Please read this...Cute, really big brown eyes...and horns...

Two songs flashed through the dust bin between my ears Monday morning as I started to compose this masterpiece. Songs...compose...get it...oh, never mind...

...maybe you know one of the songs...the lyrics implore mommas not to let their sons grow up to be cowboys...

...the other song was featured in one of my all-time favorite flicks..."The Blues Brothers"...the movie is a heart-warming tale about two members of The Blue Man Group, who happen to be brothers...

...sorry...I'm not sure that heart-warming would be used to describe "The Blues Brothers"...anyway, one of the scenes in the movie features a performance by the Brothers Blue and their band of the theme song from the "Rawhide" television series...

..."Rollin', rollin', rollin, keep them dawgies rollin', rrrrawwwwhide..."

...there, now that you've got those two songs stuck in your mind...they will never, ever go away...

Those songs came to mind after I had attended a ranch rodeo which was held last Friday evening at the Union County Fair in Anna.

The rodeo, as you might guess, involved cowboys, cowboy hats (including a fair number of hats which ended up on the ground), cows, horses, dirt, dust, mud, lassoes and all kinds of other neat stuff. (There may have been cowgirls, too. I only saw cowboys. Just wondering: in our politically correct times, should these folks be referred to as cowpersons?)

The event that I happened to watch, and photograph, Friday evening involved cowboys on horses. And steers. With horns. 

The cowboys used a lasso, I think, which would have been kind of like a bat used by a hitter in a baseball game. The lasso is a cowboy's tool. The bat is a hitter's tool. Just wanted to make that kind of clear, sort of.

The cowboy would attempt to toss a lasso on the horns of the steer. Not the entire lasso, mind you. Just part of it. And not just any steer. A steer with a particular number attached to it. Yup, each steer had a number. Say a 9. Or a 4. Or a 10.

The steers did not seem to be particularly excited about having a lasso tossed on their horns. So, they ran around. A lot. 

Successful cowboys managed to get a lasso on the horns of the correctly numbered steer. Then, the fun really started. I think. The cowboys, you see, had to wrestle the steers to the ground.

The steers, however, did not seem to want to be wrestled to the ground. They ran around some more, sometimes with a cowboy or two or three attached. The steers bucked and jumped and pretty much did everything they could to avoid a prone position. Not all of the critters were successful, which, again, I think, was pretty much the whole point of the competition.

To tell you the truth, I am not quite sure why the cowboys did not seem to sustain an injury. Like a really, really serious injury. 

I'm pretty sure that if yours truly even thought about taking part in such an event, I would sustain some sort of ouchie. For whatever it's worth, and that's probably not much, I have been on a horse. Once.

And, did I mention that those steers had horns?

After seeing the ranch rodeo, I've pretty much decided that:

I am indeed happy that my momma did not let me grow up to be a cowboy.

I am grateful that hamburgers do not have horns.

(By the way, if I don't have all of the cowboy/cow/rodeo lingo just right, just remember: I grew up in the suburbs.)