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24 July ~2008

After working at Horse Rescue on Friday and visiting my Mother afterwards, I asked her if she would like to go to Cheyenne Frontier Days with me. She said she would love to go, that she has never been to the Cheyenne Rodeo, and she never goes anywhere.

I picked her up in time on Saturday morning to make the parade in Cheyenne. The Cheyenne parade is one of the best anywhere.  There are more horses than any other parade in the world, and lots of live and recorded music - marching bands and fiddles and banjos and dancing.

At the end of the parade is the Hell's Half acre bunch, following right behind a float of a church on a flatbed - a good contrast of Saturday Night and Sunday morning, in reverse.  Of course the Half Acre group is having more fun, becuase it is the tradition for them to have a couple of keg's  of beer on the parade and get smashed right before and during it.   Take a look at the pictures below - kind of reminds me of a Saturday night at the Rose.

From the parade Mom and I went and found our seats in the west stands,  about an hour before the Rodeo. Mom was truly excited when it started, especially with all the girls who rode their horses so fast carring flags.

When a cowboy's horse fell and then hammered him to the ground while getting up, Mom got very upset. He hadn't moved by the time they took him out on a stretcher. I didn't read anything about the next day in the Cheyenne paper's which no doubt meant he was allright.

After the Rodeo we walked over to the art museum, to see this year's set of paintings that are on display and for sale. There is more than just horses and Rodeo events in the paintings. I like the ones that show the spirit of the West and the open range.

The classic image of beauty and freedom is a cowboy on his horse looking over a mountain range, perhaps with a cowdog nearby. That is something I understand well, even though I don't go up on horses.

 Plenty of what is so great about the West finds its way into the characters of those who love it. Its hard to name what that is, but freedom, beauty, mystery, and vastness come close.  ("We are shaped and fashioned by what we love" - Goethe).

Once I did take a pack trip up into Powderhorn Primitive area in SouthWest Colorado. I made friends with my horse and when it came time to start out from a lunch time break above timberline, I called her to me. This pack horse who I had known for just a few days left the other horses who she had been grazing with and walked straight over to me. Nobody said anything about it.

The barn work and projects I do at horse rescue are a small price to pay to be around horses.  It proves you don't  have to  be a millionare and own sixteen of them to understand the peace and satisfaction that comes from these powerful animals with gentle, soulful eyes.

I showed Mom the the statue of Lane Frost in front of the Western Art Museum.   I was there, with Janet, and still remember the bull lowering his head on Lane after he was thrown, and him getting up and raising his hand, running three steps and falling down.  I kept the newspaper clippings and years later Janet put them on her website about Lane Frost.

Mom and I stopped at the Sundance on the way home.  As we were sitting in the chairs next to the dance floor I described to Mom all the fun Janet and I had twostepping there over the years.   That all seems to be overshadowed by the time I got in a fight though.  A drunk who was sitting next to the dance floor jumped up backwards and accidently knocked Janet down.  He apologized but later was acting obnoxious - sticking his foot out on the floor as we went by.  That was too much for me to take.    After the fight I went out to the parking lot and got between two pickups.  If I was followed out by one or more guys still looking for trouble,  I would be facing one of them at a time.   

It's funny how these fights have stopped since I gave up alcohol eight years ago.  (amazing, isnt it).   Of course the other thing that has changed is that Janet is long gone  - I don't need to be defending her honor.  That all sort of died away the summer she told me not to go to the Grizzly Rose the next Saturday.  Naturally I went after she said that, and found her with  a date.  

It was good that I had given up beer by then.  I may not have been content just to dance with the prettiest ladies, and then go up to their table and nod to Janet and her friend.  What ended our relationship for good was the obstinate and derisive look she gave me when I approached the table.  That look, from my wife of 26 years, was a big turning point in my life.  She was his responsibility from then out, and I was free.  

Mom had a couple of draft beers at the Sundance, and was surprised at how fresh they were.  She got very talkative, and I heard some things about her life that I had never known.  She told me she really appreciates that I come up and hang out with her on a regular basis.  

My mother is also part of the reason I started volunteering at horse rescue three years ago. Her house is five minutes away from CHR, and I always drop by to visit her after my shift.  

It's a real positive thing to be friends with your eldery parents.  It was the same with my Dad.  I stopped by and shot the breeze with him many times in the last years of his life.  During one of those visits, he looked at me and said you are the best son a Father could ever have, as if he knew his time was near and he wanted to make sure I heard that.  Imagine how that makes me feel about him, and myself.

After I dropped Mom off I went over to the Grizzly Rose, arriving there at 9:30.  It was Saturday night after all.   I triple-stepped and two-stepped with slender young ladies until after midnight.

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