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Also this issue: The Hub Icepack |
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August 22-28, 2002
naked city
 Suburban cowboys: At the Cowtown Rodeo, riders young and old show off their power steering. Photo By: Alex Richmond |
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You wouldn’t believe it, but it’s true: In southern New Jersey, about 45 minutes away from Philly, there’s a place that gets rather western. I’m talking about a rodeo, a real rodeo, in Jersey. The Cowtown Rodeo has been up and running for nearly half a century -- with real cowboys and cowgirls, riding horses and wrestling steers. Rodeo is the only sport to have originated on American soil (so rodeo folks claim), and it’s wild, dusty and fast as a quarter horse.
Cowtown Rodeo was founded in 1929 by Howard "Stoney" Harris Jr. That rodeo was held in Woodstown, in conjunction with the County Fair (this site is presently known as Harris Acres). It ran every year until the second World War forced the rodeo to close in 1937. In 1955, Howard Harris III returned from the University of Idaho with the 1954 National Collegiate All-Around Rodeo Championship saddle, determined to restart the action. He did, and it's been running every Saturday (May-Sept.) since.
The third generation of the Harris clan, Grant Harris, runs Cowtown now.
 Papa was a rodeo: Grant Harris keeps Cowtown in the family. Photo By: Alex Richmond |
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While his cowboy hat and fetching drawl sound western as hell, he's an 11th-generation New Jersey native. "We don't get out much," he says, his green eyes twinkling. Grant was just a baby in 1955 when Cowtown started up again, and grew up among and in the action. He won a number of rodeo championship titles, starting with the Junior Bull Riding Championship (at age 8), and has worked on the professional circuit since he was 14. During college he rodeoed all over America, until his father offered to sell him Cowtown in 1977. He walked away from competing and turned to producing, though he likes to think he hasn't left the circuit for good. He and his wife live on the home ranch with their two blond daughters, Courtney and Katie -- you can see them each Saturday, when they ride procession in the ring.
The Cowtown livestock market is a hot ticket if you're in the market for a horse or steer. The flea and farmer's market (Tuesdays and Saturdays, 8 a.m.-4 p.m.) is OK. There's lots of bootleg bling-bling, including hats by "Kangos," two-piece red lounger suits by "Versage" and lots of flashy "silver" jewelry. I was quite enamored of a honking, 10-carat cubic zirconium ring for just $20, but walked away and instead bought two "leather" belts, one red and low-slung, and one black, studded number that can be cinched around the waist, geisha-style. I snagged them both for just $14.
There are two picked-over thrift stores nearby, too, if the flea market doesn't satisfy your shopping jones, and of course tons of food, drinks and water ice stands.
While waiting for the rodeo to start up, we (me and my favorite Jersey native, Ben) ran over to the Olympia Dairy Bar, a picturesque roadside shack with tasty burgers and sandwiches for under $3, and loads of locally made ice cream in various incarnations. This isn't the time for willpower. And if you haven't sufficiently filled up, the rodeo sells tons of food and snacks for even cheaper than the Dairy Bar -- choose from peanuts roasted in their shells, candy apples, hot dogs and sausages, soda, popsicles, more creamy locally made ice cream and cotton candy. If all this doesn't sound good (or you'd like to have a beer to wash away all the dust), the rodeo permits small to medium-sized coolers inside the arena.
The loading-in of the bulls and cows takes skill and coordination. There's lots of angry lowing, and one wrong move could be deadly. The bulls are huge, most weighing more than 1,500 pounds. Once inside their tiny holding pen, they circle like sharks, jockeying for position and sometimes locking horns with each other. The younger calves that get roped and wrestled to the ground are a little sweeter and more innocent-looking, but are fast -- some of the calves we saw had a habit of swerving out of range to avoid the lariat, resulting in a no-score for the rider. So clever, those little cows.
Grant says about half of Cowtown's crowd is new to the scene, and the other half are devout followers who know the players. People start arriving early to grab a seat and relax. The seats are as gritty as the rodeo itself -- bare wooden planks. No cushions, no back rest. The "box seats" for sponsors and their guests are school-bus seats, ripped out and put in a little wooden pen. While you wait you can watch the horse Zamboni smooth out the dirt in the ring, and listen to Dave and the Wranglers, a rocking three-piece band that plays Creedence, Skynyrd, Zeppelin and AC/DC during the events.
Dusty Cleveland is your rodeo announcer. While he modestly says his job is to provide stats and scoring for each rider and each event, Dusty does more than that. He provides color, to say the least. He called one massive steer "1,800 pounds of hamburger and gristle, wrapped up in a leather suitcase." Just when I thought Dusty neglected to mention the bull's horns, he busted out with, "look at the clown-stabbers on that thing!"
Dusty doesn't need to say the cows are pissed off -- that's a given. The cows are lined up and put in a holding pen hours before the rodeo begins and, right before each event, single-filed into a really small pen, where the rider can assume the position. The cows are confined and then cinched round the waist with wide belts. The bulls' testicles are not cinched, as rumored, nor are they smacked in the privates before the chute is lifted, releasing them into the ring. "That is propaganda put out by people who don't know the rodeo. The belt ties over their flank, or waist, which is a naturally sensitive area on many animals. And as for the testicles, well, they aren't there," Grant says. Well, then.
Grant insists the rodeo is great family entertainment, and that nothing too grisly for kids to see has ever happened. On the night we were there, one cowboy was tossed off his bull. The bull charged, and hit the rider head-on.
While the cowboy walked out of the ring on his own, it looked as if he had broken his collarbone and knocked his shoulder out of joint. Of course, the crowd cheered. Dusty said, "I don't know what they're paying these guys, but it isn't enough."
Cowtown Rodeo, Saturday nights, May-Sept., 7:30 p.m., 780 Route 40, Pilesgrove, N.J., www.njsouth.com/index-cowtown.htm.
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