| Life 'n Times In Cowboy Country
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by Diane Tribitt ~ Hillman, Minnesota
Senior Executive Editor
I.M. Cowgirl Magazine |
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Boy Sports Is A Foreign Language
The crowd went wild when the wrestling team ran out onto the gymnasium floor, crashing
through
a paper-lined hoop held by the cheerleaders! I spotted my nephew. There he is!
There's Jake!
I hollered. He tossed something under one of the chairs near the mat. Oh, my gosh!
I managed to squeak, He just tossed his jockstrap on the floor in front of everyone!
My sister chuckled and said, No, he didn't! It's his headgear!
That was the beginning of my long relationship with boy-sports, as two of my children
were of the male gender. I grew up in a family consisting of eight girls - no boys. I knew
about farm stuff, cattle stuff and horse stuff, but boy-sports were foreign to me. Suddenly
my life was consumed by it.
In my training as a football mom I had a hard time with the terminology. I called the
Special Teams the Special Forces. Sometimes I'd play my ignorance up a bit,
just
to embarrass my son. After his final high-school career game, as the football
team ran off
the field, we stood at the sidelines to honor them. As the team ran past
I hollered, Nice
homerun, Cody! He smiled.
On the other hand, my world can be just as incomprehensible. Ranching, cattle, roping-horses
and cow-dogs can be just as perplexing, and our cowboy language just as foreign.