I’ve heard it said a million times before, and I’ve especially heard it from Trevor (Brazile): A short memory is one of the keys to success in team roping (and rodeo in general).

Hope T. and I have been on the road for about a month now teaching schools, and we’ve been working on the fundamentals in just the right way. It seems like we talk about swing, horsemanship, scoring, etc. so much that there’s no way we could possibly ever mess up any of this stuff on our own.

Ha, wrong. We got to compete last weekend at the World Series of Team Roping’s Wiley Hicks Jr. Memorial. It was a blast, and we both turned some nice steers, but we just didn’t have any luck. But that’s team roping.

I’ve had great weekends, and I’ve had some weekends that just weren’t all that great. But this past weekend was fun, regardless. I’ve got to have a short memory about what happened in the arena, but the stuff that will stick with me was the great time it was.

Friday night before the roping, we had a feast at my great friends’ Todd and Carla Hughes’ place with a whole crew, including my favorite photographer Gabe and Stephanie Wolf of Lone Wolf Photography.

My family was all in town, and I’ll tell you what, after a whole month on the road, to have so many people I love in one place was really something. I got to ride a young horse King brought from Abilene that had been off while I’d been gone. I made progress on him, and we all had fun roping and even more fun eating. (If anyone asks where to get the best steak in Texas, I tell them my house. But the truth is that Todd can grill and MAYBE has me beat… Maybe.) And Carla? I get tired watching her cook but I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that cooking. Dang, that banana pudding… It’s safe to say it’s King’s favorite.

So the lesson, of course, is have a short memory as far as the bad goes. But the good stuff? Don’t overlook it and never consider a weekend spent with those you love, doing what you love, a loss. Dang that was fun.