RODEO CLOWN

 Before I was destined to be an artist, (a life I never knew existed until halfway through college). I had two ambitions in life: be a trapeze artist or a rodeo clown. My expectations for a career were quite low according to my friends who had ambitions of going to college and becoming doctors or teachers or marine biologists. Not me, I had rodeo clown as my number one goal in life.

Rodeo clowns were fast on their feet and very agile, and so was I. After all, I was on the gymnastics team in high school. I could do back flips over those bulls, I thought. This was quite appealing to me. The rodeo clowns saved lives, too. Knowing that other people’s lives would depend on me and my agility was exciting. This seemed the ideal career choice. My friends couldn’t understand why I would desire living so dangerously. “That's part of the excitement,” I told them. “You get to run and jump and entertain people and save lives on occasion. That's what a rodeo clown does, saves lives,” I told them. I secretly dreamed of being the hero, rushing and distracting the bull that was ready to gore the rider that had ridden him for eight seconds or had just been thrown. The adrenalin rush was intoxicating. 

 While friends were enjoying normal teenage lives on weekends, I was content to hone my skills by jumping over barrels or riding my horse trying stunts like the rodeo trick riders. 

 One of my favorite horses was Trixie, a beautiful palomino with a flowing golden mane.  I felt like Roy Rogers on Trigger when I taught her to rear up. At night, if I couldn't sleep, I would sneak out of the house and just be on that beautiful horse, quietly riding about the pasture, bareback, or just lying on her hugging her neck. (I’m sure she really loved me for that). Trixie is the one that I tried my riding stunts on, like jumping in the saddle from the garage roof like Zorro or bouncing on the ground and back in the saddle or trying shoulder stands while she was galloping full steam down the pasture lane. The thought of breaking bones never occurred to me.  Nor did it really bother me. After all, I had broken bones several times up through high school, like the time I made her rear up too far and she fell on top of me, and I broke a rib while Mama and Daddy were out of town.  I'm surprised I didn't have a concussion. 

 Living on a farm had prepared me for such a career. I was a country boy, and it was almost a daily routine to wrestle horses that needed to be corralled or branded. Horses were in my blood. In fact, I had been given a beautiful sorrel mare for my first birthday. There exists, in some long-lost box, a picture of Daddy leading me around the yard sitting high in the saddle in my diaper. Where that elusive picture is, I can't tell you. I think Mama destroyed it when she had dementia while living in Assisted Living later in her life. As a teenager I never missed an occasion to ride. I lived on my horse. Many times, I would sit and eat a meal or read a book on Sheba. She was a huge plow horse with feet so big she could walk across the cattle guard. (She never did, but only because she never thought of it). Sheba was another of my favorite horses.

We lived on Jackson Street Extension in Alexandria, Louisiana in the 50's and early 60's, from the time I was in the 4^th grade until I finished high school. It was out in the country at that time with nothing but fields of cotton or corn from MacArthur Drive all the way to Twin Bridges. Our farm later became the area of Mohon Street, Brame Jr. High, and the Camellia Place subdivision on Prescott Road in Alexandria. Brame Jr. High was my father's cotton field and my racing ground. We were, also, raising Shetland ponies showing them around the United States and, of course, we had horses and a few cows. 

 I attended rodeos every time one was around, like Ted Johnson's in Hineston, Louisiana, or Jimmy Thompson's near the traffic circle on MacArthur Drive. Some of my riding friends and I were usually the first ones at the gate for the Grand Entry. We would gather at our house on those evenings, saddle our horses and ride to the rodeo down Jackson Extension and all the way down MacArthur Drive.

This was when I fell in love with the rodeo clowns and all things rodeos. I loved the sights, the sounds, the smells. I loved the way the clowns kept the spectators entertained while bull riders prepared for their eight seconds of glory. I loved their makeup, their outfits, their ability to jump over barrels and sometimes over bulls. These individuals exposed themselves to great danger to protect the cowboy. This was the life I dreamed of. I think rodeo clowns are the glue that hold everything together. Without them there could be no rodeo. Now it’s true, I did consider being a bull rider or a bareback bronco rider and this would have been fine, but they were not like the clowns. It’s probably best anyway because I know my Daddy would never have been fine with that. 

             After I started college, I became interested in art and somehow, over the years gave up my dreams of life traveling from event to event. I quit being a cowboy and quit riding horses and although I don’t do that anymore I still love watching PBR and the bull riders.

Once in a while, I dream of what joy it would have been if I had become a rodeo clown, or bullfighter as they are known today. Sometimes I regret that I never had that opportunity. Ha!  Maybe this should be on my bucket list.

© Nippy Blair 2015. Posts and pictures on this blog cannot be copied, downloaded, printed, or used without the permission of the blog owner, Nippy Blair.

WILLIE AND CAMELLIA WATERS

Job 33:28        He redeemed my soul from going down to the pit, and I will live to enjoy the light.

                     

 

Willie and Camellia are members of the Riverdawg band and regularly perform at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Their blend of country western, blues and Zydeco, with a bit of rock and rap is acclaimed as the new music of the century. Other bands are clamoring to copy these pioneers. They have developed a large following, especially among the Canadian French.

Willie grew up in central Louisiana in Rapides Parish staying in fights and barely passing school. We were classmates all of our years in school. I remember him being frequently in the principal’s office in grammar school. In high school he was at the point of being expelled for the year when our principal, Mr. Johnson, decided to try a new approach rather than lose yet another young man to the streets. Mr. Johnson knew Willie liked music and needed direction in his life, something to discipline him. A goal to achieve. It took a great deal of persuasion to convince the band director to give Willie a chance.  

