Montana Part Five: Rodeo

Montana Part Five:
Home of the Champions Rodeo Day 1

The Home of the Champions Rodeo is a three-day event in Red Lodge that includes a parade each day, a "mutton busting" contest for which kids are placed on sheep, wriggling and giggling as the clock times how long the little dogies can ride it out, and the rodeo itself which features bareback, saddlebronc, calf roping, team roping and steer wrestling (among others.)

We went to two days of the Rodeo -- the 3rd and the 4th. The first day it started to rain after an hour.

My dad and his friends (the emblem on the baseball hat he's wearing is the brand for my great, great grandfather, John Vernon Kemp's cattle ranch.

Carolyn and cowboy Johnny. Johnny sat down by us and had his eyes on Miss Carolyn. Slathering on the charm, he asked us to meet him and his friends later to go out dancing at the Bull and Bear later. My dad was sitting several rows behind us watching all of this, fully amused. When the rodeo ended and we were walking back to the car, he slyly asked us who we were sitting next to and talking it up with. We told him it was some guy named Johnny. He proceeded to tell us that it was John so and so and that he'd prosecuted him for assault with a deadly weapon against his ex-wife and that he'd put a knife to her boyfriend's throat.