Rootin' Tootin'
Among the many activities that I participated in this weekend (Giants-Pirates game, free OAR/Cake concert at Golden Gate Park, country dancing bar, and Haight-Ashbury street fair), I would have to see that the most interesting was the annual Livermore Rodeo. That's right, a for real rodeo. My area of "California" is a little different than I thought it would be. Please allow me to share with you some of my experiences and learnings from that day.
So, we arrive at the rodeo and see the standard fair/carnival entrance: a bunch of tents set up selling things, and junk food stands with corn dogs galore. I was in heaven from that point forward. As we climb up the back stairs and reach the bleachers, before me lies a dirt arena with green steel fencing and animal pens. We arrive a bit late, so the first event I saw was cowboys roping calves from atop their horses and then hog-tying them. The real fun started when the Bucking Bronco event came up, where the cowboys try to stay atop bucking horses for 8 seconds. This is where I learned my first interesting tidbit:
Horses don't just buck for the hell of it. There is a certain procedure to make it happen. A leather harness is tied around the horse's posterior and tightened around said horse's testicles. Upon tightening, the horse gets very angry and bucks until the wrangler (the guys making sure everything stays cool and under control) loosen the harness. Alls I know is that if a tight leather harness were around my boys, I'd be in a corner crying rather than bucking. Horses are tough.
The other highlight event was "live cow milking." This entailed one cowboy roping a wild cow around the neck and his partner cowboy going up and putting the cow in a headlock to subdue it. The first dude then jumps off his horse, whips out a bottle, goes up behind the cow, and takes some milk from the udder. He then has to run the bottle back to the main platform, shortest total time wins. I saw one guy put a cow in a headlock and get trampled twice before he finally subdued the cow on the third try. I also saw another guy put the cow in such a headlock that the cow fell over. It was friggin' awesome.
That's all I've got for now, except that I busted out the Alan factoid that the first manmade object to break the speed of sound was a whip. Hope y'all enjoyed the edyoocation!
--B
So, we arrive at the rodeo and see the standard fair/carnival entrance: a bunch of tents set up selling things, and junk food stands with corn dogs galore. I was in heaven from that point forward. As we climb up the back stairs and reach the bleachers, before me lies a dirt arena with green steel fencing and animal pens. We arrive a bit late, so the first event I saw was cowboys roping calves from atop their horses and then hog-tying them. The real fun started when the Bucking Bronco event came up, where the cowboys try to stay atop bucking horses for 8 seconds. This is where I learned my first interesting tidbit:
Horses don't just buck for the hell of it. There is a certain procedure to make it happen. A leather harness is tied around the horse's posterior and tightened around said horse's testicles. Upon tightening, the horse gets very angry and bucks until the wrangler (the guys making sure everything stays cool and under control) loosen the harness. Alls I know is that if a tight leather harness were around my boys, I'd be in a corner crying rather than bucking. Horses are tough.
The other highlight event was "live cow milking." This entailed one cowboy roping a wild cow around the neck and his partner cowboy going up and putting the cow in a headlock to subdue it. The first dude then jumps off his horse, whips out a bottle, goes up behind the cow, and takes some milk from the udder. He then has to run the bottle back to the main platform, shortest total time wins. I saw one guy put a cow in a headlock and get trampled twice before he finally subdued the cow on the third try. I also saw another guy put the cow in such a headlock that the cow fell over. It was friggin' awesome.
That's all I've got for now, except that I busted out the Alan factoid that the first manmade object to break the speed of sound was a whip. Hope y'all enjoyed the edyoocation!
--B
