All Bull

They were prime seats, fifteen rows up, right above the beer garden. It was a hard wood territory that housed, at any one time, my family. Dad, mom, uncle, various, girl or boy cousins, my younger brother and me. We garnered these splinter infested seats above the beer garden, for one, because my old man fed the stock, and when he didn't my brother and I would drive our old beat-up ford through the swamp sized mud puddles to haul hay to the big bull pen in the back. The second, our family had been part of the community for a hundred years. We were sandwiched on the right by Ben and Elise Schumacher, their rowdy twenty something boys, on the left Case Lemon, with wife Shelby and their two crazy cute twin girls. The seats not always in the shade were on the top row, each bench made of two, two by twelve scabby wooden planks, with a crack between where you would drop your sun seed shells, a single rail about shoulder blade high was all that kept any of us from caving in the roof below. None of us really had to worry about losing the splinter infested seats, having received them hand me down, great grandad, to grandad, to sons by manifest destiny, or as my old man would explain in an off kilter Irish brogue,

" boys it's lahck Soonday meetin, ye jus dinna sit in someone else's pew".

These top row families all had something to do with stock. Case raised the meanest bulls, my family raised many of the horses ridden by the pickup men who would retrieve and carry the riders to a safe spot. The Lemons managed it all, percentages bull's, steeds, and feed for every event.

Every second week of July for five days we would find ourselves on these seats, our thin ropes tied to the rail, cowboy hats, or vented brimmed farmer hats, sitting skewed kitty Wampus on the top of our heads. It was an annual Wednesday to Sunday stint, of wearing your pearl pin snap western shirts folded twice at the cuff, like the riders did, tight blue jeans poked half in half out of a pair of Tony Lamma's, cinched up with a silver buckle as big as a small Saturday morning breakfast cake made no difference that some were earned, some bought, girls and guys the same.

We would show up singles or truck loads, muddy four-wheel drive pickups, beds full of barbed wire, and green with white topped posts jutting up, each looking like modern-day steel porcupines. The clans would jump out grabbing extra blankets for the maybe, umbrellas hidden behind the seat were left behind, only to be retrieved if it rained or hailed, foam seat bottoms, skeeter spray, and empty coolers, to meander through the dusty pasture, past the orange clad cowboys helping us park in straight lines, to the gate where cowgirls would take our tickets and ask to look inside our Coleman's. Once in we'd clamber up into our spots above the shed that held the ice and beer, rope tied off, we would send a Jackson tied in its end, over the edge of the tin topped garden jig it up and down and wait like a patient fisherman for someone to yell up, "KINNABEER" , we'd bob the twenty, yell down our flavor and wait for the catch, a tug and up a cold six tied to the end, "No change back" from below. No matter two dollars easily paid for the tedious trip down the bleachers to wait in the line. We were never stingy, any two rows down would hand us their Jackson along with a Lincoln ("the rope toll") to get their favorite ice cold beverage, no one complained, a five for the lineman and two ones for the hard working folk sloshing sixes of cans out of the horse troughs was still better than waiting in a line that's was only two people shy of the line to the cowgirls privy.

Just like all days before the bucking and riding, the Calcutta. You could buy a percentage of your favorite rider. Out a cowboy'd walk Stetson in hand, he'd wave at the crowd.

" THIS IS BEN FROM OKLAHOMA, 15 IN THE NATION “would boom out of the PA.

Then the auctioneer would begin his singsong "amuhbidda ten".

From the stands a cowboy hat would wave, a man on his spotted pony would catch the bid wave his flag and scream out a "YUP"

The auctioneer would trill “amibidaa twenty,"

Cowboy hats would wave,

pony riders "RIGHT HEEEYAH" and point their flag at the bidder. "AMUHBIDDA, thirty, biddahbiddah dirty five"

Then a long "fourteeee five, lemmee see fitty" and on.

Finally, "seventy anna half, EIGHTY" he'd wait " EIGHTY ONCE", wait "TWICE", pause then "SOLD eighty dollars for Oklahoma 15" he'd warble.

The rider would wave the winner down from his splintered spot to get a name. The announcer would clamor and urge everyone on, by telling us through the scratchy mike "just bought a part of her favorite rider".

Rope and beer moving smoothly, all on our row were ready, we'd watch each chute gate open, see each bull paw rooster tails of dirt at the audience, buck spin, cowboy hand dangling above his head, silver spurs pulling left, grinding back, right, hop, hop, legs and knees straight back, hat tight, and through it all, to the consternation of the crowd who just put money on their favorite rider, we on the top row would in unison yell

" BUCK HIM OF BUCKIMOFF".

You see the dozen or so of us made a little money thanks to Miss Shelby Lemon, cash money if the stock bucked the cowboy off, yes, the cowboy is paid to ride eight, the bull is paid also, paid to travel across the nation to buck cowboys off.

