A couple of weekends ago Scott and I went to our first rodeo of the summer. If you’re not a rodeo fan then you probably don’t know that there are options in Rodeo-Land. Where we live there are Rodeos popping up all over the place. You can pretty much go to a Rodeo every weekend if you like. We’ve found that the best rodeo is the small rodeo…as opposed to the larger, more commercial rodeo. The small rodeo happens in a small town and it is their event of the year. In my opinion, it is small town America at its best. Its kids perched on the fence, burgers and dogs from the local church ladies group and cans of PBR…its home made, and you can see touches of it everywhere.
We went to the Big Timber Rodeo this year and we were about an hour late, but fortunately we did not miss the Mutton Busting. We arrived just in time to watch 4-5 year olds being strapped to farm sheep to see how long they could survive the ride! Like I said, small town America at its best. The announcer informed us newbies that this was a favorite pass time of Montanians, to come out on a beautiful Saturday night and strap their young children to wild farm animals and watch them be thrown off. To all of you gasping child safety fanatics…don’t worry they were wearing helmets. Perhaps this can be something for David and Jonathan in a few years?
After the Mutton busting came the barrel racing, bull riding and finally the Wild Cow race. My personal favorite….just when you think that Mutton busting cannot be outdone. Here comes the wild cow race…Grown men putting saddles on cows and attempting to ride them to the finish line, which is really just a barrel that they have to go around without knocking it down…which of course thy do knock down because….Cows weren’t meant to be ridden! And some of the cows just lay down in disgust and then grown cowboy men try to push, pull, kick them up again. Basically its just funny to watch competitive people do anything that really cannot and should not be done. The funniest part was the fact that the contestants weren’t really sure what they were doing so in the end the announcer was yelling, “Hey, pink shirt guy, you just won…” Hmmm, now the whole place knows you wore a pink shirt cowboy…best just to slink on home.
After the wild cow race the Rodeo itself is over but the days events are not. There will always be a dance after the rodeo, men in cowboy hats gallantly leading women in western type dancing. But the best is when the kids are swooped up to be the dance partners. It is one of my favorite sights seeing the big strong men with the little ones…who are so proud to be chosen. Scott and I chuckled as we walked the streets of Big Timber, we pass a sign for the annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering next month…they are looking for new, young, cowboy talent…what is that? We make a mental note to try that one out next month. We go into one of the local pubs where the party continues and see a home made sign for a missing cat on the bar door…smile… people stop to read about Sparky, pondering over the misspelled words and mannerisms of a 12 year old looking for their pet….and you know what, they will look….because, after all, this is small town America…at its best.
