Justin's brother Ryan was and is a very tough guy. He was always the
first to wade into danger and conflict and use a two-fisted approach
to conflict resolution. When he was 15 or so we went to see him match
wills with a steer at the local youth Buck-A-Roo Rodeo. The best part
of any rodeo is not the lame scripted banter between the clowns and
the announcer, or the heavy girls racing around barrels on overworked
horses it is seeing the cowboys get gored or stomped out by the
bulls. They usually keep it until the end so everyone is forced to
watch the ridiculous events like team roping. Who cares if you can
throw a rope around a calf's foot on the run? I am sure it is hard
but so is coal mining and I don't watch that either, unless someone
gets stranded in a cave in but in fairness that is no longer coal
mining it is a miner rescue. The bull riding finally ques up and the
announcer is ready with clever quips and music ques for every bull.
No nonsense songs culled from the best of heavy metal, rap metal, and
beat ass rock and roll of all stripes and specie. The rider is called
out and the people from his town or those who know him personally
hoot and holler, if you are really drunk you do this for every
contestant. Then the shoot is opened and the bull starts to free
himself from the irritating thing on his back that keeps kicking him.
Adult bulls are huge death machines as heavy as compact cars with a
tiny brain that has only evolved far enough to have the bits that
make you really mad all the time. The younger kids ride immature
bulls that have been castrated so they are less full of hate and rage
and mostly just want to be left alone. When they thrash a rider to
the ground the usually just run to the other side of the arena and
hope something like that never happens to them again. Ryan was riding
and when the shoot opened he was doing really well but when his time
was up he tried to get free and got tangled. He fell under the steer
and it stomped right on him a couple of times trying to free itself
from the riding harness. I was sick to my stomach watching him get
trampled and go completely limp. He was obviously hurt badly but
cowboy code requires a contestant to ignore personal well being and
'cowboy up' which is code for acting like a 500 pound animal stomping
your face into the dirt is no big whoop. He stood up and took a few
steps and collapsed and I felt sick because I thought he might be
dead or dieing. The EMT's ran out and put him on a board and took him
to the hospital where all the kings horses and men went to work. I
don't remember what all he had to have done but he did have a hoof print clearly on his face and part of
his eyebrow went missing never to return. He had to spend quite a
while convalescing and playing video games which was fine with me
because I like video games and not being beat up because he couldn't
for a while.
