Veterans of PBS' 'Texas Ranch House' reveal secrets to survival

12:00 AM CST on Tuesday, January 17, 2006

By ED BARK / The Dallas Morning News

PASADENA, Calif. – Deep in the heat of Texas, 15 two-legged guinea pigs suffer, bicker and party like it's 1867.

Texas Ranch House, PBS' latest full-immersion rewind to comparatively primitive times, is intended to make Survivor look like patty-cake. Home base is an isolated ranch 40 miles south of Alpine, where "our intrepid group of ranchers and cowboys had to brave 110-degree heat while living on 47,000 acres of brush, dust, ravines, quicksand and rattlesnakes," brags executive producer Jody Sheff.

Nine of the participants, all outfitted in cowboy garb, candidly relived some of their experiences at a Friday night palaver. Let's just say that some of the men rubbed their privates raw while on horseback while all concerned had to find substitutes for toilet paper.

"Wiping your butt with a stick or a smooth rock gets kind of old after a while," opined 20-year-old Shaun Terhune of Vermont.

"The rest of us were using corn husks, but Shaun had his own system," added Jared Ficklin, 30, a city slicker descendant of pony express co-founder Benjamin Ficklin. "That's the secret, corn husks. Wet with a little water, and they work very well."

It's another way of saying that PBS is doing its level best to de-romanticize the West with its eight-hour sequel to Frontier House and Colonial House. Narrated by native Texan Randy Quaid, the series premieres on May 1 and runs through May 4.

"Hollywood's version is a colorful mix of Roy Rogers, Clint Eastwood and John Wayne," Ms. Sheff said. "And it's a myth that Texas Ranch House debunks. Our cowboys and our ranchers worked their butts off. And as they discovered, you work until you're done or until it's too dark to see."

Shooting lasted almost three months last summer, with Southern Californians Bill and Lisa Cooke and their three daughters at center stage.

"Flies were the worst aspect of this whole experience," said 17-year-old Lacey Cooke. "It was almost intolerable at some points."

Added Hannah, 14: "The last two weeks, we could not go in our kitchen. When you walked in, the flies were around you everywhere."

Maura Finkelstein, a 25-year-old anthropologist from Washington, D.C., got stuck with being the Cookes' "appointed servant."

"I was very angry," she said. "I actually thought that I might have the possibility of starting out as a cowboy and not necessarily the maid. So it was a disappointment at first."

There were no romantic entanglements – at least not of the sort one might expect.

"I think the cowboys were more interested in the cows than the girls," said Vienna Cooke, 19. "It's actually a love story. There were rumors about night visits to Becky the milk cow. It's true."

The cowboys had no comment, but co-producer Luis Barreto perked up.

"It's that kind of show, huh?" he riposted. "I had no idea."

E-mail ebark@dallasnews.com

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