Channeling Ruby

This was one dreary weekend around the Stockyard. Of course, the most immediate cause of our sorry state was the fact that we will have to endure THREE FULL WEEKS with no new PBR action, which is enough to make any fan mope. On top of that, it has rained every day for nearly a week, and now there is flooding up on the Gallatin River north of town, so we’ve pretty much been stuck inside to enjoy the gloom. In November, we would expect this, and would cheerfully cozy up to our natural gas fireplace, gleefully sending that fossil fuel straight up the chimney and watching NCIS reruns till our eyes were gritty, but it’s damned near June, just two weeks from the official start of summer, and we haven’t even gotten our sweet peas planted yet! Our local meteorologist, whom Barn Cat has lovingly christened “ChromeDome” in honor of his shaven pate, has assured us that this has been the third coldest May on record in Montana. That just makes us feel worse.

But the lack of PBR action has given me time to think about some issues that I’ve been promising myself I’d take off the backburner one day. In the past week, I’ve been mulling over AZPonyDriver’s comments on the TWoP forum about the lackluster (and sometimes just dumb) commentary we’ve been enduring from the Versus broadcasting booth, and I am compelled to say I agree with her. When he’s up there, Justin McKee at least usually comes up with some hillbilly descriptions that are mildly amusing, but lately he’s been working the floor, and neither Justin McBride nor J.W. Hart is keeping me very entertained. AZPonyDriver’s remark that Don Gay was more colorful has reminded me that Gay and my mother use some of the same expressions, which has led me to imagining what it might be like if my mom, Ruby, got hired to work in the booth. You might hear something like this:

When a rookie makes his first appearance on the Built Ford Tough Series: “That boy has been riding bulls since he was knee-high to a grasshopper.”

She might even opine that some of the riders are still about that size. Those cowboys will remain nameless, for the sake of saving our own skins, because that small as they are, I’m betting they might take a swing at me to defend their honor, even if I am a girl.

When a bull throws a rider out the back door: “That bull left him like a dirty shirt!”

I’ve heard both my mom and Don Gay say this. Usually when she does, she’s talking about a truck driver who left her in the dust on the interstate. (She considers the drivers for one particular trucking line, also to remain unidentified here, agents of the devil himself because of their unsportsmanlike conduct on the road.) It also brings to mind poor Travis Briscoe, who on top of his sad streak of buck-offs got pitched off Hot Pistol in San Antonio and arose up with his shirt ripped to shreds. I hope he keeps a change of clothes in the locker room, because I’m pretty sure there ain’t no tailor backstage at the PBR. They need every spare inch back there for portable medical equipment.

When a bull is acting up in the chute: “That chute’s so small, you can’t cuss a cat in it without getting hair in your mouth.”

Typically, she’s talking about a room or a car when she says this, but Ruby is nothing if not adaptive—she’d change to suit the situation in the blink of an eye.

When a rider manages to stick for eight seconds, and it ain’t pretty: “There’s more ways to kill a cat than choking it to death on butter.”

My mom has at least a half dozen expressions about cats, none of which I've ever heard anybody else use and almost all derogatory, which is interesting because she really prefers cats to dogs. This is yet another difference between us. Oddly enough, I’ve never in my life heard her say anything so common as, “I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.” I was grown and gone before anybody ever said that in my presence.

When there’s a particularly nasty wreck: “That would gag a maggot.”

Actually, this is my dad’s expression, which my mom has expropriated, because after being married nearly 60 years, you should at least get to steal your partner’s thunder, right? Barn Cat probably has something to say about that, but for the moment, I have the floor.

When nothing (the judging, maybe?) is making sense: “If the Lord don’t know where we are, we’re lost.”

Better, don’t you think, than, “Beyond me and over my head”?

When a bull rider acts up: “That boy is as wild as a March hare.”

I’m not sure what this alludes to, but I’m convinced a March hare must be pretty wild.

When a bull rider really acts up: “If he were my kid, I’d kill him and tell the Lord he died.”

When Mom said this to us kids, we knew we were in deep trouble and no mistake. She was, and is, absolutely determined that nobody will ever think her children were born in a barn.

Despite her unmistakable chops, Ruby probably wouldn’t last long in the booth, mostly because she’d be threatening to wash mouths out with soap about every other breath. This is of course unsupported speculation, but I bet what we hear live is considerably cleaner than what’s said in there the rest of the time. So the sport will have to limp along without my mom’s contribution, which is a damned shame. Both my parents moved as young adults from the boondocks to the big city, and between them, they have created a life out of gumption, hard work, and the recognition that you’re never too old to learn something new. My respect for what they have accomplished makes my mom’s hard-won wisdom very precious to me, since it reminds me that her upbringing created the bedrock of her character. Sometimes we disagree, but I will always be proud to be my parents’ daughter. Several of those bull riders could learn a thing or two from Ruby, and not just how to cuss a cat in a small room. Though as she herself would proclaim, she wouldn’t say “shit” if she stepped in it.