Lockhart: As I approach 50, it has me thinking

Iturned 48 years old the other day. It’s been bothering me that I’m approaching 50, a half century old. I’ve pretty much lived through half of my life. The average life span for a male in the United States is 78 years old, so any way you cut it, I’m on the downhill slide. My life is way past half lived.

When I turned 30 years old it really bothered me. I knew I was past the young years and headed toward middle aged. I hadn’t accomplished near as much as I wanted in the rodeo arena. I felt like a failure.

So, on the night of my 30th birthday I entered the Rooster days rodeo at Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. As fate would have it I won the calf roping by almost a full second at Broken Arrow that night.

There was another open rodeo at Sand Springs, Oklahoma that same night so I drove from Broken Arrow to Sand Springs. They let me enter for the “slack” after the performance at Sand Springs. I broke the barrier to win Sand Springs that same night. So to sort of paraphrase, I won one rodeo and broke the barrier to win another on my thirtieth birthday. That made me feel not quite as old. I’ve always remembered turning thirty years old wasn’t quite so bad.

For the past week or so I’d been down in the dumps about turning 48 years old. I couldn’t think of anything really cool to do for my birthday. The last few years I’ve not really wanted birthday presents or a birthday party. I just wanted to do something cool. A few years ago my family drove a good ways to eat at a really good steakhouse. One year I went on a guided fishing trip. I’ve always been able to come up with something really fun, this year though, I drew a blank. I couldn’t think of anything to spark any excitement for my birthday, which made me feel all that much older.

My cousin puts on team ropings. I’ve always been a calf roper and secretly always hated the numbering system they use to classify team ropers. My son has started team roping in the past year and exceeded expectations by far. So, kind of by default, I’ve started team roping here lately.

This weekend my cousin put on several ropings on Saturday and Sunday. My son wanted to go, so we went. He roped in a kind of beginner roping and won it. He won about a thousand dollars.

After his roping was a higher level roping that gave a saddle away to the high point roper. I entered three times, another man entered me and I didn’t know about it. So, I was entered as much as could be. I roped and missed a few. The last go round everyone missed except two teams. I missed a steer to win the roping, I felt old.

Here it was my 48th birthday and I missed to win the roping. It sure wasn’t like my 30th birthday. After the roping they announced who won what. I ended up third in the average. I still felt like a failure.

They were giving a saddle away to the “high point” roper. I had no clue how they determined who the high point roper was. After it was all said and done, I won the saddle and about eight hundred in cash.

It’s funny in a way. When I was 30 years old I won one rodeo and almost won a second rodeo that same night. I turned 48 years old and win a saddle team roping. My son wins a thousand dollars, a buckle and grins ear to ear. Maybe the good lord had bigger plans for me than I ever imagined. I never dreamed of such things. I’m kind of looking forward to fifty now.