“As long as there’s a sunset there will always be a West”

Last weekend across the United States was Labor Day weekend. The last weekend of the summer with an extra-day tacked on for good measure (much like our August Bank-Holiday Weekend but with a catchier name). For students in Norman this wasn’t the last weekend of the summer, the autumn semester has already begun and Saturday marked the first football (read "American football") game of the season. It seems that this alone isn’t enough excitement for Oklahoma residents and as Labour Day weekend is a time which many put aside to spend enjoying family activities Saturday was a natural time for Oklahoma State Prisons to hold their annual inmate rodeo. So it was that I would be enjoying a double dose of American Culture, a morning experiencing the joys of Game Day in a university town with a top team in College Football and an evening in Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester sitting on a concrete bench enjoying "the biggest behind-walls rodeo in America".

Firstly you have to understand that College Football is taken very seriously in The States and that OU’s team, the Sooners, is one of the top teams in the country. Any game day is huge in a town like Norman which is built around its university and the first game of the season is more than good reason to celebrate, even for those without tickets. I had heard tell of tailgate parties before but prior to Saturday I hadn’t fully comprehended what a tailgate party is. Imagine a city of trucks and those cheap plastic gazebos and folding chairs with drinks holders which have become so popular at British music festivals. Add copious amounts of beer, often a TV (some even with satellite receivers), barbeques (especially the kind with huge gas canisters that you never thought particularly portable – unless of course like most of the people here you have a GIANT TRUCK). In short, it feels like a 3 hour long festival with fewer drugs, far more pep, several generations and with everyone wearing the same colours. So, I began to wonder: why is it that pre-match American style is so much more pleasant than pre-match British-style? I can’t even begin to imagine walking around a football stadium in Britain just for the experience. I doubt there’d be as much good feeling and there’d probably be a lot more swearing and vomit. Perhaps the marching band, with its herds of trombones and flutes, its twirler and drum major, adds to the familial feel of the occasion? After all a marching band gives the geeks something to do and this particular marching band is known as "The Pride of Oklahoma". You see they’re not just the pre-match and half-time entertainment but "The Pride" no less. Geek and jock, side-by-side, taking part in the Game Day phenomenon. It could of course be the weakness of the beer. In Oklahoma beer that is sold anywhere but a liquor store (read "off-license" but harder to find) can only have a maximum 3.2% alcohol content, there is stigma attached to going into a liquor store (blame the Christians) hence most beer drunk in OK is weak "light" beer that tastes of nothing and you have to drink gallons of to be even a bit tipsy. It would certainly explain the lack of vomit, violence and foul-language.

As I think more about how unpleasant it would be on a game day in the area around a British stadium and try come up with reasons for the huge differences I hear the pre-match prayer echoing from behind the stadium walls. At this point I begin wonder if the predominance of Christianity amongst the game’s participants and supporters could account for the difference in atmosphere. Despite the general feeling of inclusiveness you might get by seeing all these people, all these generations, could it be that there is more than just a love of football linking all these people? Perhaps that everyone shares more or less the same "family values" (whether or not they actually live them) explains how they all manage to get along? Who knows? But there must be a reason right? Perhaps if back home our sport-watching communities all looked down on drinkers of anything other than light beer and all shared the same beliefs we too could have peaceful match days? It seems a lot to give up.
Surely though there are things from the All-American way enjoying sport that we could include without having to include a pre-match prayer and watching a flag go around the pitch. It would certainly be nice to see more families, all ages and both sexes at matches, why shouldn’t geeks get a part to play in otherwise sporting events? A little national pride mightn’t hurt us and finally a bit more pep wouldn’t be such a bad thing especially if it involves pom-poms and cute girls in short skirts.

The Pride of Oklahoma

After a morning at the university watching marching bands and people cheerfully wearing crimson and cream and drinking weak beer an evening of less pep and more danger sounded like a nice change to me. So we set off east a couple of hours to McAlester to the prison rodeo. An inmate rodeo seemed like a rather odd idea to me and it was no less odd in practice. To illustrate the mind-set of many of the attendees of the rodeo here are two of the slogans on bumper-stickers on one of many trucks (they like their large vehicles here) in the car park: "Bowhunting: No Guts, No Glory" and "I love animals, they’re delicious". Rodeo is entertainment western style and all the "cowboys", their large trucks, their families and their mullets come out to play. The arena is concrete with concrete bench-style seating painted bright blue and with lines dividing up the seats, lines which really don’t allow quite enough room for many of the crowd, whose bottoms spill over into neighbouring seats. One such spectator is the woman with the oxygen tank a couple of rows in front of us who between herself and the three other members of her party take up not four but seven "seats". This is America and bigger is better and more is best. This is perhaps no better demonstrated than by funnel cake; I see many people eating a foodstuff that I haven’t encountered before and I ask Amanda what it is. I’m informed that this is funnel cake and the amounts I see some people consume convince me that it must be good and so I persuade her to share one with me. We have perhaps four bites each before giving up, full and slightly nauseous from the experience. Meanwhile I see people around us going back and forth for more and more. I’d wonder where they put it if I couldn’t see where.
When the entertainment begins a voice over the loudspeaker informs un that we are going to be treated to a demonstration by The Glory Riders a "white horse ministry" and who are going to do a trick-riding version of the second coming of Christ. Every moment here it dawns on me more and more quite how all-pervasive this Christianity is - even a rodeo is another opportunity for the churches to compete for more fodder. A girl standing on top of an (actually off-) white horse dressed as an angel enters the arena, a second follows her and then following them rides a third person flying a flag saying "Christ is coming". The three ride around for a bit and when they leave in comes what I can only presume is "Christ" a portly man all in white (including cowboy hat) and brandishing a sword (I suspect he’s the minister of this so-called-ministry). Then comes the rest of the flock, flying flags with various names for Jesus on them they do a few tricks generally with "Christ" at the centre of it all, there’s some bowing, some walking backwards, the usual stuff. When it all comes to an end and I think this silliness is over and we can get on with some rodeo fun out comes "Old Glory" (the American flag) and is strutted around and given just as much reverence as "Christ" was. Next comes my favourite bit, a nice little speech by commentary man about how "this melting pot of ours" isn’t working and how maybe we should all just be a bit more Christian. What I like best is that it doesn’t strike them that maybe the melting pot would work a little better if they stopped trying to make everyone a little more Christian. Somehow I sense that there’s not much use pointing this out. Now I had just the National Anthem to get through and then the rodeo could begin, if only I could have completely forgotten the intolerance of it all I might have enjoyed the "bulls and blood"…"dust and mud" of the rodeo even more!

Inmate Rodeo