Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

Skyla announced at playgroup on Friday that her son, Kalani, would be riding in the high school rodeo this weekend, and that everyone should come down and watch. I like rodeos-- I like the girls dressed up in their ribbed plaid shirts and pink alligator boots, and the boys in their silver-spangled hats and shiny belt-buckles. I like the little brothers and sisters roping each other behind the stands, and the parents screaming and cheering, and the terrible food stalls. I don't know anything about rodeos-- I know enough to correct myself from "Baby cow" to "calf" but don't ask me what event is on or who is up or what a good running time is. The rodeo is a cultural experience for me-- like being a tourist in Athens. I can appreciate the aesthetics and excitment of the moment without really understanding what's going on. When I asked Skyla where the arena is, she said, "at the end of the road. Just go to the end of the road, and it's right there....

Last weekend we got to participate in a branding up on Mauna Kea. Our landlords' grandpa, Grandpa Bolo, works one of the beautiful 300 acre Hawaiian Homes lots up in the green plains up towards the mountain. The whole family comes. Horses, dogs, kids, cowboys and cowgirls, uncles and aunties setting out tray after tray after tray of food. Korean fried chicken, Luau, smoke pork, sweet potato, poi, salad (that's mac or potato), fried fish and steamed fish: Kole, yellow, and Moe, bbq ribs, and more. The cowboys and cowgirls gather in the herd with their horses while the rest of us sit silently and watch by the corral. Then they "cut" the cows away from their calves one by one-- it only takes them half an hour to sort the entire herd. The horses and dogs are a seamless part of the team. Then once they're sorted, everyone jumps in to help with the main project: one by one, the calves are roped, pulled into working corral, mugged (knocked over and sat upon, with one hoo...

100 years ago, three young Hawaiian cowboys made the long trek to Wyoming to compete in the World Roping Championship. They spoke Hawaiian, had peculiar Hawaiian-style saddles, and wore bright hakulei on their hats-- Old West Cheyenne didn't know what to do with these foreign oddities on borrowed horses. They certainly didn't expect much from them. And then the young "children of Waimea" showed their stuff-- they not only held their own in the competition, Ikua Purdy won the whole thing outright. His victory is still sweet. It is immortalized in song: "Rough Riders" and "Waiomina" and many more. Paniolo Preservation Society Last Wednesday was the opening event for a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of that triumph. We gathered with the crowd in the cold needly kipuupuu rain outside Kahilu theatre waiting for the doors to open and admit 500 of us to the free exhibit, lecture and concert. When the doors finally opened, we pressed into t...