QUAINT COUNTRY CODY

Quaint country Cody, Wyoming is a market town just outside of East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park.  ‘Just outside’ in these parts means about 52 miles of what Teddy Roosevelt called “the 52 most beautiful miles in America”.  This is ranch country that starts high up near Pahaska Teepee squeezed between the North Absaroka and the Washakie Wildernesses continuing down the Shoshone River to Boulder Basin ranchland. This is country where parents put their kids on horses as soon as they can walk. These are not ‘gentlemen’s ranches’ but working ranches and the work is hard, long and carried out in breath-takingly beautiful surroundings. This is where young kids grow up wanting to be rodeo stars. 

When I was a child growing up in Missouri, my Dad had a good friend who competed in rodeos. I always thought it was kind of odd to have rodeos in Missouri but I liked the look of the earnest, clean-cut young men and women. I liked the sparkly costumes of the young women who performed trick or drill team riding. I especially liked the idea of the cowboy and cowgirl, living a life on an open range where the skills displayed in competition (and rodeo is definitely a competition) were not only useful but necessary. 

I wondered what it would be like to sleep under the stars listening to the cattle lowing nearby. I read Zane Grey. I watched the Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers. I liked the physical toughness and mental stamina that I thought would be required to live such a life.  

Back when the American West was a vast open range, huge herds of cattle were gathered up in roundups and herded across the Territories to slaughterhouses to fulfill the demand for beef back East. Cowboys, responsible for rounding up these cattle in the open range and branding their cattle so one outfit’s cattle could be distinguished from another, moved from place to place with the herd, sleeping on the ground under the stars, working in the driving rain. 

Cowboy life was hard and required great skills including roping, horse breaking, herding, and branding. A skilled cowboy generally meant an equally skilled horse as the former could not adequately perform these duties without the latter. Cowboys, like any other skilled worker, were rightfully proud of their skill and often competed to see which cowboy could rope and tie a calf faster in preparation for branding or who could stay on a wild horse longer. These competitions became know as rodeos - the very same rodeos I grew up with as a child. 

Cody, Wyoming has one of the biggest rodeo arenas in the west and a long season of nightly rodeos beginning June 1 through the summer. Tourists and locals alike crowd into the Cody Stampede arena to watch the young competitors, most from ranching families in Oklahoma, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming trying to hang on to the culture and tradition of ranching in the west.  Often the cowgirls and cowboys who compete at Cody also compete on the college rodeo circuit (yes there is a college rodeo conference). Even the younger cowboys get into the act in the steer-riding competition, wearing helmets and protective clothing. Rodeo is a sport that can literally kill you. And the ‘gear’ is an animal, tack, a cinch and grit. 

I know some will read this and say ‘that’s animal abuse’. Maybe so.  It seemed at times that a horse looked pretty ticked off at being put in a stall and ‘cinched’. In the timed trial of calf-roping, during which a cowboy lassoes a calf from the back of his horse, then jumps off the horse to throw the calf on the ground and tie at last three of its hooves together, it did look like a calf might be temporarily uncomfortable until untied. One calf even managed to get its head twisted the opposite way of its body before the watchful rodeo clowns could untie it. 

But when the star rodeo clown called for ‘all the kids’ to come down into the arena for the calf-chasing contest, magic happened. We all waited and waited in the stands as well over 100 kids lines up, 5 and unders in front (to give them a handicap), 6 to 12 in back.  Then, the gates of the squeeze chute opened and three little but husky calves ran out into the melee. Kids ran one way and then the next, chasing the fleet calves to grab the ribbon tied to their tails. It reminded me of my flag football days. And everyone – the kids, the spectators, the regular cowboys and cowgirls had a great time. We felt proud of the three winners and applauded like crazy when they were awarded their gift certificates for their Dairy Queen Blizzards. 

Where else in America does this happen? How often do you see competitors literally put themselves in front of a hard-running, well-muscled horse to help each other when one gets in trouble, like one did in the bronc-riding competition? There is something special about ranch people. There is something special about rodeo. Sure, the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association probably has its divas just like the NFL. But somehow, the culture of ranching instills a sense of responsibility to your fellow cowboy and girl that I’m not sure can be found in other sports.

I love this particular throw-back to the early American (well technically Spanish) West. I love the fact that this competition celebrates the skill of a culture and a business that is hanging on by a thread. The rodeo brings me back to the days of my dreaming about cowboys and pretty cowgirls riding their horses fast and furiously across the ranches and canyons of the Wild West.