Watch the Sky

Last week when I was in Colorado visiting my 85 year-old uncle, I went with my cousin Liz's husband Bill and his son Jimmy, the professional bull rider, to Roswell NM where Jimmy competed in a two day bull riding event. It's a seven hour ride to Roswell for an eight-second bull ride. That is, if you're lucky (and good) and don't get bucked off.

Roswell is where the aliens landed in 1947. Or rather, crash-landed. There's been a massive government cover-up about it ever since. Just ask anyone in Roswell. They'll tell you. (Left: The UFO Museum in Roswell.)

The three of us on the long drive to Roswell decided that probably the coolest thing for Obama about winning the presidency was that on January 20th "they" took him aside and told him all the secret extra-terrestial stuff. About the autopsies of the four little green men (one was big) and the metal that never tarnishes or crumples and the technology the Air Force got from the crashed ship. Why do you think American fighter jets are so much better than everyone else's? Because we're smarter? Have you talked to a Tea Party member yet? (Right: Jimmy and Bill react to discovering the truth in the UFO Center.)

(Left: The bulls were waiting for Jimmy.) Anyway, Jimmy's been in a slump. He got bucked off of all of his bulls. But going to the Roswell UFO Research Center on Main Street was fun. Inside, the curator was telling the folks ahead of us that there had been another sighting that very morning but it was already being covered up. All of a sudden the five police cars I saw go screaming down Main Street at 7 am with lights and sirens made sense. I wondered if it was maybe another crash. Of a flying saucer.

I also liked the county fair that was at the fairgrounds in conjunction with the Professional Bull Riding Competition. There were a lot of 4-H animals being displayed there. Here's my favorite.

More Bull

I'm on vacation in Colorado, currently in Bayfield in the high country, where it is threatening snow. I drove here yesterday from Denver through snow flurries along the front range and snow on the passes.

I am here visiting my 86 year old uncle, a hero of the Fast Carrier Strikes on Tokyo oh so many years ago. He's doing well enough. Today I'm driving to to Roswell, New Mexico with my cousin and his son to see two days of the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) Tour. Us two old guys will "see" it, the son, Jimmy Anderson, will "do" it, two days of bull riding, the longest eight seconds on earth, He's 111th on the circuit.

It's a tough business. Last night Jimmy was talking matter-of-factly about his injuries; three broken noses, a broken leg, a broken elbow, strains, sprains and numerous dislocations. He happily said, "At least I still have all my teeth."

When Jimmy's balky chronically dislocated left shoulder (a bull stepped on it. or rather, stomped on it), the free, swinging arm, finally wouldn't easily pop back in for him on its own accord ("the emergency room could barely get it back in, they had to use massive amounts of muscle relaxants and hang weights from the shoulder") he had it operated on. My injured left ankle, done in by ten hard miles of running on it at Army (although not swollen, it still pains me greatly and I can't run on it) pales in comparison.

Jimmy's left shoulder is fine now. and he's ready to climb back aboard a ton of bucking, spinning raging fury tonight. We can't wait to see what happens.

His mother isn't coming with us to watch because she's out of town helping out with caring for her daughter's new-born baby. The last time she watched Jimmy ride in person, he was knocked out cold upon being thrown off the bull. He lay motionless on the ground for many long moments before stirring. How would you like to be a parent whose child did this for a living?

Jimmy rode his two bulls, the only man in forty to do so

I went to see bull riding last night. Professional Bull Riding (PBR) is exciting alright. Sort of like hockey games that feature fights are exciting. Borderline mayhem.

The athletes that ride bulls in the PBR are top-shelf young men. What a hard life. To stay astride a bucking, twirling 2,000 pound enraged beast with horns for eight seconds (using only one hand-this crucial part will become apparent in a minute) and then to get off of it and get away unscathed is an awesome athletic feat.

What happened last night at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, which featured a PBR event? The first rider was thrown and trampled. The third rider was thrown headfirst into a metal fence. Another rider sailed off the bull upon dismount and landed on his tailbone from six feet high. One rider had a horn whizz an inch by his head as he scrambled up after being violently thrown. Yet another rider got his spur caught in the cinch rope as he was dislodged by the bull and hyperextended his knee as he was whipped around three feet in the air by one heel like a rag doll. At least two more riders limped off wincing, and two others sagged dazedly against the fence after their rides when they got to its relative "safety" (you clamber up the fence to get out of the way of the rampaging bull). The horse of the only "safety rider" ( a mounted cowboy who can lasso the bull or distract it with his trained horse) got gored broadside by a charging bull (a perfect T-bone collision, as State Troopers would say) and both horse and rider went down. The horse got up and was led away, but the rider did not. He was wheeled away on a gurney, feebly waving his hat to the crowd with one hand.

