Jun 22

Anyone here from Temple Ner Tamid?

Posted By: joangarry

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It started out nicely.  The announcer at the rodeo would yell out —  “Hey , anyone here from California?’  And some portion of the crowd, sometimes small , sometimes a bit bigger would hoot and holler.  I don’t know what kind of crack he made about Californians but I can guarantee you that a stereotype was involved.  He would, at each break while they were getting some poor little calf ready to be roped (read:  strangled by a rope while the crowd cheers), mention a state, listen as some portion of the audience cheered, and then he would offer us his little stereotype joke.  So for example, he got to the state of Florida pretty quickly.  The Florida attendees roared as our host reminded us about who lives there – old people… and their parents (he clearly doesn’t know about all the gay men who’ve settled in Fort Lauderdale)

It struck me that being from different states was the ONLY diversity..  We had only white people at the rodeo but at least some were from California, some from Montana and then a few old people from Florida.

Oh yeah, there was also a lot of religious diversity.  There were the people who believe in Jesus and the people who really believe in Jesus.  There were Christians from Wyoming, Christians from Montana.  Christians, Christians everywhere.

Eileen and I were fascinated.  Yes, and we had that “are we the only ones in the room?” kind of feeling.  Here we were sitting with our two kids who look like they’ve just come off the set of “Fiddler on the Roof.”  We were strangers in a strange land.  Or maybe it’s New Jersey that’s strange.

We cut out early.  Something about the evening didn’t sit right.   We were glad we went but happier to be heading back to Red Lodge.

And if you leave before the rodeo is finished,  you can beat the lines at the Dairy Queen…

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