This rodeo event never made it into the big-time scene. The action never attracted much of a crowd. The participants never scored a windfall of prize money. However, it did make the Brandon TV news that evening long ago.
When we four farm boys got home on the school bus that day in November 1976, Mom and Dad just arrived back from an 80-mile round trip to the Manitoba Pool Livestock Auction at Brandon (now Heartland Livestock). They had bought a few feeder calves to bolster their beef herd and to chew through the extra bales of hay we had put up that summer. Our forage crop had been bountiful.
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However, Mom and Dad came home very tired and stressed… and so their story unfolded. It seems that while loading the calves, a steer calf had somehow escaped during the process. The weaned calf headed for newly found freedom west of the livestock yards on the flatlands along the Assiniboine River. Like any good cowboys, several “yard hands” gave chase, as did Mom and Dad in their blue Chevy pickup.
The way Dad described it, the steer had discovered extra enthusiasm and energy for having escaped his confinement. In short order, the calf roamed about five city blocks, bounded across the main Highway 10, turned north, crossed the Assiniboine bridge, and headed farther west towards the treed river lowlands. His pursuers were tiring out. The steer was not.
And just where was a calf-ropin’ steer-wrasslin’ cowboy when you needed one?
As the impromptu rodeo continued, a TV news crew arrived and began filming the runaway steer. I guess the TV people had sniffed out a good “chase” story. They figured they had the “lead” story for their 6 p.m. newscast. They quickly interviewed a yard hand too for the story details.
The chase went on. The TV news crew followed, recording the action, “but not helping,” Dad remembered. He and the yard hands wanted to corner the steer, and then slip a rope around his neck when tired. Only the steer neither seemed to tire, nor co-operate.
Mom was Dad’s co-pilot in the pickup, helping to spot the errant beast and decide which streets and roads to ramble down. The houses began to thin out, and once among trees, the steer began to calm down. He found some late-fall grass to chew on. The roundup posse slowed and hatched a plan.
Just ahead was an outdoor rink, awaiting the upcoming hockey season – no ice yet. And hey, it resembled a big corral. If they could get the steer in there, they might capture it. Plus, it was time for the mini-rodeo to end.
Dad opened the entrance gate to the rink. The group of exhausted “cowboys” sat way back and rested. The TV crew stuck around, awaiting further drama.
Yet the action never came. The now finally tired and lunching steer, ambled along the edge of the rink, and not only sauntered into the open gate, he promptly laid down for a rest. A yard hand “roper” reached over the sideboards and nonchalantly slipped a stout lasso around the burly calf’s neck. He then looped the end around a rink support post.
The hour-long rodeo had ended. The TV crew now departed. The auction market cowboys piled into the back of the half-ton. Dad gave them a three-kilometre ride back to the auction mart. They were too tired to talk, Mom noted.
Mom and Dad easily loaded up the other two calves and headed home to their Basswood farm. They had a story for the ages.
After our evening chores and supper, Dad and I headed back to Brandon to haul the calf home. Dad found the rink again. He then paid the neighbourhood boy $5 for watching over the calf during those few hours since capture. A calf “babysitting” fee, if you will.
Earlier, Dad had yanked out standing dry grass and alfalfa and tossed them in front of the tethered calf. When we arrived, the animal was passively eating and resting, as if to say, “I couldn’t have possibly caused all the commotion.”
Mom and my three brothers had somehow missed watching the CKX-TV evening news. We never heard or saw the TV version of the one-calf rodeo.
The next day, I asked a few high school buddies, but they didn’t remember much of the Brandon TV news. Whew! We were not in headlines featuring a runaway calf. We preferred anonymity. Who wouldn’t?
Earlier this year, I called livestock order buyer Cliff Penno of Rivers, Man. Mr. Penno had been the manager of the Brandon Livestock Auction, and often the auctioneer too, until 1989. I asked him if he recalled that wayward calf of 45 years ago. He did not.
“We had a few escapes every year, as do all stockyards,” he offered.
Perfect. Our one-calf rodeo was not unique. We had avoided infamy. Mom and Dad laughed about it for years afterwards.