The show went on with no horseman, only rodeo clowns on foot trying to get the bull out of the arena after each bull ride. The PBR is not for the faint of heart or those debilitated by pain.

The first round was forty bull rides. If you get thrown off before eight seconds, no score. See ya at the next meet. Successful rides are judged by some point-scoring system that grades the actions of both the rider and the bull. Ninety is a perfect score (I think). There are no points awarded for anything that transpires after the eight seconds (no style points for a dismount where you stay on your feet versus getting flung into the ground). The top ten riders go into the championship round.

My second cousin, 20 year old Jimmy Anderson from Colorado, is a typical PBR bullrider. He is currently ranked 59th in the association (based upon his earnings, he's earned a little over $22,000 in three years) and is considered a comer. He had come to Charlottesville from a PBR event the night before in San Antonio, taking a 6 o'clock flight to Dulles that morning. He drove to Charlottesville in a rental car and napped in the locker room. After the event he drove back to Dulles to catch a 6 am plane back to Texas where he attends college, napping in his rental car along the way. His story is not atypical.

Another cowboy at the meet was summoned the day before to replace a competitor who pulled out. He spent a thousand dollars on airfare and arrived without his luggage. He borrowed a cinch rope and a helmet. He was thrown in less than 2 seconds and went home.

Jimmy was hyped by the announcer before his first ride as having a record of staying on the bull on 80 percent of his rides. Apparently that's a whole lot.

He had a great ride on Marshmellow, a name which belied the energy and ferocity of his bull. He was thrown off right at 8:00 seconds but the ride counted. He garnered an 85, which put him in fifth place going into the final round.

So Jimmy made the finals. NO ONE except for Jimmy stayed on his bull for eight seconds in that round. Jimmy had a strong ride but Jimmy's time was frozen at 4.30 seconds as his ride atop raging Encore went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on (yeah, that's how long it takes for eight seconds to go by when nothing's really in control). The dismount horn never sounded. Finally a dozen seconds later Jimmy got thrown off.

He had been disqualified for touching the bull with his free hand as it whipped back and forth from the force of each buck. Slapping the bull, they call it. The ONLY DQ of the night in 50 rides!

The crowd booed lustily. I didn't see the touch, either in real time or on the replay on the jumbotron.

"There's no replay flag in bull riding," the announcer said to the booing crowd. "It is what it is." The crowd booed louder.

In the final round, Jimmy was the only man to stay on a bull. Imagine the score tied in an NBA playoff game with one second to go in regulation time. Tweet, the ref calls a ticky-tacky foul as a player dribbles out the clock. Happens all the time, right? Not!

Too bad, Jimmy would have won. The DQ call cost him $3,000. As it is, he gets fifth place money, about $600. I didn't get a chance to see him after the event but I saw him ride and it was beautiful. What a talented young man doing such a hard thing with grace and aplomb. Proud to know ya, Jimmy.

PBR. I have never seen anything like it.

Busy Weekend

I have a busy weekend ahead of me. Tonight I'm going to a pre-race dinner at 6:30 pm at Bertucci's in Dupont Circle to a fete with the dedicated survivors of the Reebok SunTrust National Half-Marathon Training Program. Stop by and join us!

Tomorrow at 7 am I have a two-hour tour of the city planned. I am going on a little jaunt down the Mall from RFK past the White House, and then making a right turn to run by Fleet Feet (the first shop of that west coast franchise on the east coast) in Adams Morgan. I'm going to then sample some rolling hills as I run past the little-known McMillan Reservoir, and then I'll make another right turn and run down straight and true North Capitol Street back towards RFK. Woo-hoo!

In the late afternoon I'm going to the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville to watch PBR. Don't know what PBR is? It's the young Professional Bull Riding Association and they are bringing their event to Charlottesville for the first time. I am going to watch hardy young men try to use only one hand to stay on horned, one-ton bucking behemoths for eight seconds, and then try to get off same. My second cousin is riding the bulls tomorrow. That's him in the picture, and his Mom (my cousin) is the woman in the stands, to the right. Here's a preview. Yeehah!