On this particular day, though, after our row had won the Calcutta for my younger brother as rider of our choice, none, were ready to utter "buck him off", when the loud speaker boomed out over the clowns

" ishhere next cowboy is local, born n raised, I’ll tell ya ladies and gentlemen he drew"

he paused you could hear the noise of paper shuffling inside the booth above the chutes. We all waited. You could see the announcer looked down into the chute.

He offered the crowd his well-seasoned opinion, “well this heeya ride is "ALL BULL".

Then added " our local cowboy has drawn"

he paused as the bull kicked at the gate, scratched the inside of the chute with his cut horns.

Then intoned " our next cowboy has drawn bull fifty-seven “Little Missouri".

We all ugghed in unison, Little Missouri was no small bull he easily put those scrawny Spanish street running bulls to shame. Fifteen hundred pounds of dirt kicking, nose leaking, left spinning beef. My young brother on his first bull, in his first pay to ride event, drew a national bull.

Our top row muttered back and forth, " all he needs is eight"

and "if he gets it done, he scores better",

along with "he got this one" as my uncle crunched an empty can pushing imaginary strength toward the chute, where, we could see him climb over, wait, feet on each rail above the meat tornado he was about to sit on.

We waited as the clown bantered with the announcer about his new rescue dog Amazing Grace, how his pull around living quarters had caught fire while he was on his way here. The top row gang all kept our eyes on our rider.

This rider and a handful of local nineteen-year-old friends all wanting to be champion bull riders, had been for a year or so practicing in a local back yard on a fifty-gallon barrel strung up between four buried posts, the contraption looking like a fat spider with its rope wrapped body, six tug ropes tied to its sides and corners, was an odd, exciting, effective invention. The motley crew would take turns sitting on it, one hand above their heads, other suicide wrapped, legs dangling ready to spur left, or right to stay on, legs, boots, and spurs clamped around the circle as the others would jerk and pull on the spiders legs, trying to knock each other off. A semi mechanical bull of rope and steel just as effective as the electric urban cowboy brand.

We could now see him down tight between the gate slats, pull his hat down tight locking it on with his bigger than normal ears. Chute boss watching him. I imagined boss looking into his wild crystal blue eyes asking, “you ready cowboy"? The gate man ready to tug the door open looking intently at my brother for the let her buck, up and down head shake every cowboy makes, telling him he was ready for the bull and cowboy explosion.

Even though my dad’s family was full of steer dogging, calf roping, saddle bronc riders. In no way less adventurous I noticed my mom had both hands around her can of beer. Lips pursed, her favorite youngest boy was just about to come out of a cramped wooden cage on a terribly angry, and always ready, to stomp yer body into a mud puddle and then stomp it dry half ton of hamburger.

Head bob, gate pull, and out came "Little Missouri" with my scrawny tow-headed brother strapped to his back. Hop left turn spur, one second, more lefts, leg spurring back, one hand up, the other, glued down with rosin in the strap that circled the muscled front of this future ton of tough steaks. Two, three seconds, Little Missouri gave a hop, hop, both boots, two silver stars straight back. I'm not sure if my little brother heard my uncle who was now standing up with the whole top row, scream out

"he got it it's eight".

It wasn't. Maybe sensing this young nobody cowboy was gonna get a payday, Little Missouri did something he had never done, he danced a straight-line butt up, butt down, butt up, down, up, down and at seven off the lad flew. Straight out landing on his feet, surprised, thinking it was a full ride, he looked up and tossed both hands into the air. Then the small meat freight train called Little Missouri ran him over knocked him face down into the dirt and bulldozed him right toward the fence, right toward our crowd, right smack dab straight as an arrow toward the boy’s mother, up to the fence where he bobbed him up between his stubby horns, nonchalantly lobbed him up to the top of the ten-foot ring fence, offering him back to mamma.

Of course, once he was off and eating dirt clods the whole crowd was standing, the clowns were racing to get in-between rider and bull. Pickup men ready.

For a few seconds, he just lay draped over that top board, my parents were halfway down the bleachers, cowboys at the fence climbing up. When he pushed himself up popped his cowboy hat off his ears, tossed it at the bull and through a dirt filled grin hooted the loudest hoot he could hoot. The crowd roared, clapped, cowboys helped him off his roost, slapping him on his back, knocking the dirt off his chaps with their hats. The Lemon sisters had somehow reached the fence first, I quaffed my beer as the splinter row above the beer troughs, laughed and cajoled. I watched the fence line entourage disappear around the end of the stands, then watched as "Little" Missouri snorted and pranced the winners dance, scraping the fence bucking little baby bucks, nodding his winners head throwing nostril goo at the seated cowboy hats. Under my breath, "well that there is all bull."