I was about
ten or eleven years old, my older brother was thirteen or fourteen, and my
younger brother was seven or eight. As
we stood there leaning on the rails of the corral somewhere in Texas, watching
our cousins getting ready to ride, we saw the Texan rise up in my Dad. He saw the Texas animals, smelled that Texas
dirt, and asked us a very Texas question:
“Boys, do you want to ride?”
So there we
were, with our cousins and other insane folks, waiting to ride a bull. We weren’t the youngest in line, but we were
the least experienced. Some kids were
barely out of diapers, but they had a bull bag and boots. (A bull bag holds all the materials required
for riding a bull: ropes, gloves, last
will and testament…)
Like a fool
I thought, “This is going to be fun.”
Then, the first boy climbed into the chute.
I watched
him get on a bull that was the size of a Chevy Suburban. This animal was huge, and this boy wasn’t
physically comparable. In fact, he was
about the size of an overweight house cat, so this match was not looking good
for him. But he was confident.
That boy
tied himself to the back of the animal, spit, nodded his head, and held on
tight. The gate swung wide and the bull
headed for the top rail of the corral.
For the uninformed, a bull does not usually jump, except when a bull
rider happens to be sitting on his back.
Thus, a bull turns into a husky kangaroo every time a rider alights on
him. The bull tried to jump on the top
rail of that corral two or three times before the boy thought it expedient for
him to exit the arena. The boy let go of
the rope, which was his first mistake. By letting go of the rope, the rider released
the tether by which he was connected to the largest animal in the corral. The
bull didn’t like it. The bull communicated
his dislike by quickly breaking that boy’s arm.
SNAP!
We all
heard his arm break. The boy got up from the dirt and tried to pick up his rope. His left arm didn’t work.
Actually, it worked pretty well as a compass. His arm dangled there, but it pointed due north at all times.
I stood
there, in the dirt, reconsidering this bull ride. At that point, though, I was picked up by my
shirt and loaded onto Geronimo. To me,
this bull looked like an elephant with horns. He was big and getting bigger all
the time. Looking back, it was probably a little larger than the average billy
goat, but I was convinced Geronimo was unusually large. As I sat there, I looked at the large, dirty,
hairy man who had pulled me up and put me on Geronimo. I said, “What do I do now?”
I looked
around the corral at the knowing and smiling faces, and I knew I wasn’t going
to get the answer I needed.
I did get
an answer, though: “Every ride’s
different. Just hold on tight.”
I said,
“Ok.” And then I nodded my head.
If you have
never watched bull riding, the nodded head is the sign to open the gate. I didn’t know that. They didn’t tell me that.
Before I
could catch my breath or think, Geronimo was out on a dead sprint to the other
side of the corral. The first boy got a
bull who knew how to buck. I got a bull
who knew how to run. It was more like
riding a motorcycle than riding a bull and I got one of the easiest—and
quickest—bull rides in rodeo history.
By the time
that gate was open, I was on the ground wondering if my arm could tell me where
the concession stand was. It wasn’t
broken, and neither were any of my limbs.
That rodeo
sounds scary and dangerous and little crazy, but I got the right bull. Most people aren’t prepared for that kind of
situation, regardless the advice given.
Experience is the only way you know you’re ready to ride a bull, no
matter how many rides you see. There in that small corral, I got the right
bull. I couldn’t have handled any of the
other kinds of bull that day, but I could handle Geronimo.
It’s like fatherhood. I could watch other fathers go through their
struggles and confusions and injuries even, but that didn’t prepare me like
being a father myself. I figured that,
like watching rodeo doesn’t prepare you to ride a bull, hearing other father’s
tales of fatherhood doesn’t prepare you much for fatherhood. When I got conditioned to the idea that I
wasn’t ready for being a Dad, I was already on my way. Plus, the advice I got was about the same as
the advice I got when I was sitting on Geronimo: “Hold on tight. Every ride’s different.”
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