Papa can’t cope when baby grows up to be cowgirl

However, some people are more daring than the rest of us. I got the shock of my life when I discovered that my Italian daughter and her fiancée were inspired by the movie “City Slickers” to fly to a dude ranch in Montana and do what our people do best — rope steers, ride the dusty trails, gnaw on chewing tobacco, shoot shotguns and dance with wolves. (Italians do the tarantella with wolves.)

My first reaction was, “Why the heck didn’t they go to the Holy Land or Tuscany or some place where you could get a cannoli?”

My second reaction was “You gotta be kidding me,” when my wife told me that in addition to the organic spa products, they received a can of bear spray (non-organic) to keep away the grizzlies and mountain lions. I don’t know what they gave them for rattlers.

I wondered what motivated this career girl with a job in Midtown Manhattan to head to the Great Plains and stay at a 37,000-acre working ranch, where Black Angus cows roamed through the pastures and elk wandered around like pigeons in Central Park. Was it the cattle drives, the hoedowns, the white-water rafting or the axe-throwing? Hey, we have axe-throwing in Connecticut. There’s no need to leave home.

This is a kid whose idea of adventure used to be an afternoon shopping at Nordstrom with lunch at 21, so I wonder what happened when she got in line at the chuck wagon for an evening entree of bison tacos and bear stew.

I realize now that she’s on the cutting edge because Beyoncé just launched a Western clothes line with denim chaps and everything the stylish cowgirl needs to make a fashion statement at the rodeo or on Rodeo Drive. I can’t wait to buy one of her 10-gallon hats to wear on Metro-North.

On the first day, my daughter did clay target shooting with a 20-gauge shotgun and then rode her stallion along the ridge, which was the closest she’s ever been to a horse, except for that time on the carousel at Lake Compounce.

She got these genes from her mother, who had her own pony as a little girl and wanted to be like Annie Oakley, who shot playing cards with a Marlin 22-caliber rifle manufactured in New Haven while standing on a galloping steed.

And just like Brad Pitt in “A River Runs Through It,” my daughter went fly fishing on the legendary Blackfoot River and reeled in a rainbow trout. At that point, I got envious.

I always wanted to live in a state with great trout streams, where people have names such as Dusty, Rusty and Lusty. I’m a rugged individualist at heart even though I wear my face mask 24/7 and carry a bottle of hand sanitizer in my shirt pocket.

Dude ranches began 140 years ago when Teddy Roosevelt — a Harvard graduate, Rough Rider, conservationist and our 26th president — popularized the idea of Western adventure. He was a sickly kid who loved natural history and was drawn to the West so much that he bought a ranch in the Dakotas.

The term “dude” described the cultural elitists of that time, who were rich intellectual snobs — just like the cultural elitists of today. Wealthy Easterners went west to see how the other half lived and got to play cowboys with real guns.

Nowadays, to avoid class distinctions and the derogatory connotation of “dude,” they’re called “guest ranches,” which is a good idea because this country is already polarized enough.

As I see it, dude ranches can unite this nation the way Joe Biden promised he would, but probably forgot. We’re from a blue state and they’re from a red state, so we could spend some quality time together around the campfire and bury the hatchet. Or better yet, we can throw the hatchet and then jump into the hot tub, put some Connecticut-grown weed in the peace pipe, and enjoy a Montana Black Angus steak … until the CDC outlaws red meat.