It was rough, at first, but gradually Willie discovered he had talent. The rest is history. Willie excelled in band going on to study at the New Orleans Conservatory of Music graduating with honors.

Camellia, his wife, is the lead singer in the Riverdawg band.  Some say she has tremendous promise, with a voice that rivals Ella Fitzgerald. Unlike Willie, she grew up in New Orleans around music. Her parents are performers, and music is in their blood. When she was growing up her evenings were spent doing homework in back corner offices while her parents were on stage. Occasionally she would join them for a song or two. It was only natural that she would follow in their footsteps. Camellia met Willie several years ago at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, falling in love with both his suave personality and exhilarating style of music. They fell in love. He gave her an engagement ring in the shape of a guitar, and they exchanged vows on the main stage at Festival International, in Lafayette, Louisiana while the band played on.

Willie and Camellia have been married for five years and are expecting their first child on Mardi Gras Day. This is an honor among musicians from N’awlins, I'm told. Camellia is thrilled because she once dreamed of having a child while riding on a float down Canal Street. She does not plan to be riding one on her due date, however. 

They have had a lot of discussion as to what the child should be named. If the baby is a girl, they intend to name her Lilly, Rose, or Pink. If it is a boy Willie wants to name him Fizzle, Fart or Stink. However, if Camellia has her way, the boy will be named Fat Tuesday, but she will still let Willie call him “Stink”.  I hope it’s a boy and he grows up to be a musician, too. He’d have a cool name, Stinky Waters.

© Nippy Blair 2015. Posts and pictures on this blog cannot be copied, downloaded, printed, or used without the permission of the blog owner, Nippy Blair.

THE OLD CODGER HAD AN EXPENSIVE MEAL

My daddy was the compulsive sort.  Whatever idea he had in mind needed to be acted upon and acted upon immediately.  When the spirit moved him, it was best to just get out of the way and let him because nothing would stop him. Most of these ideas had to do with the farm. 

This time it was peacocks.

 My daddy decided we needed peacocks to roam about the farm for their beauty. I visualized him fantasizing about being some European gentry on his estate with exotic fauna.  Mother just rolled her eyes and shook her head with that “I've been through this before” glazed look upon her face.  She reminded him that Peacocks are expensive play toys. Daddy's retort was they would be a thing of beauty as they strut around the farm and that we needed to have something else for the school children, who visited the animals on our farm, to enjoy.

After researching zoos and many telephone calls, across several states, he managed to purchase two males and their matching peahens. We kept them in cages in the barn, for a few weeks, to get them used to the area before giving them free rein to roam the farm. When released the males paraded about the place showing off like fifteen-year-old boys in front of a gaggle of giggling girls. 

peahen

            The peahen, on the other hand, is a drab sort of creature lacking the finery of her distinguished mate. These drab ladies followed the males about the barnyard with admiring glances, obviously adoring every move made by these cocky show-offs. The conceited males loved the audience and spent endless hours turning and preening and spreading their fan shaped tails for their women to admire.

Daddy found joy in hearing their caterwaul from barn roof tops or around the grounds. Mama hated the sound especially when the caterwaul was in the middle of the night on the roof above our heads

Visiting school children adored the addition of peacocks to the goats, ponies, geese, deer, and lamas that the “old gray mule (my daddy) provided for their visits. We began having more school trips of adoring children having free reign of the farm while the tired teachers attempted to control the enthusiasm. Daddy loved the visits, which was easy for him to say since he usually went somewhere else leaving me in charge of crowd control. This went well until one weaselly little boy left the gates open. Hearing some noise, I looked up to see the peacocks parading down the middle of the busy highway. Right behind them, like a pair of dutiful squaws, walked their little mousy mates. I struck out at a gallop while the teachers practiced crowd control on the squealing children. 

I learned that Peacocks, for all their beauty, are lacking in brains, and are impossible to herd. They went everywhere except the right way. Finally, a kindly truck driver helped me retrieve the fowls running amuck.

Life went well for a while until one bright moonlit night. We suddenly realized something was missing. There were no screams of “help, help”, like some PBS murder mystery. It was too quiet. They were gone. Where were the peacocks and their homely women?

 Early the next morning, I was sent searching for these wanderers. The peacocks were found desolate, sitting in the tall grasses of a ditch dragging their beautiful feathers, like playboys with a hangover. They were alone. The mousy peahens were missing. I found no traces of them. Subdued and repentant, the peacocks were silent all the way home and spent the rest of the day sitting under a tree bemoaning for their missing mates. There was silence all day, until the moon came out. Suddenly the peacocks sounded like a couple of drunks, sobering up, and set off the most desolate cries of their entire lives for their girls. They screamed night after night for weeks. Still, we couldn't find the peahens. 

Mother was outdone with the whole situation and furious that the money daddy had spent on those noisy birds and their mousy mates was lost.  

Weeks later, mother heard, quite by accident, that an old codger down the road, who shoots anything with wings, except buzzards, to eat, had bragged how he just happened to find sitting on his back tree two of the nicest wild turkey hens he had ever seen. “I fattened them up on that corn I got from Mr. Blair, and they sure was tasty,” he said. This old codger had mistaken the peahens for wild turkeys. He sure had an expensive meal that year.

© Nippy Blair 2015. Posts and pictures on this blog cannot be copied, downloaded, printed, or used without the permission of the blog owner, Nippy Blair.