Hey Brother Can You Spare $250??

First off, Happy Birthday Wyoming!! The “Equality State” to some will always be “Cowboy State” to me. It’s a place where the ranch folk are talking about the weather at the corner café and you are only a stranger as long as you act like one. In Wyoming, humor is most appreciated in a one-word shrug rather than a page of lofty societal observations.

One fall day a few years back we were shooting video and collecting interviews with a television production crew working near Pavillion on Wyoming Horses Ranch. Character actor Wilford Brimley (now a Wyoming resident) was guest starring. I’ve always enjoyed his work in films. He’d agreed to spend a little time talking on camera to us. I fired out several rather lame questions and ended the queries with a smile asking: “What’s next?” Mr. Brimley wasted not a second in his reply, “Supper.” Now that’s a westerner’s way. The moment brought to mind a “Brimleyism” I overheard many years ago as he was being interviewed upon arrival at the Cheyenne airport for the frontier days rodeo. Brimley had most recently been seen on television as a main character of the show “Our House.” The reporter asked Wilford his opinion of that program. And he was quick to finish the discussion thusly: “Canceled.”

But I digress. What I wanted to talk about is the price of fuel. We’ve been to rodeos in Casper, Greeley and Cody so far this summer season. The overriding concern of contestants is how best to “buddy up” so that more people are paying at the pump. As if there aren’t enough issues affecting our sport of rodeo – animal rightists, PRCA inner turmoil, lagging talent pools (except for the bulls) – now it’s next to impossible for the “average” Joe or Mary to get down the road, let alone cover the entry fees. My guess is fewer will be able to make a run at their dreams because they just can’t afford it. I’ve spent some time with team ropers and steer wrestlers the last couple of weeks and to a person they “hate” the diesel pump price but find adding more men to the mix a necessary move to make due. Splitting a thousand dollars a month four ways is both palatable and prudent – even if the chorus of snoring adds another tenor or bass to the midnight choir.

I am not pessimistic about the future. While it is probably true that the majority of rodeo cowboys don’t like change much, they are uncannily able to adjust their ways – and travel schedules – when it’s a matter of survival. Rodeo will survive. What comes out at the other end may not be a system that gives just about anyone, from anywhere, a chance at a gold buckle. But we’ll still see amazing feats performed by athletes and animals locked in a very real struggle to maintain a way of life.

Rodeo isn’t for everyone. I know that. To those who would deny its place in the world of competitive sports I would invite you to watch Jason Miller throw down a steer in the mud at Cheyenne. Take the time to admire the athleticism of Kelly Timberman on a good bareback horse. Follow the loop of team roper Jhett Johnson picking up a steer’s back legs. Gasp at the angles and air underneath the buck of Miss Congeniality. Or perhaps it would behoove us to root on the young ones make a run at riding sheep in Lusk or Dubois, or brave a barrel race pattern in Pine Bluffs. Those are the times when you smile and say to yourself, or someone within earshot, “We ain’t dead yet.” But take care Wilford isn’t next to you to close with: “Life-support.”