A long way from Texas, another rodeo go-round

The closest I ever came to rodeoing was the time Grandpa Hicks put me on Skeeter and sent me down to the lower pasture to bring back the cows for the evening milking.

Now, I say pasture in the kindest North Texas sense -- a relatively open area dotted by scrub oak, mesquite, nettles, sandburs, cockleburs, goatheads, needle and Johnson grasses, populated with scorpions, red ants, sidewinders, diamondbacks, copperheads, jackrabbits and coyotes. It was a place where the butcherbirds hung their prey, young snakes, on the barbed wire to keep the vermin from stealing their victuals. Etched throughout this verdant landscape were gullies as deep as a man on horseback.

It hadn't changed much since Gen. Philip Sheridan rode through in 1866 proclaiming, "If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell."

My grandparents churned their own butter and smoked their own meat. Grandma Hicks could snag a fleeing pullet by the leg with a length of wire and wring its neck in seconds.

At night as we listened to radio, the only thing to read was the Bible and the Sears & Roebuck's catalog, which, when the new one arrived, would be, shall we say, recycled.

Every year we'd go to the Chisholm Trail Roundup in Nocona. This was back when the factory still made boots and leather goods.

The Chisholm Trail Roundup had no lasers or fireworks or ear-splitting rock music, but it did have a booming-voiced announcer who would trade snappy patter with the rodeo clown during the bull riding events.

We sat on cold, splintering wooden bleachers.

This was back when the stars of the sport were Casey Tibbs and Jim Shoulders.

Today at the National Finals Rodeo at the Thomas & Mack Center the star is 33-year-old Wise County roper Trevor Brazile. Unlike most in the sport, Brazile has earned his share of prize money, as well as a barnful of gold buckles. Most are lucky to cover expenses -- pickups, horse trailers, horses, tack, gear, fuel and food.

This past weekend, the Review-Journal's rodeo reporter, Jeff Wolf, wrangled me a press pass and introduced me to the assorted rodeo officialdom. I was there to "show the flag" for the newspaper, so maybe they'd think of us when there are news scoops to reveal.

I shook hands with everyone from the head honcho to the hangers on. But I had one boon to ask: If Trevor Brazile happened by, might I get a chance to say hello?

Just before the rodeo was to start, they brought through the pressroom mild-mannered, soft-spoken, polite-as-hell Brazile. I shook his hand and wished him luck from a Wise County expatriate, who could now tell his family he'd actually met the star of the circuit who was seeking his seventh all-around cowboy title. He is from Decatur. I am from Bridgeport, 11 miles down the road. This being Las Vegas, perhaps you've heard the craps shooter's plea: "Eighter from Decatur, county seat of Wise."

As a lagniappe, I also shook the tiny, soft, splayed hand of bashful 2-year-old Treston, who, like his dad, was dressed in black from hat to boot. Perhaps someday I can say I met him when ...

Wolf talked rodeo Communications Director Kendra Santos into letting me sit in the arena side press box for a couple of go-rounds, where I dusted bits of arena floor off my notes and watched Brazile finish almost out of the money in both calf and team roping.

The closest I ever came to rodeo action was because I did not know Skeeter was a cutting horse. I think I was about 10.

When I got down to the pasture where that half-dozen or so head of docile milk cows were grazing, either through some unintended signal from me or his own instincts, Skeeter decided that one suckling calf just had to be cut out of the herd.

In the Texican lexicon, skeeter is short for mosquito, a blood-sucking denizen that darts about, changing directions in defiance of the laws of physics. If you've not had the pleasure of seeing one work, that's what a good cutting horse does. It dashes and stops and cuts back, doing whatever it takes to prevent that calf from doing what it instinctively wants to do, rejoin the rest of the herd.

Normally, this performance is in a nice, flat arena. Did I mention the gullies? Somehow I managed to stay on Skeeter's back instead of flying off under the force of kinetic energy.

After awhile, Skeeter decided I did not know what the heck I was doing and allowed me to point him toward the barn, leaving behind calves and bulging udders.

As I told Santos, this ain't my first rodeo.

Thomas Mitchell, editor of the Review-Journal, normally writes about the role of the press. He may reached at 383-0261 or via e-mail at tmitchell@reviewjournal. com. Read his blog at lvrj.com/blogs/mitchell.