."

[John Sibbitt:] "Yeah."

[Margaret Falotico:] "You cut no slack... no sentimentality..."

[John Sibbitt:] "There are more lows in this country than there are highs so we got to make our highs and... and cowboy up. Don't let that low last. Set it aside."

[Margaret Falotico:] "Right. And don't talk about it too much."

[John Sibbitt:] "Oh yeah, yeah. Don't... don't elaborate on lows.

"I never felt really lonely, and I've been alone a lot. When I batched as a young man and then... in-between wives, why I had long spells of being alone. But... no, I really... I guess I just... part of the life that I live, I was part of it.

"I didn't mind at all, sitting up all night in the cold calving shed waiting for a couple of cows to have their calf or... to go get them in or whatever it took.

[Margaret Falotico:] "It's actually good that we're not... On the ranch whether you work on a ranch or whether you're just part of the town, you're known for who you are inside. But you're not known for the kind of pick-up you drive, or the kind of shoes you wear, or anything other than just who you are. That is a great lesson to have in life, and not everybody gets that."

[John Sibbitt:] "She told me one time, she says she'd listen to all this and thought back on things. She says I need what you've got. And I was passing it on to her and... that's what... the way she put it."

[Margaret Falotico:] "I think that there comes a time in your life when you don't have a choice. That's what I call a personal astrology, and I don't believe in the big astrology or horoscopes, but I do believe that there are times when the constellation of people, circumstances and event come into such an alignment that an opportunity presents itself and you can't run away from it. And there's no other door, you've got to go through it, and that's what it was for me."

The story of Margaret and John is a story of being profoundly needed and wanted. Of love gone deep into friendship. It is also an improbable story of a young woman who could have taken the corporate path and forged a life in one of the world's cement jungles, but didn't. And an old-time Sandhills rancher, who was not wanting to get married again but did.

Perhaps it's a story that doesn't make much sense, doesn't conform to our notion of how relationships work and what makes a marriage last. We might wonder when reality will come crashing in. But whose reality? Another old rancher perhaps put it best. He said, Reality has never been of much use out here.

It had to be you-u-u. It had to be you-u-u. I wandered around, finally found somebody who-o-o could make me be true...