Some Hometown Pride!
That’s me and my lovely coworkers with friend and Humboldt hometown hero B Bugenig last spring. We were in Texas for the SXSW Festival, which just happened to overlap with the Austin Rodeo. The gals had never been to such an event, so we took a very expensive (and slightly sketchy) cab ride out to the fairgrounds to watch B—who is ranked among the top 30 steer wrestlers in the world—compete. And it was totally worth it! Not only was it thrilling to see someone I know on the big screen above the arena, but when we returned to the city limits, we were the envy of many a conference attendee. They all wanted to know how they could get to the rodeo!
So, in the spirit of the 26th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering happening this week, I’d like to share one of B’s poems, which he emailed to me earlier today. So proud of that guy!
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When we entered this world on a hospital bed our mothers and fathers said,
I wonder what our baby boys will turn out to be.
Well they watched us grow tall and when we were small we did play some ball,
But it wasn’t long before we started taking our horses up the steep slopes and swinging ropes.
And before long it became hard to hide that the tradition of cowboys had never died,
And anyone could see that the life for you and me was exactly what we wanted it to be.
Our mothers would often say that we might want to think about our future some day,
Because the life of a cowboy doesn’t always pay.
But the older we got, we decided that it would probably not,
Be a good idea to get a job behind a desk sitting in a chair, watching the grey take over our hair.
So we’ve headed outside, looking for rodeos in which to ride,
And when our pockets contain no more than change, we find some cattle to drive through the range.
And now that we’ve grown tall, I guess what we turned out to be isn’t a question at all,
And the reason that we are what we are is understood only by the few,
But I would bet that the others point of view would change,
If they became us for just one day, the first question they would say,
Would be cowboy friend, do you mind if I stay you for just one more day?
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