Jack of Harts

I met Ken Banno in Texas, back when all us volunteers were going through our basic Marine training. He was just a small, Japanese guy when I first saw him. Yes, please don’t hate on me too much, I did not recognize him. In my defense, I never did follow surfer culture much. If he’d been a worlds famous singer I probably would have recognized him. But a surfer? It took me a while. Yes, I did know his public persona, and I fully recognized him on screen or holo, but no one expects a worlds famous Japanese celebrity surfer to show up in the middle of “Oh-My-God-Hot-and-Dry” Texas to go through Marine training. So yeah, it took me a while to recognize Buckaroo Banno walking around in our midst in the flesh. Go ahead. Sue me. I’m not perfect.

Jay Lovato’s battles are waged in marble buildings, in front of men in black suits and power ties. That doesn’t make them any less deadly than the battles we fight out on the edge of known space. Most of us could never fight his battles. There are powerful people on Earth who want us disavowed entirely, and he fights them every day. On the networks. In the halls of Congress. On the streets of small towns all over America. Jay has adapted to his battlefield, and his calm smile and ability to put even the smallest children at ease has kept all of us in the game far longer than we would have without him. He works every day to be the gentle giant of Earth, the example people to think of when they hear the word Cowboy. He’s fought that battle for decades, and he’s fought it well. We all owe him for that.

Jay is one of the biggest reasons Cowboys are still welcome on Earth and her oldest colonies. He brought many of her richest sons and daughters home. He built some of the best Cowboy Country’s in known space. I kid you not. I’ve visited most of them, and they’re impressive monuments to the greatness of Earth and her very best champions. Open to the public for all to remember us, while also a home for any of us to stretch out and relax in. One of his missions was to make the Cowboys a simple part of life for everybody, so he volunteers us to march in county parades, show up on talk and game shows, and all the little things that most of us don’t think about. He does. He is a politician’s son, and he’s always looking for another way to show us off as normal people who bleed and die like anyone else born on Earth and beyond. He is a master at it, and we’re all better for it.