Friday, April 6, 2012


I sat and watched the sun rise over the horizon. The variety of colors was stunning, and it made me homesick. Most mornings found me cleaning stalls, getting to the barn before daylight to ensure all the horses were fed and stalls were cleaned before the sun rose. My routine was a five day a week gig, mostly to save me from getting a regular job. Dad insisted that as long as we had horses to ride and take care of that they would keep me busy enough that I wouldn’t need a job. He was right. There weren’t many extra-curricular activities on my daily schedule. Regular classes were plenty to keep me occupied besides going to high school rodeos. Keeping my grades up was top priority when it came to school, a high GPA would help me when it came time to pick colleges. My interests weren’t truly in going to get an education, or even going for the sake of getting to college rodeo. I just wanted out.
            Away from the drama, the sympathetic smiles from the folks at the grocery store…the gas station…the Mexican food joint... nowhere in our small town was I safe from the tilted heads and muted smiles. Most of them said nothing, but some were nosy, as people by nature are. “Hi honey. How’s your momma? Doin some better I hope. Ever get that mess with that horse sorted out? Such a shame that familys get into things like this. Tell your daddy hello for me, take care!” And off the concerned bystander would go, without letting me have a word edgewise. Odd as it may have been, I was better at just nodding and smiling, rather than rattling off some contrite bit of nonsense that didn’t bear repeating. My mother had raised me to have manners, it wasn’t that I was trying to be rude to the folks that expressed their concern over the situation. Quite the opposite. My manners were better if I could keep my tongue between my teeth, without letting the general populace truly know how I felt. One of my favorite songs had a line in it about how if “people knew how I really felt, most folks wouldn’t like me anymore.” That sorta summed me up on most days.
The rodeo grounds were nearly deserted. Trash blew here and there, scuttling along the tall chain link fence that ran the length of the frontage road. New road construction had threatened to take away most of the rodeos grounds here, the arena itself would've been turned into an overpass. The outcry from the locals staved off the assault, but who knew how long it would last? I shook my head as the sound of a dumpster's lid banged in the breeze.This wasn't one of the biggest rodeos, but it was one of the oldest. The long rows of stalls had once been home to dozens of racehorses; quarter horse races had once been held here year round. Remnants of the track were still visible in spots, most of the track had been converted into parking many years ago. It made my heart hurt, that so much of this place was a part of rodeo's history and would be torn to the grand for something newer...fresher, more modern. It just didn't make sense to me.

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