This is No Bull- Culture Event

It was a bright sunny day in Red Bluff. The sky was clear, the dirt was fresh and the beer was cold. As I sat there and enjoyed the company of a friend, loud screams began to fill the air. I looked over to my right and realized that a 1000 pound bull had just done a free standing jump of about 8 feet and ended up in the spectator’s seats. He was trapped between a fence and bench and he was running. People were jumping out of the way, attempting to pull their children to safety. Before I knew it the cowboys were on it, not literately of course. They had him pinned at the end of the walkway, trying to figure out how they were going to safely remove him from the stands, and fast! It wasn’t long before the bull was safely back into the arena where he belonged. I have been attending the Red Bluff Round Up Rodeo for as long as I can remember, and I have never seen an animal wind up in the stands. Without the skills of those cowboys, the outcomes for the bull and the people could have been much worse.

In 1920 the Red Bluff Round UP association was formed because of successful informal events that were occurring around Northern California. They had two rodeos in the fall of the following two years, but it was a rocky start. Financial devastation caused no rodeo to occur in 1923, and hoof and mouth disease caused all rodeos to be cancelled in 1924. In 1926 they changed seasons (to spring) and decided to make this a tow day event. This ended up benefiting them in the long run, as it once was the biggest two day rodeo in the Western US. A new tradition was started in 1928, to encourage attendance and without the means to advertise, a caravan lead by Red Bluff’s Under-Sheriff would drive through northern California to announce the rodeo. The rodeo has continued to grow, and has become one of Red Bluffs main money making events (along with the boat drags, monster trucks and motocross). There is a week of festivities that include: a golf tournament, cowboy church, pancake breakfast, chili cook-off, mixer, parade and dance. This year was special because one of the most popular western boot distributors, Ariat International Inc., came to the Red Bluff Round Up for their 2008 magazine photo shoot. This is sure to put Red Bluff on the map (just kidding).

The history of cowboys has been long and evolutionary. The way they live their lives has created a whole new culture. In the past Cowboys were used to control large herd of animals on ranches. Cowboys normally tended to cattle, but a subtype, called a “wrangler” (hence the brand of jeans) tends to horses. There are two main types of cowboy, the Spanish (Vaquero/California) cowboy and the Texas cowboy. The California cowboy came around after the Mexican American war, and consisted of men that were mostly Mexican decent; this was because the people that were now traveling into California were mostly gold miners. Cowboys were able to flourish here because of the rich climate. They are in charge of feeding, branding and tagging the animals. They are also responsible for making sure they are healthy and safe from predators.

Cowboy culture is something in itself. Over the years they have created their own means of living, as well as having their own standards to live by. They have embraced the frontier lifestyle, and choose to honor chivalry and independence. Cowboys have not always been portrayed in an honest manner. Because of pop culture and movies, they have been viewed as quiet mischievous gun slinging killers. When in reality they are hard working and have very little free time. Just like anyone else, they are concerned with raising health animals in order to provide for themselves. Being at the rodeo is nothing new to me, I see the old cowboy couples in their matching jackets, the young drunk ones speaking obscenities and spitting the lovely brown stuff and the ladies that wear pants so tight you wonder how they move, but I also see how hard they work, the love they have for their animals and the way they work together to solve problems. Cowboys have their own way of getting through life, whether it be riding a bull for eight seconds or raising that bull to be ridden. Each of them has a job, and like the rest of us, they are just trying to get through life and have some fun while they’re at it.