WIT STOP

If He Manages to Overcome the Ridicule, He Just Might Become One Tough Rodeo Fan

My wife has never been a sports enthusiast, but she's recently become a rodeo fan. Watching just one or two rodeos on TV did it. It wasn't so much the action that converted her but the interviews. To her, the gab sessions between events proved that these cowboys were tough. In other sports, she contends, when athletes are interviewed they talk about suffering a pulled muscle on the third finger of the left hand and how they'll be out of action for three to five weeks, maybe longer. But the rodeo riders would say, "Yeah, I didn't ride real good today because my shoulder's dislocated, three of my ribs are broken, I took a horn to the nose in yesterday's ride, and I won't get my right knee back from the hospital until today's mail arrives. I think I'll do a little better this evening, though, if I get a nice mean bull to ride."

My wife likes that kind of toughness, so she became a fan and dragged me along with her. Prescott boasts the world's oldest rodeo. It holds Frontier Days every year on the July 4 weekend and has been doing so since 1888. Last year we went.

My wife, though, is a quicker study than I am. She gets into the ambiance and the protocol of an event more readily than I, and there are some conventions to being a rodeo fan. The spectators aren't rowdy, but they're energetic, enthusiastic, and vocal. I wasn't. I watched a particularly rousing event, enjoyed it, and applauded politely. My wife was standing, screaming, and yelling. So was everyone else in the stands except me. She nudged me hard enough to leave a black and blue mark and said, "You're supposed to get excited at these things."

"I applauded," I said in my defense.

She said, "This is a rodeo, not a cricket match. Yell something." I assumed she wanted me to be a little bit more vocal and animated, but I wasn't at all sure because I had never been to a cricket match and neither had she.

There was another exciting ride, and the fans hooted and hollered, so I screamed, "Attaboy!"

Everyone in the stadium turned to me and said, "Attaboy?"

I said, "What?"

My wife said, "The cowboy rides a tormented 2,000-pound bull for eight seconds, lands on his ear when he dismounts, the clowns rush out to save his life, one of them gets picked up by a set of four-footwide horns and tossed over the fence, and you say 'Attaboy'?"

I said, "What should I say?"

She yelled "yeeeeeeeh-hah!" loud enough to knock the cowboy hats off all the spectators within two sections of our seats. As they handed hats back to the rightful owners, I prepared to be a good rodeo fan for the next spectacular event. Sure enough, a cowboy made a fantastic ride on the next bull, and I yelled "yeeeeeeeh-hah!" but it came out sounding more like a weak "yoo-hoo." As if I were waving to a friend... probably at a cricket match.

All the fans who had just gotten their correct hats back now threw them at me. My wife said, "Why don't you run back and get me a hot dog and a bag of popcorn?" The glances I got as I walked back to the concession stands convinced me I wouldn't be missed.

I felt no more at ease back there than I did in the stands. People dress for the rodeo. Tight jeans, a trophy belt buckle, longsleeved shirt buttoned at the collar, boots, and a cowboy hat make up the traditional garb. I wore a golf shirt, plaid Bermuda shorts, calf-length socks, and sensible shoes. I tried to walk like a wrangler, but I fooled no one.

The people in boots and cowboy hats stared and snickered at me, so I drifted toward the livestock pens. I felt less conspicuous there. But then a guy in jeans, boots, and cowboy hat came to me and asked if I would "kindly move along."

"Why?" I asked.

He said, "You're disrupting the rodeo."

"How?" I asked. "I'm just hanging around here in the back."

He explained, "Well, it's kinda hard to get the broncs bucking real good when they're giggling so hard."

So I left that area and walked past the concession stands while people sniggered at me. I walked down the steps to my assigned section while folks giggled. I walked along the row to my seat while the nearby spectators guffawed.

But I'm going back to Prescott's famous Frontier Days and to other rodeos, too. Why? Because I'm tough. Baseball, football, and basketball fans might shy away from a bit of ridicule, but not us rodeo fanatics. If a sportscaster interviewed me on TV, I'd say, "Yeah, I had a rough day at the rodeo today because I was tittered at, chuckled at, tee-heed at; in fact, some patrons even pointed and outright cackled. But I'll be back."

I'm one tough rodeo fan.