by Pat Hickey
May 19, 2024
. . . I should’ve gone on back home,
Cuz one thing I’m allergic to, is badly broken bones!
But I climbed on his back, as he stood in th’ chute,
An’ I wrote out my WILL, then stuffed it in my boot.
Now th’ chute boss wuz hollerin’, an’ shakin’ his fists;
“GIT THIS SHOW ON TH’ ROAD, I AIN’T GOT TIME FER THIS!”
So, I yanked my hat down, plumb over my ears,
Took a deep firm seat, an’ prepared to shift gears.
Bull Ride by Richard Beal
For weeks Americans have watched endless demonstrations against Israel masking fury to destroy Israel and exterminate Jewish people, as well as an equally powerful demand for Death to America, as free speech. The brigades of Cosplay Bolsheviks are not foreign operatives, but scions of America’s most educated and affluent native-born families.
Yankee names that go back to the Mayflower and the assimilated pampered ethnics donned keffiyehs and waved Hamas banners.
It is reported that scores of outside agitators were among the arrested across America from Columbia University to UCLA. From sea to shining sea, America’s privileged youth screamed from “The River to the Sea.”
Just wait until August, when the play-acting guerillas square off with Chicago Police Officers at the Democratic National Convention. One might believe that America has its head up its royalty.
Me? I feel hopeful for America. What we read about and watch in the media is not America. It is the flabby American academia, Hollywood, Madison Avenue and the supine media. Real America is like a seventeen-year-old high school student who rides bulls.
Westville High School is paradise for this retired English teacher. I work as a substitute teacher – K-12 for the New Durham Schools. Westville is home to an Indiana prison and light industry, like the Dollar Store warehouses.
There are many farm students as this area is rural Indiana. 4-H is huge at Westville High School.
Westville people are hard-working and serious about the education of their children. Westville schools are some of the most engaged with their families that I have experienced in almost fifty years in education.
Several weeks ago, in my capacity as a substitute teacher, I accompanied the fourth grade to LaPorte County Fair Grounds for a LaPorte 4-H and Purdue Extension agricultural showcase of various farming, livestock and environmental exhibitions.
The kids were delighted to pet and hold rabbits and witness the bleat of newborn calves, but fidgeted mightily through lectures about soil conservation and the dangers of pesticides.
All of the exhibitions were well done and presented. I learned that LaPorte County, not only grew monstrous mountains of corn and soybeans, but also was the top pickle and tomato harvesting center for Vlasic Pickles and Red Gold Tomato Products. We were directed to and from exhibits by high school and university 4-H guides.
One of the guides was a tall and lanky drink of water who had caught my attention in the high school wing of Westville schools.
At six foot five inches, this cowboy-clad young man I mistook for a varsity basketball player with a love of cowboy hats. I asked the latter-day Gary Cooper if he played on the Westville Blackhawk Basketball team. “No, Mr. Hickey,” the lad replied and offered, “I play no school sports, but I bull ride.”
I had not had this long springald in any of the high school classes as yet and asked how he knew my name. “Everyone knows you. Westville is not that all that big,” the Bull Rider understated, in keeping with the culture of his avocation.
We were directed outside to the cattle pens. It was mighty cold that day.
Two weeks later, I was asked to cover for the agriculture teacher, Ms. Ashley Kuhn, and in one of my classes was the tall bull rider, Aiden Kaiser.
His deportment in class was terrific and I learned from other students and teachers that Aiden Kaiser was a serious and helpful student, I was impressed with his manly bearing and his courteous behavior to his classmates. Aiden Kaiser was the antithesis of the pasty and shrill Ivy League Intifada play-alongs on the evening news at Columbia, University of Chicago, Northwestern and UCLA.
The next day, I asked my Principal, Alissa Schnick, for permission to interview the bull rider from Westville High School. Ms. Schnick is a great no-nonsense leader and the faculty admire her direction of the school. Many had worked under “policy” educators at other area middle and high schools and found a home here at Westville – where actions have consequences.
With permission granted, I gave a note to Aiden, in which I ran the idea of doing a story on his career as a bull rider asking for an interview in the company of his mother. Americans need to know about a high school bull rider. Most importantly, parents need to hear what a teacher, or reporter asks of their children. A bull riding high school junior is news that teaches.
