Something New

This weekend was the first time ever that I didn't go to valley to watch the semi-final and final basketball games. Instead, for the first time I spent the entire day with my aunt and cousin brother. My aunt, Rae, is currently going to school at Northern Arizona University and my cousin brother, Colin, is a junior at Winslow High School. We went to town because he needed new clothes for a roping his doing this weekend and I needed new moccasins with my leggings attached to the new pair, our aunt was just the driver, but the trip was really for Colin.

My brother is careless, but I have never seen him so picky until that day. He told us before that he needed an outfit, I just didn't expect it to take an entire hour! He started team roping and well be roping this weekend in Holbrook, AZ, at the Tolani Lake Classic. My aunt and I started browsing through shirts after shirts, after shirts and every shirt seemed to have something wrong with it. The buttons were right, the shirt was too thin or too thick, or the color didn't match his rope! The last one made me laugh but he quickly defended himself by saying "my rope is an accessory to me." It wasn't until Rae picked out a blue shirt with black buttons, one pocket on the left side, without the shoulder design that he didn't like, and had the right thickness. Though it still didn't match his rope, so he ended up buying a new rope. Just his new shirt alone was about $65 and his two pants were $50 each, it was shocking to witness him spending all that money within minutes. Selecting his rope took even longer! From the rack, he inspected each rope and each one had a defect he named by just looking at it. "It's not balanced", "It's not straight", and my favorite "It has a bend", well of course it has a bend, it's a rope! After going through nearly all the ropes he finally found one that was "perfect" and I asked, "How did he know?" He undid the rope and told me to watch, then he threw the rope up in the air and let it hit the ground. I watched but I didn't know what I was really watching. Then he said the rope goes straight up and comes straight down without moving, that means it's balanced and the honda (the loop for the rope) is straight. Then I was amazed with how much he could tell about a rope with a quick glance. He then compared it to sports for me by saying, you spend hours at a shoe store looking for the right pair, then you wear the shoe in practice so that your used to it, and in practice you run and do whatever you need to do for the real game. It's the samething for me with roping, I trained my horse myself, I ride it everyday afterschool, I select the perfect rope, boots, and clothes, just so I know I did what I can to win.

I never noticed how dedicated he was to roping and it was impressive on how he compared what he does to what I did. He told me about some of the local ropings he goes to and wins about $800 to $300 each weekend. So he invited me to watch him in his first roping this Friday, I'll probably end up going to support him at his first roping. For him, it's just having fun and if he's lucky he wins. Rodeos do not interest me, but he bought my shoes for graduation with the money he won, I'll watch him (maybe). I love how my cousin has something he's dedicated to entirely.