In the beginning

    Don't you wonder how the various events in modern-day rodeo got started?
    As was told to me, rodeo events were supposedly based on things that happen on your average the run-of-the-mill ranch, but in all my years of running cattle I’ve never once had to ride a bull or jump off a speeding horse onto the sharp horns of a renegade steer. If I did so, it was purely an accident and not something I’d ever do on purpose while sober.
    Certainly team roping is practiced on your average ranch and it’s easy to imagine how it was invented. Two cowpokes, Smarty Pants and Rum Dum, are prowling the country when Smarty spotted a calf with screwworms. They are a long way from the nearest corral or squeeze chute, so Smarty says to Rum Dum, “I got an idea. I’ll throw this here rope and catch that calf around the horns, and you come along and scoop up his heels, and we’ll stretch him out.”
    “Duh, okay. But what do we do then?”
    “We’ll worry about that when the time comes.” Surprisingly, Smarty made the head catch, although it was illegal by today’s standards, but Rummy, who couldn’t rope a fence post standing still, threw 12 empty loops before Smarty got tired of chasing after the calf over hill and dale with his arm extended, finally said forget it and let go of his leather lariat that it took him one month and a cowhide to make.
    As a result, Smarty and Rummy spent all their spare time roping a dummy, which sparked a multi-billion dollar roping industry. But when the ranch owner found out his cowboys were roping the stock he fired them both because he’d rather have you rope his kids than his cattle.
    No doubt steer wrestling was invented by a mentally challenged cowboy like myself who couldn’t rope a hall tree. On the next ranch where the same cowboys found themselves in a similar situation the smart cowpoke said to the dim-witted one, “Okay, so that didn’t work out too well, but I dare you to run alongside that steer, jump off your saddle, grab his horns, stick your boots in the ground, bite his lip and throw him to the ground while I sit here and make critical comments.”
    “Say what?” said Rum Dum.  “Are you sure this will work?”
    “I’m pretty sure, but if it doesn’t can I have your Hamley saddle, silver bit and Ortega reins?”

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