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By Jim Byous
The following is a true story embedded in verse, a bit of cowboy poetry. It is from my youth when I was in my first year of college. The names have been changed or avoided to protect the innocent. I wrote it about 30 years ago, but recently revised and expanded it a bit to better tell the story. As my friend Dave Marston would say, “It is the truth…… as I remember it.”
Oh… for all of my city friends or the Easterners that might read this, the word “brimmer” is a Western-American term for a Brahman bull. A brimmer is a mean, vicious animal that is best eaten with A-1 sauce but otherwise should be avoided at all cost.
Also to explain – as is so around Ceres and Turlock, California where I grew up – in the West, you can drive out across open country seeing miles of nothing, then find empty, seemingly orphaned rodeo arenas. However, on certain days of the week or month the site becomes a crowded place for the gathering of the testosterone-numbed minds of young men who engage in actions that result in the procurement of broken bones, twisted limbs and dirt-injected orifices, all to the ooohs and awwws of young women of a similar age. I know. I’ve been there… on the male side.
But, thankfully simple logic dictated, in my way of thinking, that the cause and effect of such actions is to predictively hurt like hell or perhaps die looking like a rag doll being ripped apart by a pit-bull terrier. I learned to suppress the hormone-induced stupor of my youth and am quite proud of that decision. As a result, I am still here as of this writing.
I call the poem:
My True Life Experience at Bull Riding
and Why I Was Able to Live To Be So Damned Old
By J.D. Byous
When I was a boy
And feelin’ quite manly
I went down to Turlock to ride
With the other boys
On the backs of bulls
And show off our manly pride
As we waited our turns
We sat on the fence
And talked of how good we’d look
Then we cocked our hats
To the sides of our heads
And spoke of the guts that it took
Well… the first boy out
We called Whirlwind Bill
And he crawled on a mean lookin’ brimmer
But, under his backside
Down beneath that bovine hide
You could see the hate start to simmer
I spoke –
“Well, it’s my turn next”
I bragged to my friends
Those bulls have this boy to fear
I then talked about courage
That I was never discouraged
As my time for ridin’ came near
But then…
Over in the chute
Bill’s bull started to boil
About the time they opened the gate
That bull articulated himself
As anyone could see
‘Cause he was spoutin’ and seethin’ pure hate
And then…
An obvious hush
came over the crowd
As we viewed the horror and awe
The image that day
Is burned in my mind
As I watched with fear-slackened jaw
‘Cause that bull squealed like a demon
As he launched like a jet
Then he bounced, and he bucked, and he flipped
And threw poor Bill
High up in the air
For a landing, he was poorly equipped
‘Cause Bill landed flat
As prostrate and spread
As a cheap, second-hand, yoga mat
Now Bill’s feelings I know
Were not the bull’s worry
That animal just didn’t care
His sensitivities for Bill’s comfort
Were not on his mind
See… he had no emotion to spare
‘Cause he reared straight up
Rammed his head back down
And he buried Bill about a foot deep in the mud
Then he backed up again
And he took a nosedive
And the whole arena shook with a thud
And he pushed poor Bill
clear …across… to the fence
… And I flinched
‘Cause back behind him
Wasn’t nothin’ but a bunch of bull tracks
…And Bill’s shape in the form of a trench
Grab your gear, cowboy
I heard my friend say
‘Cause now it’s your turn to play
But when he turned around
Ol’ Jimbo weren’t there
I was in my truck about five miles away
Now I’ve had years to think
Of my retreat from the brink
Of death, or of mind-numbing pain
That the flight-fright notion
Is a valued emotion
That God planned and instilled in our brain
And to see the condition
Of all my old friends
All bent, all crooked and lame
I’m standing right tall
Not ashamed, feelin’ small
For my bovine hoppin’ refrain
You see…
It’s bronco bustin’
For some of the guys
And I’ve been known to try that some
But when it comes to ridin’
On the back of a bull
This Okie boy
Sure as hell
… Ain’t that dumb
©J.D. Byous 2016, all rights reserved
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