This past weekend I was at several rodeos with my son. One night there was a bunch of ropers sitting around waiting for the slack to start after the rodeo. Several rope cans lined the fence. While I was sitting there someone placed a cowboy hat on top of a rope can, seeing that brought back a flood of memories from long ago, back when I competed.
The Old Fort Days rodeo at Fort Smith, Arkansas is one of the better PRCA rodeos over the Memorial Day weekend each year. For many years the timed event slack was always on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Jerry Pepsworth took me to watch the slack one time when I was pretty young. I think it was in 1990.
Fred Whitfield was a rookie that year and he’d been winning a lot. We had read his name in the prorodeo sports news. I will never forget Jerry watched Fred rope his calf. After Fred made the run Jerry said he said sometimes you can just watch a guy and tell, that dude can really rope. I don’t think Fred won anything that day, but it was evident he was a rising star in calf roping.
A few years later I competed at Fort Smith and was there for the early morning slack. That morning a bunch of guys were sitting around visiting with Junior Lewis. Junior had a couple of good calf roping horses the guys rode and won on. Batman was one, I can’t remember the other horse’s name. Batman became the horse of the year in the PRCA.
A bunch of rope cans lined the wall below where everyone was sitting. I can’t remember which roper was getting his rope out of his rope can, preparing to rope, but one of the guys told him, “Hey you’ve been winning too much, so I put a hex on your rope can. You’re gonna miss today.” Everyone sitting around laughed at the comment.
A few minutes later the roper rode into the box and sure enough, he missed his calf. As he was putting his rope back into his can everyone was teasing him. It wasn’t long and another contestant lost his cowboy hat chasing a calf. The hat was placed on top of the “cursed” rope can. Someone decided to fill his hat with horse manure, so there his hat sat on top of the cursed rope can, full of horse manure.
A few minutes later the guy came looking for his hat, and found it full of horse manure. All the guys sitting around there had a laugh. One guy fessed up to filling his hat full of manure, claiming it was the only way to break the curse on his hat, since his hat touched the cursed rope can.
Junior Lewis was the old guy at the rodeo that day, all of us younger guys paid attention to him whenever he offered advice about roping.
This weekend while watching all of the young guys rope I felt like the old guy. I didn’t tell them about the cursed rope can, I figured telling them that might give them ideas and start something I don’t want to take the blame for. I just sat in my lawn chair and kind of smiled.
It’s good to remember things from the past, especially if it makes you grin. My wife didn’t have to ask what I was thinking when she caught me grinning, she knows it must have been from the good ole days of long ago.
James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses.
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