Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Cold Moon<\/p>\n
The Rodeo!\u00a0 Began with a bang.\u00a0 Fireworks and laser lights.\u00a0 The first event was bare back bronc riding.\u00a0 These horses rear back, jump off, all four hooves off the ground, then plunge back to the sawdust.\u00a0 It’s a brutal experience for a rider though the horses seem to enjoy it.<\/p>\n
After this big men with horses went after one poor calf with ropes, hoping to stop it–the header–and bind the rear feet with a lasso, the footer. Must have been hard because most of the teams failed.<\/p>\n
Somewhere in here Ruth said, “Granpop, this is fun!”<\/p>\n
Next came the saddled bronc riding.\u00a0 This was very similar to the first event only with saddles.\u00a0 Punishing.<\/p>\n
Then came a horse and rider against a calf.\u00a0 The rider lasso’s the calf, hops off the horse and ties three of the calves feet together.\u00a0 The horse pulls on the rope to keep the calf subdued.\u00a0 This too proved difficult since most missed.<\/p>\n
Barrel racing had barrels with Qwest painted on them.\u00a0 I thought this was appropriate because the contestants had to run in circles to win.\u00a0 Just like dealing with Qwest.\u00a0 The barrel race horses were fun to watch because once they’re around a barrel, they really dig in an move.<\/p>\n
The last event of the evening involved grown men attempting to stay on the backs of large bulls.\u00a0 Just why they do this was not explained, but it takes the whole bronc riding thing and put a lot more weight behind it.\u00a0 This too must be hard because only cowboy stayed on the bull the required amount of time.<\/p>\n
There were some novelty events.\u00a0 Mutton busting involved children from 5-7 trying to stay on sheep as they run around the arena.\u00a0 Most fell off immediately, but one 7 year boy held on while his sheep ran all the way across the arena.<\/p>\n
Another children focused event had 12 tweens, girls and boys.\u00a0 12 calves were let loose and each kid that caught and subdued a calf would get a calf to raise and have an opportunity to show it at the next Western show.\u00a0 In this instance all the kids received help from adults and all got a calf.<\/p>\n
While I was in Mexico City in the late 90’s, I went to a bull-fight at the Plaza del Torres, the largest bullfighting arena in the world.\u00a0 Though it was, in a sense, more violent than the rodeo, the bulls die, I liked it better.\u00a0 It had a sense of ritual, of grace, even elegance while rodeo seems almost entirely brute force applied in difficult circumstances–riders on bucking horses or bulls, ropers chasing down and wrestling calves to the ground.<\/p>\n
Maybe rodeo is too young as a sport to have much ritual, but to me, it lacked the gravitas of the bull ring.\u00a0 Why does this matter? Well, again, to me, the rodeo seemed about imposing human will on animal nature with cattle ranching as the context.\u00a0 Bull fighting, on the other hand, is a ritual involving life and death, even art.\u00a0 It takes the bull and its death with great seriousness with the context of Celtic culture as the back drop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Cold Moon The Rodeo!\u00a0 Began with a bang.\u00a0 Fireworks and laser lights.\u00a0 The first event was bare back bronc riding.\u00a0 These horses rear back, jump off, all four hooves off the ground, then plunge back to the sawdust.\u00a0 It’s a brutal experience for a rider though the horses seem to enjoy it. After … Continue reading Going Rodeoing<\/span>