John Byrne Cooke
PHOTOGRAPHY
Image No. 78-C2-6
Red Mathisen and John Perry Barlow
Bar Cross Ranch, Cora, Wyoming, spring 1978
John and the Bar Cross foreman, Red Mathisen, contemplate the morning's work, which concerns the penned critters behind them. John's other work at this time was writing lyrics for the Greatful Dead, an association that sprang from his long friendship, dating back to boarding school, with the Dead's future guitarist-songwriter Bob Weir. Running the family ranch was not John's intention after college. While on his way to California to join the Dead's extended family, a stop at the Bar Cross changed his plans. That stopover turned into almost twenty years of animal husbandry, during which John still managed to participate in the Dead's extended journey and to recruit many part-time ranchhands from the counterculture. When circumstances forced John to divest himself of the Bar Cross, he moved from agriculture to cyber culture as co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization dedicated to preserving our First Amendment freedoms in cyberspace.
