Buck Page #3

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You wouldn't think

that a three-year-old

could be doing rope tricks,

but I was doing rope tricks.

I turned professional

when I was six.

And as far as I know,

we are still the youngest kids

to ever get a PRCA card,

which it was the RCA

in those days,

Rodeo Cowboy Association.

And we went to fairs and rodeos

and performed all over.

But we really enjoyed

the attention of the crowds.

We were kind of

childhood celebrities, you know.

We were

the Kellogg's Sugar Pops kids.

You know, fancy roping

takes hard work,

plenty of sleep,

and good nutrition every day.

Here's a good

hardworking breakfast.

Oh, it must have been 1970,

'71, right around in there.

It was just before my mom

passed away.

That was quite a thing.

And all I remember

about that commercial,

it should have been real fun,

'cause it was a big thrill

to all the kids in school

that we were on

national television

doing these TV commercials.

All I really remember about that

is that my dad beat us

unmercifully

for not putting on

a perfect performance,

and then he drove us home,

and, heck, he couldn't even wait

till we got home.

He stopped and knocked on us

a little bit more.

I remember my mom

would drop us off at school.

The last couple of years

she was alive,

she was working as a waitress

in Ennis, Montana,

and I would beg her

not to leave,

and every day, I would cry;

Every day, she would cry,

because I was just terrified

of the fact

that I was gonna be five

or six hours alone with our dad

when we got home from school

before my mom would get home,

'cause things always went better

when she was around.

But then when my mom died,

I knew my life was over

as I knew it,

and I no longer had

my protector.

Well, after my mom passed away,

my dad really fell apart,

and night after night

after night,

he would come yank us

out of the bed

in the middle of the night

and make us sit at this

kitchen table, this oak table.

I could draw the grain in

that table for you to this day,

'cause you'd just stare down

at the table,

because even to just look

at my dad

when he was ranting and raving

in a drunken stupor,

he would take that

as an aggressive expression.

And one night, I just said,

"I'm not gonna get beat up

again tonight.

I'm just... I can't do it."

And I made a mad dash outside

and not thinking about the fact

that I wasn't very well-dressed

for being outside

in the middle of the winter,

'cause it was cold.

It was somewhere

between 10, 20 below zero.

Well, damn,

then I was really stuck,

because I knew

if I went back inside,

he was gonna beat me

half to death,

and I just couldn't go back in.

I just couldn't.

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