Over the edge is a weekly column of true cowboy life by Bob Kinford
from his books Cowboy Romance and A Million To One Odds

copyright Too Lazy For You Livestock & Literary Co.
Gardnerville, NV (775) 265-8858

April 9, 2003
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Bull Ridin’ Bug

Back in my younger and dumber days, before I realized that the only
thing dumber than a bull is a bull rider, I spent a couple of years
riding them. Looking back, I think it was testosterone-induced stupidity
in an attempt to inflict self-punishment for voluntarily joining the Air
Force. Some people may be cut out for military life, but I was a
de-winged duck in the desert, having gone from being fairly independent
and answering only to myself to getting in trouble for not saluting a
parked car just because it had flags with stars on them. The physical
demands of the Air Force were a little less physical than I was used to,
and I actually gained 20 pounds in basic training. As a combined
physical/mental-therapy program, I started riding bulls.

Because I was stationed in Texas, finding a place to get started was
easy enough as there was a local arena that bucked out bulls a couple
times a week. I watched the first two nights, picking a bull I knew I
could ride for my first ride.  He looked like the identical twin to the
bull on the Schlitz Stout Malt commercials at the time. He would come
out of the chute over five feet off the ground, but he only made a
ninety-degree turn. His pattern was the same high jump with the same
ninety-degree turn to the right. Should be easy enough.

When they opened the chute for my first ride, the bull stood like the
Rock of Gibraltar. They closed the gate and told me to stay ready as
they started hitting the old boy with a couple of hot shots. They opened
the gate once again, and this time we left the chute . . . at a slow,
ambling walk. Being more than a little disappointed, I relaxed, and the
bull went straight up in the air and turned ninety degrees to the left.
Needless to say, I went in the opposite direction and landed in a
perfect one-point landing, centering my rectal orifice on the one and
only rock in the arena. Seeing as how I landed in such close proximity
to my brain, one would think it should have knocked some sense into me,
but it didn’t. By the time I was out of tech school and at my permanent
base, I was up to nearly 190 pounds from my normal weight of 155 pounds.

 The extra 25 pounds more or less assured that I wasn’t going ride many
bulls to the whistle, but I kept going and listening to it as I was in
the air. Then came the Sweetwater Rodeo. The stock contractor was the
same one who’d provided stock at several rodeos I’d previously entered.
Most of the bulls would more or less buck straight, but I had the luck
to keep drawing the same spinning bull, with the same result of being
suspended in mid air when the buzzer sounded. This time was different,
though, and I drew a big white bull and a case of half-timers’ disease.

Even though it was the only white bull in the string, I couldn’t seem to
remember it. When I asked around for information on him, I was pointed
towards the cowboy who had ridden him the night before for the second
place score of 45. He gave me the information I needed. “His first jump
is hard, but after that he just goes straight, like the rest of these
dinks.”

That did it for me; I finally had a draw I knew I could ride! I unlocked
the rowels on my spurs and rosined up my rope. I knew something was up
going into the second jump. Rather than heading down the arena, we were
heading back towards the chute. In fact we were heading a different
direction with each jump, but I was matching him jump for jump. I was
starting to air out about the time the barrel flashed before my eyes and
remembered the bull. His pattern was to keep changing direction with
each jump bringing him closer to the barrel.

 Once he hit the barrel he’d go hunting the rider. For some reason I thought that was funny and
started laughing and wound up, once again, being air borne as the buzzer
sounded. Of course that also put me hitting the ground about the same
time as the bull hit the barrel and went hunting. Now there is a
difference between running out of air and staying on a bull for another
half second, and the adrenaline rush you get when that bull is trying to
run you over.  

I definitely caught a second wind. Fighting him all the
way to his assisting me out of the arena, I didn’t hear the laughter
filling the indoor arena until after my landing. The judges were still
laughing when I went back in to pick up my rope, the one judge telling
me, “You had this rodeo won until you started laughing!”
The next day we rode at a different rodeo, and things were definitely
looking to be a little easier or at least a little different. As it was,
even in the town we were based in, we had the back of Walt’s car filled
with beer, Southern Comfort and Jack Daniel’s for the party afterwards.
We checked out the bulls, and they were on the small size— about 900
pounds lighter than the ones we had climbed aboard the night before. It
was also extremely hot, with no shade. Small bulls, heat, and no shade
caused us to begin the party a little earlier than we’d planned. After
all, we didn’t want to ride in a state of dehydration. By the time the
bull riding started, we were three winds to the sheet and on a
full-blown drunk.
  Walt was the first to ride. Being well over six feet tall, he was
nearly able to lock his spurs underneath his ride. While he didn’t score
high enough to win, he at least made a clean ride. My bull was actually
on the skinny side, and as my rope was tightened, I could feel the
bull’s spine poking into my hand, so I loosened it a bit. I was about
halfway through my ride when my rope started sliding, and I with it. As
luck would have it, I was also being slapped in the face by the bull’s
tail, so I just grabbed a hold of it and hung on to keep from falling
the rest of the way off. I made the ride but it wasn’t clean, and the
walk back was even less clean. As I picked up my hat, I wiped my brow,
after which I noticed that my arm was covered with “some sort of green
stuff.”

So it went for the next couple of years. Not there quite long enough to
make a clean ride, but still having enough of the bull-riding bug to
keep going. I had signed up for a six-year hitch, but when my weight hit
the magic number of 205 pounds, they told me I was too fat and kicked me
out of the Air Force. I lined up a job guiding dudes in Grand Teton
National Park. About six weeks later, the local weekly rodeo started up,
and my weight was back down to a trim 160 (which shows the difference
between being horseback and shoeing horses versus a desk job).

The first weekend, I drew an easy bull that would just buck around the
arena to the out gate. I unlocked my spurs, planning on spurring him all
the way to the pay window, but the man pulling my rope started trying to
tell me how I needed my hand. After a bit I told him where to go, pulled
the rope myself and nodded for the gate.

First jump, I marked him like a bronc and started raking. About halfway
through the ride, at the top of a jump, I noticed I was holding onto the
end of the rope like a hack rein and the rest of the rope was dragging
on the ground. Focusing on my hand, and wondering how I managed to get
in this predicament, I managed to make it to the top of the next jump. I
was still looking at my hand when I hit the ground.

   The next weekend my draw was a little tougher, but I still figured I
could ride it easy enough. Two jumps straight out and wrap to the right.
Then for some reason my nerves started to get to me. The new person
tying me on was sipping on a beer and sat it down on the chute in front
of me as he was pulling my rope. At that very moment, I thought perhaps
I should be tying him onto the bull and drinking the beer. But I nodded
for the gate; the bull took his two jumps, and as he started his wrap to
the right, I stepped off the left side. I was finally cured of the
bull-ridin’ bug.