One mom gets a special day at the rodeo’s carnival
Kids at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo often name their steers or pigs in the months before the big exhibitions.
Beth Radike has had her red-and-black motorized scooter for only a few weeks. But by this year’s rodeo, she had a name for it, too: Game Changer.
The annual carnival at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is cherished time for Radike — who has a degenerative disc disease that has meant chronic pain, hip problems and three surgical fusions — and her family.
Most years, she had to put “the paingry monster” aside for as long as she could as she tried to enjoy the quality time with her husband, who works nights, and her 10-year-old daughter Emma, who loves the carnival and is obsessed with stuffed animals.
The scooter this year, borrowed from a friend, eased the pain and allowed her to compete next to Emma in the carnival games — including the water gun races, Emma’s favorite.
What does this rodeo mean? Everything, Radike said, holding back tears.
“We spend a lot of time at home, and I spend a lot of time on the couch, horizontal,” she said. “If I move, it increases my level of pain.”
Emma has collected stuffed animals for years, saving cherished gifts and winning them in carnivals like Wednesday’s. Under her bed sit three big drawers full of plushes. Another heap sits on her bed.
On Wednesday, she had her eye on a Pikachu doll, smiling with blushed cheeks, and couldn’t wait to add to her collection. She knows that her family can’t afford to go back to the rodeo carnival again this year, so the day was extra special.
“All the years we didn’t have the scooter,” she said, “my mom was always in pain. She couldn’t walk for a very long time. (Now,) it’s easier for us to move around.”
Emma nabbed the Pikachu prize by the end of the day, along with two cat unicorn dolls, a hippo, a dog and more. She stuffed some prizes in a white plastic trash bag her father brought home from work and hung others on Game Changer.
As they were exiting the park, about an hour before sunset, Game Changer ran out of batteries. Radike’s husband offered to push. “I got it, Daddy,” Emma said. “I’m fine.” And she rolled her mother — and her winnings — back to the family’s car.