When I was a teenager, this time of year was so exciting. School was ended and we were free to ride horses all day, which was pretty much all that was on my agenda. While Dad finished up the spring planting, we kids would be putting cattle out to pasture and checking on the late-calvers daily. There was so much to do on horseback!
One summer my brother Kris and sister Karmen and I took in horses to train. We would ride colts in the morning while it was cool, and then ride a different one in the evening. I remember Karmen was only about nine years old, and we would usually give her the easy ones, but once ours had a few rides on them she would help put rides on ours, too. There was a blood bay Arabian horse named Aladdin who had been saddled and ridden a little, but just needed a refresher. She rode him everywhere, bareback, saddle, out alone, in a group, up and down hills, on the gravel roads….those two were inseparable for about two months, when it was time to return the horses to their owner. It about broke her heart to give Aladdin back, she really loved that horse!
Once hay season started, the riding time was over. I drove a John Deere 4420 tractor with a 42 foot straight rake on it from sun up to sun down. I loved raking hay, it was a responsibility that I enjoyed, with just enough danger (don’t catch a fence post with that rake wheel, but be sure you get within an inch of it so you don’t leave any hay behind!) to keep things exciting. Actually, the most interesting part of your day was your lunch bucket. Mom would pack a gallon ice cream pail with a lid, and inside it was not only a sandwich, but chips, pop, candy, cookies, and carrot sticks or some type of vegetable. It was an art to make that lunch last as long as possible, taking just one chip or a piece of candy when you got hungry…because it was a long time until supper!
Suppertime was usually eaten after sundown, or right next to it. We would work as long as we had daylight, so around nine o’clock we’d be wrapping things up for the day. We got to sleep in most days to make up for it, because you couldn’t rake hay until the dew had dried anyway. So we were on a later schedule than the rest of the world, and as it’s been pointed out many times since, the Lewis family is still on their own time schedule–we’re always running late!
We never worked on Sundays when I was a kid. Sundays were for church, where we’d go for all three services and stay long afterwards, talking and visiting: Sunday School followed by the morning Worship, and then often a potluck dinner. Then home to rest, take a nap, ride a horse if you wanted, but be back in time for early supper and then back to church again for the evening service. Our parents would stay at least another hour after church ended, while we kids would play outside in the church yard. Games like 23 Skidoo and Steal the Bacon were our favorites. It was the only chance we got to socialize and be around other kids our age.
Working in the hayfield had one reprieve: if it rained, we couldn’t hay. I remember driving cattle in the rain because it was the only work that could be done that day, and really needed doing, so it didn’t matter if you were soaking wet, you rode anyway. Boy, have I lost that work ethic somewhere along the line! Ha ha!
At the end of July there was one other distraction, and it hung out there in front of us the entire haying season, like a carrot dangled in front of a donkey to get it to pull a cart. The Burwell rodeo ran for three days the last weekend of the month, and if we worked hard, Dad would let us stop haying early and take the whole family to the rodeo. It was called Nebraska’s Big Rodeo, and has a long-standing tradition in the state as being a good old-fashioned all-event rodeo.
I remember the excitement I felt as Dad parked the Suburban in the parking lot and we all piled out. Just taking in the air was the beginning of the experience. Rodeo air has its own special flavor that cannot be duplicated anywhere else…it’s a grandiose mixture of the scent of popcorn, cigarette smoke, stall shavings, and horse urine. I wish Yankee Candle could capture it and I could relive the rush of excitement just through the smell of it!
The rodeo event we enjoyed the most was the Dinnerbell Derby. They would run it two or three times in between other events, depending on the number of entries, and it involved leading a mare and foal together down the homestretch of the track right in front of the grandstand. Then a cowboy would hold the foal at one end, while the mares were led back to the finish line. A bell would ring and the foals were released and they would race back to their mothers. Each of us would pick the foal we thought would win, and yell and cheer for it as it ran. Often it was the little guy who raced the fastest, but we’d also pick out the prettiest or the one with the big star on its face.
Looking around at the people there was also an adventure. I remember when I was about eight, seeing other girls there with straw cowgirl hats in bright colors with feathers decorating the front of them, and I wanted one so badly. After the rodeo, my parents bought me a purple one, and I was ecstatic! It would be years before I realized the gaudiness of it, but that purple-spray-painted cowgirl hat was one of my most prized possessions.
After the rodeo, we got to ride the carnival rides. They weren’t the most scary or incredible rides ever, but to us it was like getting in a rocket ship headed for outer space…we loved riding the Tilt A-Whirl, little roller coasters, and even the kiddie cars that went around in a circle. I remember Pizza Hut had a stand at the rodeo one year, and they were serving pizza by the slice and we got to eat it, and it was such a treat. Now, Pizza Hut is one of the last places on earth I’d want to eat, but when I was twelve, it was the best thing ever.
We never competed in rodeos. It just wasn’t my dad’s style, he had too much work to do, and he was focused on ranching rather than cowboying. My oldest sister Kandra dreamed of being a barrel racer, and she trained a couple of her horses for it, but her focus changed towards the end of high school and we never got involved in any rodeo events after that. We were just too busy with cattle work.
I’ll always love the memories of growing up on a ranch. Not only the fun times at the top of the Tilt A’Whirl, but also the long hours in a solitary tractor in the middle of an endless spread of hayground. It gives me deep joy to hold those memories close, even though the second-hand smoke mixed with popcorn and horse manure has wafted away…I will never forget.