Sunday I plan to do my taxes. Woot!

Sunday night at 5 pm I'am going to attend the DC Road Runners Annual Board Elections and Banquet at Maggiano's in Friendship Heights. I am on the ballot for VP of Training, a newly-created position. Stop by and vote for me!

Then it's back to work, thankfully!

Going to New Mexico

A week ago Saturday I drove out of Montrose enroute to Durango and had a knee-knocking experience driving over Red Mountain Pass in snow flurries on the Million Dollar Highway between Ouray and Silverton, two old western mining towns. It is a two-lane roadway that clings to the side of the mountain (no guard-rails) in the best of times, which is July and August. In the worst of times, like when I was on it, it is a one-lane plowed path through a wintery white landscape where a driver keeps on the roadway by driving alongside the reflectors lining the side of the road, if they aren't buried in the six-foot high snowbank. Bring sunglasses for the reflected glare (which I didn't have). This roadside icefall greeted me on the way up.






Once I got to Bayfield, Colorado, where my cousin L lives, we went to see her Dad, my Uncle Harry, in Pagosa Springs. He's 88 and doing really well.

It snowed the next day of course. L stays fit by walking in addition to spending hours taking care of the animals on her small ranch before she goes to work each day. I walked with her a couple of miles in the fresh snow on her forest-access roadway at 7200 feet and she wore me out!

That night we watched the mighty Giants slay the Patsies in the Super Bowl, going outside several times to make sure the TV-dish was clear of snow. L's husband, W, a great guy, allowed me to choose watching the big professional football game over watching a Professional Bull Riding meet which he wanted to watch. That's the way it is in the mountains.
I was going to drive to Santa Fe on Monday to see my sister who lives there. It was snowing and all the passes were closed, although the back road into New Mexico via Chama was open. Here's what my car looked like on Monday morning. Those two white blobs in the background are the cars of L and W.

Here's what the main highway looked like.



So we "moved snow," as W calls it, for a few hours, using shovels, the snowblower and the snowblade on the tractor. (W hard at it so we could get the door open at least.)

And then I drove away. Here's what the road into New Mexico looked like. I went slow (doh!) and the drive to Santa Fe wasn't too bad. I arrived there mid-afternoon on Monday.

The Professional Bull Riders

I have a cousin first removed from Colorado who is a professional bull rider on the PBR circuit. He is 20, being close to the age of my oldest son and having the same first name of James. Both boys were named in part for my father who died around the time they were born. They also shared my last name, with my cousin having it as his middle name, until my son changed his last name on his 21st birthday. Let's call my oldest son Jim, and leave him out of the rest of this post. (Left: Jimmy riding a bull at a high school meet.)

Jimmy placed third nationally as a bull rider in high school. My understanding of bull riding is that it is the longest eight seconds in sport. You have to ride a rip-snorting bull tearing around a ring for that long, bareback, holding on with one hand to a rope cinched around the bull's middle, keeping the free hand up so it doesn't touch the bull. If you haven't been bucked off in eight seconds, then you have to dismount this frenzied 2,000 pound bucking and spinning behemoth and get away from him before he gores or tramples you. Rodeo clowns help out by darting past the bull to distract him when you let go and go flying. (Right: Jimmy aboard another bull at a high school meet.)

You get stylistic points and the bull is also rated, the more frenetic he is the better. You get zero points for any ride under 8.0 seconds.

Jimmy has earned $12,842.20 in two seasons on the professional circuit. Over the years he has broken his leg, elbow and nose and separated his shoulder while riding bulls. I heard that he was coming to Fairfax later this month to a PBR event at the Patriot Center (GMU).

You may know that my three sons have been estranged from me ever since the courts sanctioned and assessed costs of almost $50,000 against their Mother for inserting them as minors into the middle of our bitter divorce litigation (some persons view actions such as hers to be a form of child abuse called PAS). Anyway, weeks ago I wrote to my two adult sons under 21 and invited them to go with me to watch Jimmy perform his eight seconds.

I never heard back from the lads, which doesn't surprise me because no child of mine has communicated with anyone on my side of the family in five years. (That's a hallmark of PAS.) When Jimmy comes to Virginia, I'm going to go see him. Yeeha!