Rebranding Rodeo

RODEO IS MORE POPULAR among the deeply red state red neck demographic of the American south than NASCAR, shooting animals, throwing horseshoes, and driving pick up trucks with peeling paint rapidly on dusty dirt roads while guzzling beer, combined. The artful allure of watching beautiful, spirited horses, crazed with panic, desperately to remove a human from its back is irresistible to those who never darkened the doors or a college campus, art gallery, or concert hall. that said, I don't like rodeo. I think its cruelty to animals. I concluded this long ago when I surmised, perhaps presumptuously, that calves don't enjoy being chased, roped, and wrestled to the ground, and that horses that don't want to be ridden do not enjoy being ridden. Then one day at the style shop, what to rodeo folk might still be called a barber shop, a young African-american lady and i began chatting. She mentioned that she had attended the rodeo the previous evening in the small southern town where I live. the first thing I learned is that an African-american lady not only can attend a rodeo but can do so and enjoy it. My education proceeded with contention that when a bucking bronco is bucking, it is responding not to the human presence atop it, but rather, to a belt on its back which is tickling it, an itch which it is trying to scratch. since she was at that moment trimming my eyebrows, and had been nice enough to offer the service, I decided to take her somewhat seriously.Still, it still didn't sound like too awful much fun to me, from the horses perspective, but I held my tongue. so, I'm calling it a draw. My eyebrows look great. A retired barrel racer once told me that a barrel racing horse, even without a rider, will run the course. and, I confess I've always found cowboy poker amusing and entertaining. I cannot imagine being the last to leave the table. Then too, I remember the time, in 1971, when I was sixteen and a friend and I stood outside a rodeo, penniless and forlorn. The cowboy at the gate waved us on through> I have no memory of the actual rodeo, which is telling, on so many levels.