“There’s a young man that I know, his
age is twenty-one
Comes from down in southern Colorado
Just out of the service and he’s
lookin' for his fun
Someday soon goin' with him someday
soon”
(Someday Soon ©Ian Tyson)
Remember
that song? Written by Ian Tyson and originally recorded by Ian and Sylvia, then
a few years later by Judy Collins.
Ian
Tyson “rode the rodeos” in his late teens and early twenties, so it is rumored
on the internet, so that is where he was coming from when he wrote this – the sweet
faithful young woman waiting for the rascally rodeo rider.
“My parents cannot stand him 'cause he rides the rodeo
My father says that he will leave me
cryin'…”
Yep.
We all hummed and sang along. Pretty tune.
“He loves his damned ol’ rodeo as
much as he loves me
Someday soon goin' with him someday
soon”
After my experience with rodeo
cowboys, when I hear that song I want to say, “Run, girl, run! Your parents are right!”
The
story: as a senior in high school I was accepted by the two colleges to which I
applied – UC Santa Barbara, and Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.
I
chose to go to Cal Poly as a journalism major instead of to the University of
California at Santa Barbara as a music major. For some reason I thought that
journalism would get me a job, whereas music would not. Wrong – in the sixties
women weren’t being hired for journalism jobs like they are now. It was a man’s
world.
I
knew that Cal Poly was the choice that would please my parents. It was an engineering
and agriculture school with a ratio of three male students to every female
student (“Cal Poly- where the men are men, and the sheep are nervous”), and it
was a conservative school.
This
was 1965, when the Free Speech movement had taken off in Berkeley, quickly
followed by the Filthy Speech Movement. My older brother had gone to Berkeley,
but I knew that my parents would never allow me, their wee ewe lamb, to go to
that cauldron of Communism and dirty language.
Besides,
it was a three-hour drive down 101 from Watsonville to San Luis Obispo, and
Santa Barbara was another couple of hours beyond that, at least. Cal Poly was
geographically much more desirable.
My
mother drove me down and checked me into my dormitory that September day. I
couldn’t wait for her to leave. In retrospect, I’m ashamed of how rude I was to
her. She knew better than I did what my staying and her going meant. It was the
end of my living under the parental roof (at least until I came crawling out of
Los Angeles six years later, but that’s another story).
Once
ensconced in my dorm room, I got to know my roommates and the girls living
across the hall, Julie and Carol.
Cal
Poly had a championship rodeo team, and Julie and Carol were barrel racers on
that team. Barrel racing is the women’s rodeo sport.
So,
there I was, 17, literally a farmer’s daughter fresh out of the apple orchard,
and I had new cowgirl friends at this ag school.
That
first quarter I met some of the cowboys on the rodeo team, and those rodeo cowboys
– holy carp. I’m not sure if many of them were that devoted to academics. They were
there to rodeo on that championship team. And to drink.
I
can’t help but wonder if they were like other athletes who are in college for
one reason – to play their sport – and their academic transcripts were cooked,
if you catch my drift.
One
Friday evening late that fall I went to a cowboy party. Most of the team riders
were there, and soon I realized that I was the only sober person in the room.
Guess
what happened.
One
drunk cowboy got into an argument with another drunk cowboy, and soon that
escalated to one taking a swing at the other and connecting solidly. The kid
who’d been hit went down like a tree falling over and struck his head on the refrigerator.
I couldn’t tell if he was bleeding from a head wound or one of his existing orifices,
but there was blood, and he was no longer conscious. The drunken party goers
scrambled around, trying to figure out what to do. It was decided to carry him
to a bedroom where he could sleep it off. No one thought to take him to an ER
or call an ambulance. Cowboys.
If
I had any illusions of rodeo cowboys being romantic or glamorous, those
illusions died that night.
Ian
Tyson’s fantasy about that nice passive girlfriend waiting for him and
following him anywhere no matter how badly she was treated – well, reality
kinda ruined that song for me, both seeing rodeo cowboys in action and my young adult
life navigating the stormy waters of romance. My generation of girls was raised
to be that girlfriend, and I must tell you that for most of us it did not lead
to a happy life.
After
my disillusionment with rodeo cowboys I started hanging around with the beatnik/bohemians
at school, so my parents’ worst nightmare about me falling in with the commies
was realized.
Of
course there was nary a commie among them. They were just young people who
drank, played guitars, and sat around talking – they weren’t violent, and they had
some conversation.
Big
improvement over the rodeo cowboys, I thought.