A pseudo-liberal's rodeo adventure

Stereotypically speaking, writers tend to lean more toward the left side of life.

They indulge themselves in the creative arts and use witty political banter during their weekend visit to a local winery. They view themselves as open-minded individuals, people who care about preserving the natural goodness of the earth. A cigarette helps jump-start their originality.

This is why you might not find many writers at the Sikeston Jaycee Bootheel Rodeo.

There's no wine, a lot of sponsorship by corporate America is involved, and the bantering is so crude and childish, that "banter" is a much too formal and intelligent word to describe it. Frankly, many writers feel these festivities are not quite par with their intellect and latte-sipping abilities. And some of them might be right.

But for a person like me -- a person who enjoys the simpler things in life (besides the i-pod, laptop, digital camera, cell phone, day-to-day living, etc.) -- going to a rodeo is like entering a fantasy land complete with decent parking and unforgettable characters.

A painter might call them living, breathing caricatures. A subculture so lavish and flamboyant that, were it to be put on canvas, the exact point of exaggeration would be hard to detect. It is a people watcher's dream and, at $4 a paltry cup, an alcoholic's paycheck.

So when my friend got four free tickets, I side-saddled my way down to my hometown, trying to remember how many years it had been since I had gone to one of these things. I tallied a baker's dozen and wondered if my traditional Southeast Missourian roots had run dry and shriveled up after so long.

The bleachers held a fairly large crowd that evening, even with storms threatening to hit the area again. Rain had already turned the ground into a milkshake of mud and animal dung. The humidity held the smell firmly in place, reminding us that we were in fact at a rodeo. An announcer's voice welcomed everyone with a joke older than the ground we were walking on.

I still laughed.

It wasn't long before I started having a good time. Watching people get thrown in the mud was more fun than I had expected, and the crowd's enthusiasm was incredible. I had forgotten what the rodeo was all about: to kick back. There were no catches -- it was all about having fun. No strings attached. Laughing was a luxury free to everyone.

Does this make me a down home, backwoods, country boy? Not in the least.

Will I be attending the rodeo every year from now on? I don't think so.

Has the experience given me a valuable life lesson and restored my faith in a community's attempt to bring strangers together? You bet.

The beauty of a rodeo is that everyone is invited. There are no requirements as to what kind of person you should be to get in.

And that, my friends, is a honky tonk tradition all of us could learn a little something from.

Sam DeReign is a student at Southeast Missouri State University. Contact him at sdereign@semissourian.com or see his blog at sdereign.blogspot.com.