05/06/05 Wild cow milking

Wild Cow Milking Some of my early rodeo experiences taught me some valuable lessons. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be back in one minute to tell you about one. At one of the first Fourth of July rodeos all of us buddies went to; the entries were on the spur of the moment format, which doesn't give slow thinkers like me a lot of time to analyze the situation. So when my friend Clark said he had entered wild cow milking and wanted me to be the ground man or mugger that held the cow I got caught up in the moment and didn't check out all the angles. This cow milking was done Calgary style with all the cows and ropers turned out at one time; which is a real crowd pleaser, but can be a bit chaotic. Well when Clark happened to rope a calf I got the rope off quickly and assumed the calf just darted into his loop in the confusion. Clark's next cast did catch a cow and I got her held while Clark flew off his horse and tried milking into the bottle to take to the judge; I said triedClark roped a dry cow. While getting the rope off that big nasty cow I was wishing I had had the courage to enter some of the rough stock events instead. By now I'm getting a little suspicious of my friend's eyesight and when I spotted a bull in that milling mess of cattle, I looked at Clark and said you're on your own. Now like I said I did learn a lesson no I didn't quit cow mugging there's not much of a cure for big and dumb, but anytime Clark asked me to be his cow handler I always made sure the rules were one cow at a time and I always made sure Clark's cow was about a five-gallon milker. I'm Jeff Keane.