I ran into Randy in the airport. He was
draggin' his right hind leg like an escaped convict tryin' to cover his
tracks. I could see it had taken him a while to pull his pant leg on
over the swollen knee. He side-slid to a stop to visit for a minute.
"So." I asked stupidly, "Hurt yourself?"
Randy
is a rodeo announcer. A good one, I might add. I've seen him work. But
this injury could certainly not be worked related, I thought to myself.
Rodeo announcers are a little higher up the food chain than those of us
who actually get within striking distance of large herbivores. They sit
in their ivory towers above the dust and flailing hooves, inciting the
fans and titillating the timers.
Occasionally stooping to act as
straight man to the barrel man's jokes but above it all, maintaining
their dignity. Ringmaster of all they survey.
He
gave me a raised eyebrow, realized that I was not smart enough to have
asked the question facetiously, and explained. In an effort to 'keep up
with the competition' he had taken to announcing rodeos ahorseback.
'Say
no more,' I thought. Riding a strange horse furnished by the stock
contractor into the center of the arena surrounded by thousands of foot
stompin', whistlin', avid rodeo fans, reins in one hand, microphone in
the other, with flags flyin', banners flappin' and music blarrin'…the
outcome is almost predictable.
His
story included all of that and concluded with a wild bucking exit where
he bailed out with the grace of a sand bag fallin' off the back of a
runaway stage coach.
What
makes people do things like that says something about the cowboy
mentality. This mentality is best characterized by that old joke where
the guy holds his hand in front of his face and bets his friend that he
can't 'hit my hand before I move it.'
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