Say What You Want

*Note: all images taken from the web. I wish they were mine!






As a little girl, one of my favorite family activities was attending ropings and rodeos every weekend. The horses, the cattle, the cowboys, the swishing ropes, even the scent of dirt and manure brought a wholesome feeling of safety, adventure, and community. This was where we belonged, and this is where we worked all week long to return.

The children had many jobs at these events. For one, it was our job to dress the part. Cowboy hats, jeans, boots, and long-sleeved shirts were standard fare. If you were my brother, Boyd, you also walked around with your tongue firmly planted in your cheek to make it look as if you were chewing tobacco (a habit which Dad cured him of permanently in another story).

Another job was to warm up the horses before the roping, and then cool them down afterward. It doesn't take much to figure out that this was our favorite job!

You can bet the little girls on this horse are in heaven. When we were very little, the cowboys would lead us around the arena to cool the horse down. Once we could handle the horse on our own, it was heady stuff to sit up there alone! (The worst part was waiting for the cowboys to quit jawin' and start leading!)



The most important job we had, however, was working the back chutes.


At a team roping, the header would rope the horns of the steer, dally the rope around his saddle horn, then turn the steer to make it easy for his partner, the heeler, to rope the back feet. The object was to catch the horns of the steer and both back feet as fast as possible, the fastest time winning the prize. The clock started when the front chute opened and the steer released, and it ended when both partners were facing eachother on their horses with the steer stretched out between them.



The cowboy holding the flag would then wave the flag downward and the timer (usually my mom and her friends) would stop the clock. They would look to the flagger to see if there were any penalties to add to the time such as breaking the barrier, only catching one foot, or missing altogether, and then record the time.



This team has just left the front chutes. The cowboy in the red shirt releases the steer when the header nods his head, then closes the chute doors and readies the next steer for the next team. The back chutes are waaaaay down at the other end of the arena.

Then, the cowboys would turn their horses and guide the steer to us, waiting in the back chutes. It was our job to remove the ropes from the horns and heels of the cattle. This was usually easy if it was a clean catch -- the rope went evenly around the horns (not in the dreaded Figure 8 pattern or around the neck!), and if both back feet were caught the steer would kick off the rope on the way to the back chute. If only one heel was caught, we had to use a long iron hook to pull the rope off the heel while the steer tried to kick the hook out of our hands.

All of this had to be done as quickly as possible to make room for the next team, so one kid would handle the head rope, another kid would handle the heel rope, and yet another would be ready to run the rope out to the cowboy if he had dropped it on the ground. The last thing you want is a cowboy forced to dismount! The kid working the head rope usually got to jump up and grab another rope to open the back chute and let the steer into the pen after everything was done. Almost every cowboy said thank you when their ropes were returned - each and every time, all day long.



This is what a stripping chute looks like, except ours never had a back gate or the step on the side. It would be located in the back of the arena as an opening in the fence and the steer would run for it. One of the team members would simply put his horse directly behind the steer and keep it from backing out until we were finished.


Lastly, when all the steers had run, it was our job to bring them back up to the front chutes. There was an alley made of fence rails on one side of the arena that connected the back chutes with the front chutes. I thought nothing of it at the time, but it was a pretty brave thing to walk behind a herd of steers and move them down the length of the arena. I learned early on how scared they were of someone waving their arms around, even if the arm waver was a little kid. Now, that's power! I respected them, but I wasn't afraid of them.

If you were lucky enough to work the back chutes at a particular arena, payment would follow. At some arenas, payment would be a Pepsi and a Snickers bar (see why I loved it so much?). At some arenas, we would be paid in cold, hard cash. Songer's arena in Escondido, California, paid us both. We'd get to head to the snack bar during a break, and we'd be paid in cash at the end of the day. If you were really lucky, a cowboy would let you hop on the back of his horse during the break or at the end of the day and give you a ride back up to the front of the arena!

How I loved those cowboys, with Dad being my favorite (but don't tell him that). Each of them had a different profession, most of them were veterans of some branch of military service. They let me ride their horses, they teased me unmercifully, but they never disrespected me. I had starry-eyed admiration for each and every one of them and I was determined to marry them all. In fact, it wasn't hard to picture marrying them since one, John M., told me each time he saw me that we would marry. He assured me that his wife was getting old and long in the tooth and wouldn't be around much longer; I just needed to wait for him. "Wait for me, Curly. Wait for me!"

One roping weekend is permanently imbedded in my memory.

We were at Songer's and I was working the back chute. Along one side of this arena was a huge stack of hay bales for Songer's cattle and horses. It was time for a break and John M. was (joy!) picking me up to give me a ride on the back of his horse, Barney, so I could get my Pepsi and Snickers bar.

A long-haired, shirtless hippie had climbed onto the top of the hay bales. Obvioulsy drunk, from that position he was yelling insults at the cowboys, particularly at John M. I couldn't hear everything he was saying, but the word redneck was definitely one of them. I was scared to death. I looked up at John on his horse and he was the picture of calm. He extended his hand to help me on, looked me in the eye and said, "Don't pay any attention to him, Curly. Don't give him any mind at all."

I was scared, all right, but I wasn't scared of the hippie. I was scared for him. He obviously had no idea who he was talking to. Any one of the cowboys could have beaten the living tar out of him, especially the one he was insulting directly, who spoke to me so calmly. John M. is a Marine, trained to kill. (I say is, because once a Marine, always a Marine.) My own step-Dad served in the army and spent his days afterward lifting an anvil and swinging a sledge hammer - his fists and biceps were rock hard. Let's face it - with the work they did around horses and cattle, these cowboys were not soft. I was afraid not of the fool, but of what was going to happen to the fool. How dare he, and now he was gonna get it and where can I hide so I don't have to watch?

I don't remember what happened to him. I think maybe the police were called and he was told to leave amidst his shouts of free country and I can say what I want, it's a free country, etc. (Free country, but private property. Get lost.) The irony is that most of those cowboys, John M. included, have served time in the military in order for him to have that freedom of speech. The very people he was insulting were the ones who fought and watched their buddies die, precisely so he could climb on top of a stack of hay bales and say whatever his drunken, hippie-heart wanted to say. This was the 1970's and Vietnam was fresh in all of our minds. I'd bet my bottom dollar that he didn't serve, though.

While this post started as a childhood memory, I can't help but take a moment to thank all my cowboys (even the ones now in heaven). Thank you for not beating up the hippie that day. Thank you for your kindness and encouragement to this little girl, and for letting me ride your horses. And thank you, especially in this political season, for fighting for our freedom in the military. I may not like what the extreme liberals or extreme right have to say, but I thank you for ensuring they have the right to say it.