Hold on for Your Life
I was at work in Dallas when I got the call that my son had been accepted in the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo’s mutton busting competition. I almost dropped my phone on my desk out of excitement but pulled it together to phone my mother and let her know her 6-year-old grandson would ride an unruly sheep on the big stage come January.
Anyone could apply for one of the spots, but I had no idea how the rodeo officials chose the participants. Luck of the draw? First come, first served? All I knew is I paid an application fee, filled out a form with my son’s name, age, and weight, and sent it off into the ether.
“Townes got in!” I squealed. “It’s really happening! I can’t believe it!”
My ex-husband and I named our son Townes after the singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt because we had fallen in love to his album Live at the Old Quarter. Van Zandt hailed from Fort Worth, where we were living at the time, and he sang odes to bandits, ne’er-do-wells, and country girls. Townes seemed like a perfect Texas name, promising a childhood spent running wild in the great outdoors. However, my Townes’ childhood in the city had precluded such activities as building forts in the shrubby woods or riding horses or hunting for crawdads next to a warm creek. The rodeo was my son’s chance to connect with his roots.
“You act like he just got accepted into Harvard,” my mother replied. “Now what is it he’s doing again?”
“Mutton busting!” I repeated, for at least the 10th time. “He’s mutton busting at the Fort Worth Rodeo! We’ll need to get everyone tickets to watch him.”
“Sure, but what is mutton busting?” my mother asked.
Although they are fifth-generation Texans, my parents frequent