Bull riding began in ancient Greece and flourished in Spain, as an aspect of bullfighting. A huge animal bred to shed and energized to destroy any and all competition offers an Olympian challenge to any hero.
I am terrified of horses, having been kicked by a dray horse when I was seven, and shudder at the thought of climbing onto the chine and shoulders of a Minotaur. Meeting a cheerful and wiry teenager who regularly saddles-up on a Brahma bull excited my curiosity and challenged my guts.
The sport was brought to America by the Spanish and evolved with the expansion of Rodeo.
Texas Rangers eventually became ranchers and the vaqueros who worked with these Tejanos taught them the art. By the 1930’s, bull riding had become an essential element of the rodeo.
A bull is placed into a chute and boards the animal holding onto a rope around the animal’s neck and shoulders with one hand.
The rider’s other hand must not touch the bull, the rope, or the rider throughout the struggle. The “toughest eight seconds in sports” begins when the chute is opened, and the bull bucks and bounces the rider. The rider must hold on and stay aboard for eight seconds and only then do judges begin scoring.
The rider and the bull are judged. Only the rider must endure the eight seconds of hate.
I met Aiden and his mother, Holly, at the Westville American Legion Post. Holly Ream announced at the outset of our meeting Aiden days aboard the beef were at an end.
“Aiden wanted to bull ride and I agreed, but I cannot tell you what his thirteen rides had done to me. He was stepped on, nearly gored, thrown and bounced off the chutes.”
Aiden told me that he had never gotten better than six seconds aboard the bulls and at that I marveled that he had gotten on a second time. Holly showed me some very graphic photos of the lad’s injuries.
Aiden had attended the Terry Don West Bull Riding School in Illinois and also in Oklahoma and learned a great deal, but the young man realized his mother’s anguish every time he mounted a Brahma. He will forego bull riding. Aiden Kaiser is a member of the Indiana High School Rodeo Association and 4-H, where he is scheduled to compete in trap shooting (currently ranked # 2) and the short rifle and with Indiana High School Rodeo Association.
Bull riding lessons were $300. Aiden helped pay for his hobby as a landscaper’s helper and has recently established his own business, Kaiser & Co. Yard Services.
Aiden Kaiser wants to make a success of himself and already has more than enough skin in the game. He wears a cowboy hat that he earned and paid for and takes it off in the presence of ladies and indoors. He has the hat and, in time, will have his own cattle. Aiden Kaiser, like most of his schoolmates at Westville High School, works hard, puts his heart into his work and schooling and loves his mother with heartbreaking honesty. Aiden will no longer chute the bull but shoot trap instead. He may ride a bull somewhere down the road. He might get thrown, but this man will climb back into the chute. Forget the posers and loudmouths.
Aiden Kaiser is one of millions of young people. These are not the children of privilege, but kids from two parent and single parent homes where respect in all of its manifestations is honored. They are brought up to take their lumps and to hand some back. They know never to take what is not theirs nor to envy those who might just do a notch better than them. They learn to be brave. They learn to be there for the job and not to expect a well-done, or badge of participation. Aiden Kaiser and his kind take the bull by the thinnest rope and hang on. They can state, “I rode the bull” and always matter-of-factly.
Aiden Kaiser is the real America.
-30-
Born November 8, 1952 in Englewood Hospital, Chicago Illinois, Pat Hickey attended Chicago Catholic grammar and high schools, received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Loyola University in 1974, began teaching English and coaching sports at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, IL in 1975, married Mary Cleary in 1983, received a Master of Arts in English Literature from Loyola in 1987, taught at La Lumiere School in Indiana from 1988-1994, took a position as Director of Development with Bishop Noll
Institute in Hammond, IN and then Leo High School in Chicago in 1996. His wife Mary died in 1998 and Hickey returned with his three children to Chicago’s south side. From 1998 until 2019, it became obvious that Illinois and Chicago turned like Stilton cheese on a humid countertop. In that time, he wrote a couple of books and many columns for Irish American News. When the kids became independent and vital adults, he moved to Michigan City, Indiana, Hickey substitute teaches K-12 for Westville, Indiana schools and works as a tour guide/deckhand on the Emita II tour boat. He walks to the Michigan City Lighthouse every chance he gets.
The post Bull Rider appeared first on John Kass.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: johnkass
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://johnkassnews.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.