Old Glory waves across the land today
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Julie Carter

Old Glory will wave majestically in rodeo arenas across America this weekend, starting today. It's the Fourth of July and cowboys, if they are anything, are patriotic.

Don't misunderstand. It doesn't take a holiday for them to bring out the flag. It's there at every rodeo.

Honor to the stars and stripes happens first, before anything else.

Even the livestock seems to know the routine. Watch as the cowboys stand at the chutes, hats held over their hearts as the colors are posted and the national anthem is played.

The bucking horses in the chute will snort and kick the gate behind them like it should be part of the music's percussion.

For a rodeo contestant, it's an exciting sound that echoes in the recesses of their rodeo memories long after they no longer compete.

It goes with the smell of the arena dirt, the banging of the gates as livestock is moved around, arriving trailers rattling across the parking lot and the sound of hoof beats as someone lopes a horse to the arena.

As all of us honor America, our freedoms, and the price paid for both, I find myself annually honoring the cowboy as well. This particular holiday is his "Cowboy Christmas," the most lucrative run of rodeos of the season.

Rodeo rigs are progressively bigger, fancier, and technology has kicked rodeoing up a notch from the days of standing in a pay phone booth to enter a rodeo or find out when you drew up. So much is different, yet so much is the same.

It still requires the basics. First, the cowboy has to get there, and second, he has to have brought his cowboy skills with him.

Fourth of July rodeoing is defined by road-weary cowboys, tired horses, pickups filled with dirty clothes, fast-food wrappers and muddy boots.

The dashboard of the vehicle is full of rumpled programs, Copenhagen cans, empty coffee cups, dust-covered sunglasses, gas receipts, a ball cap or two and a road map.

Many moons ago, when I was part of the rodeo world, I spent tired Fourth of July rodeo marathons wondering what the rest of the world did for their holiday and gave pause to the idea I might be missing something.

I'm not sure how any of that really works, I've just heard rumors about boating, fishing, barbequing and such.

Now that I no longer compete in rodeos, I still don't have the skills for the non-rodeo things. It wouldn't be true if I told you I didn't miss those days of driving across the state three times in four days to hit every rodeo possible.

I even miss the mucking around in the mud after a summer downpour at the rodeo grounds, washing off the barrel horse's legs and gear with the nearest water hose and cleaning up the kids, dog and my boots with the same effort.

I miss the camaraderie with the friends who shared the same passion for the same sport and questioned their sanity for it only briefly.

For me, it wouldn't be the Fourth of July if I wasn't standing in the hot sun, beating rain or dusty wind waiting for the next rodeo event to move the entertainment along.

So that's what I do. However, now I carry a camera and put what I know of rodeo in print.

I don't suppose I'll ever be anywhere else but at a rodeo grounds somewhere on the Fourth of July.

It just is who I am.

Join me at a rodeo for a look into the heart of the rodeo cowboy at his best. Today would be a good day to start.

Julie can be reached through her website at www.julie-carter.com