Our illustrator goes to the rodeo — and learns to like it

As some may have gleaned by his outfit on Go Texan Day, Houston Chronicle graphic artist and illustrator Ken Ellis is not into rodeo.

I’m familiar with how frustrating our state’s self-mythologizing can be. Growing up, my out-of-state cousins were always asking why I didn’t have an accent, a horse, a 10gallon hat or the attitude to go with it, all things that seemed utterly bogus when held up against the realities of my suburban childhood on the northwest side of San Antonio. The questions continued when I moved to New England, and eventually — capitulating to the weight of societal expectations — I did buy a pair of cowboy boots.

But Ken has taken a stronger stance against Texas exceptionalism, and part of that stance is that he does not go to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

So when I signed up to write a story about the rodeo’s Birthing Center, hopeful that kids would say the darndest things when confronted with the miracle of birth, I was very much looking forward to going to the rodeo with Ken. (We thought the kids would be so funny, we could draw cartoons of the things they said).

I overestimated the kids’ reactions, but not the experience of going to the rodeo with Ken. So I want to share some highlights.

As we drove up, I asked him how much he thought parking was. When he finally guessed, after three tries that were far too low, he sighed. “Twentyfive bucks, and you park, and then you’re at the rodeo,” he said dolefully.

When the woman at the gate told us to have fun, he gave a single “hah.” When, after a short tram ride from the parking lot to the grounds, another woman instructed us to “Yeehaw!” — he sat in stoic silence.

Then we were in the thick of it, surrounded by the smells of manure and fried foods and by gaggles of students. He peered with concern at a terrarium filled with broken eggshells and a raggedy chick lying prone on its side. “Oh!” he said as the chick hopped up. “Little buddy, I thought you were a goner!”

While he was very against the idea of food on sticks, I will say he ended up getting a gyro — which I believe is defined as meat that is roasted vertically on a stick. And while at first he professed a hatred of country music, he then allowed that he enjoyed a few more folksy, singer-songwriter country crooners, like Jerry Jeff Walker — who once literally bumped into him on an Austin sidewalk (!) — and Guy Clark — who was friends with his dad (!!)

As we were leaving, I asked Ken if it was really that bad. He was making no concessions. But then a vendor decorated with wooden planks and coils of rope, and a sign advertising “The Original Cinnamon Rolls” came into view.

A wide-eyed Ken placed his order, grabbed his plastic fork and dove into the Texas-sized pastry. He’d found happiness at the rodeo. And we hope you enjoy his illustrations for this story.