Rodeo Memory
I
remember, from back when my ex and I were rodeo photographers, sitting on the fence at a rodeo in Bend, Oregon. Ropers had gone all evening the night
before and from 6 that morning.
But now we had the show part of the rodeo with the bulls and the clowns
and the announcer cracking jokes over the staticky PA system, things like,
“he’s kicking everything but the tail feathers” And then they played the national anthem and we all stood,
cowboys with hats over hearts. I
stood up from my railing, lifted three inches maybe.
The
announcer said, “Let’s all take a moment of silence for those poor folks over
in Portland.”
Which
gave me an odd feeling. For a week
hippies and protestors had been converging on Portland. I don’t remember now the issue, though
probably the war, and there was going to be a city-wide demonstration. The police had geared up--flak vests,
tear gas, the whole business, and the paper shrilled that the country was
menaced by these Communist sympathizers.
But, shoot, I knew at least six people who were planning to march. They had some long hair, yes, and
ragged jeans, but not a violent bone among them.
Still,
I bowed my head with the rest.
At
that moment, I knew we were playacting, my husband and I. We weren’t ranch folk, we didn’t even
descend from the ranch, like the city welders and truck stop garagemen who came
to the rodeos on the coast, looking for a life they had lost with their
childhood.
But
I guess it didn’t matter. We were
all playacting in a way, making our temporary town of cowboys and stockmen,
saying we hadn’t lost the farm, hadn’t turned into an office worker or a
restaurant waitress--or wouldn’t like our Mom and Dad had. For a while we had a chance to make the
old way live, and we did.
Love.
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