My Hometown

Today is Rodeo day in Covis, CA, my hometown. We live right next to the staging area for the annual Rodeo Parade so I woke up early to the sound of air brakes and horses clip clopping off their trailers. I had some coffee and decided to walk over to Barstow Ave. and wait for my 12 year old niece, Meghan to ride by in her first Parade.

Now this is not the Rose Parade by any stretch of the imagination. Still, I found myself wishing I'd sprung for a digital camera last Christmas because there were so many sights that simply made my redneck heart swell with pride and joy.

You can't have a parade witout floats and Clovis floats seem to be divided into two categories:
1. Big ass boats being towed by big ass pickups.
2. Flatbed Trailers with hay bales being towed by Peterbuilts

Say you own a small business. You just pay your entry fee, have a vinyl banner printed up with your company logo, pile all your presentable employees and their kids into your Party Barge, hook it up to your Super Duty and viola! you're in.

Now if you have a bigger business, organization or a church you get a long flat bed trailer and a Peterbuilt or Freightliner to tow it. Throw on a bunch of hay bales and pile people and their kids on it and have everybody wave like hell. If you really want to make an impression get a Country Western singer and a PA on there as well.

Lots of floats this year but really it's the horses and riders that are the heart and soul of the parade. Clovis is full of real and wannabe horsemen and they range from the ridiculous to the sublime. The garish Shriners (see above) are an institution along with beautiful, and I do mean heartbreakingly beautiful Wrangler clad cowgirls. Damn! No camera. My personal favorites are the Fresno County Sheriff's Search and Rescue riders in their blaze orange shirts, crusty hats and duty sidearms. These people are the real deal. Speaking of sidearms, in the staging area you see lots of people packing. Groups like the Fresno Stage Robbers wander around sporting period correct garb and (unloaded) weapons.

Sometimes I think that the rodeo, maybe even Clovis itself exists purely to perpetuate this Western fantasy ritual the last Saturday of every April. It's all run with robotic precision by people like my friend Kim Hunter. I was talking to one of the Stage Robbers when she pulls up in her sleek, Zero Emissions golf cart (and Wranglers!) to say hi. I told her I was looking for Meghan's group and she scans her clipboard, points me in the right direction and whizzess off. Hee-yah, she's the real deal too.

Eventually Meghan rides by and I marvel how this painfully shy girl is so completely happy on horseback. Gotta get that camera. I yell and she beams and waves like a homecoming queen. Who needs the Rose Parade?

Then, like some short blooming cactus flower, it's all over. By the time I walk back home, some of the horses are already walking up into their trailers. The last "floats" of the parade are the city street sweepers hissing by cleaning up after the horses. The rodeo announcer will drone on all weekend over his loudspeaker, tonight old cowboys and bikers will drink beer in peace at Salazar's Cantina and lament the brawls they had when it was Jim's Place. Tomorrow some skinny young cowboys will win some huge silver and gold buckles but the main event is done.