My “formal” rodeo training began in 1993-just about a year after this video was filmed-at the legendary Dos Amigos Bar in Odessa, Texas. It had such an impact on me that I still remember their address-“47th & Golder.” The ink on my high school diploma was still wet when I attended summer school at Texas Tech University in the Summer of 1993. Seventeen years old and way over my head in a class called Food Technology, I sat next to this dude with a really bad haircut (Brent Gibbs). Brent was a bull rider and asked me if I had anything to do that weekend because he was going to a bull riding in Odessa and there would be loose women there. (Note: Brent is a EVP at a bank in the hill country now-he’ll want to make sure the board of directors doesn’t read this.)
Charlie Thompson let me volunteer to work the out-gate and stripping chute and the rest was history. The out-gate at ‘Dos weighed about 500 lbs and trying to swing it open and closed without getting killed was the perfect task for a green-horn. Over the years I went to Dos Amigos more times than I can remember. If you know anything about bull riding-you know THIS place. This was the last place in the world where a 17 year-old kid fresh out of high school belonged-and that’s why I loved it. In my college years I worked my way from “the bottom up” in the rodeo business and was able to announce bull ridings at ‘Dos as well.
-I know that I’m not supposed to mention names, but-
Some of my memories include: 1) a late Sunday night were a guy earned the nickname “Tarzan” for his efforts in a tree with a young lady, 2) Charlie Thompson having the ever-loving crap broken out of his leg by a bull we called “Twilight Zone,” 3) breaking my eyeglasses and having to drive home in the middle of the night wearing my prescription sunglasses, 4) Brad Reynolds and Jim Sharp swapping belt buckles-a world champion buckle for a show pig championship, 5) Staying in a really seedy motel with Brent Gibbs and “others”, 6) Another seedy motel with clown-porn* on the TV all night, 7) I have a great coming of age story that involves Chad Beavers, but I’ll have to tell it in person (my mom reads my posts), and 8) and knowing that a place that cool couldn’t last forever-and it didn’t.
*Yes, that really exists!
YouTube says this video is credited to Mickey Brown. Thank you for bringing back some great memories “Mick”.