I think his tractor's sexy
My sister took me country-swing dancing the other night. You'll remember that I predicted this way back last summer--that country dancing would probably be my only real option once I'm back in the States. And since I ended up in cattle country or whatever it's even more true.
So. I went, and it was actually a lot of fun. I hadn't been dancing since last summer and oh my how I've missed it. It felt so great just to be out there. Country swing is not too different to ceroc, actually. There is less adherence to any sort of beat, and there are more dislocated shoulders from cowboys flinging you about as if you were an unruly calf or similar.
Also there are line dances (like every other song) which I'm not terribly crazy about. The only line dance I learned in England was at that seventies bar. It was set to Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff," which . . . yeah. Won't be breaking out that one anytime soon. All in all, still good fun. I wore my lucky shirt, so I got asked to dance a reasonable number of times. (The universe bends to my will when I wear this shirt. It's a fact.) The crowd seemed to be mostly Utah State students, and one boy asked me how old I was.
Me: "I'm 27."
Him: "Oh, okay."
Me: "And how old are you?"
Him: "I'm, uh, 21."
Me: "Well, I'm flattered, then."
Him (after a pause to think): "No, I'm the one who's flattered!"
Sweet kid.
Later my sister and her roommates explained to me how you can tell the real cowfolk from the posers.
Real cowboys wear:
Wrangler jeans that look like they've been ironed
real cowboy boots with real mud on them
$400 Stetson hats
massive belt buckles that they won as rodeo prizes
(The bigger the buckle, the higher the prize. It's like a trophy that one wears over one's belly button. If a real cowboy leaves his shirt untucked he makes sure to tuck in the bit just behind the buckle so that his achievements remain on display.)
Real cowboys are "Ag majors" here at Utah State, which means they're studying agriculture.
Posers wear clean boots and belt buckles from a department store.
And here endeth the cultural lesson for today. I am happy to be One Who Dances again.
I'm Steph, a librarian and mom of 3 (not sure how that happened). Let's chat books, food, Sumptuous Literary Adaptations, poop, knitting and maybe some crazy Mormon Feminism.
11 comments:
When ayjane and I were roommates there was a boy in our complex who was playing "She Thinks my Tractor's Sexy" at the pool one afternoon. I seriously thought the song was a spoof or joke of some kind. Little did I know. :)
I thought of you as I drove through Logan last week. It really is a little bit of a cow town isn't it? But the dancing could be fun and the scenery is lovely!
Welcome to cow city.And the whole "I'm a rodeo nerd" place
I can see you snuggling up to a cowboy in a ginormous Ford F350 (leaving the passenger side empty).
Yay! I've always told everyone to go to those dances! I met one great boy there who I fell in love with. But then he forgot to tell me that his missionary was coming home and they were getting married in two months. But after about a month of bawling my eyes out I met another great boy who decided he loved me, hated girl missionaries and wanted to marry me. Woo Hoo.
And I'll be honest...I always went for the posers.
After leaving this beautiful valley, I came to detest all things faux-country related. Like guys who probably couldn't get on a horse if their life depended on it, yet skip around like some yodeling cowboy and act like their big jacked-up truck makes up for their skinny Wrangler legs and scrawny everything else. (I'm in a peachy mood.)
But I do like the real cowboys, the ones who love the land and the mountains and know how to survive for, like, years on nothing but rawhide and jerky. That, my friend, is sexy.
And, while I'm thinking about it, we ought to make plans to go to That Famous Preston Night Rodeo. Some pretty good times there, I tell you.
So many things to say, so little of them are apropriate.
This post made me laugh, because I am currently in an even smaller valley just to the north of you for my uncle's funeral. I'm sitting in another relative's log cabin (he built it himself) surrounded by taxidermied animals. My uncle who died was a real cowboy, not a poser. There were also a lot of real cowboys at the viewing tonight. They also wear their best jeans at belt buckles to funerals arround here. Got to love Wyoming.
You should try contra dancing. I've started going twice a month down here in SLC, and I'm hooked. There's info on Logan-area contra dancing here, if you're interested.
I think I'm with Desmama here. For years I fantasized about running away with an Aussie cowboy one day. Only there they are called stationhands. Then, I lived in Australia and actually met some real Aussie blokes. Blew that fantasy right out of the water. Still, I think there is a small part of every girl who thinks to call Cache Valley home who goes a little weak in the knees for the non-black lung variety Marlboro Man.
Cordeila says she wishes she was there with you. But Engineseer would like to point out that the only real dancing is 'ceroc'. Here endeth the Loughborough YSA cultural lesson for today, coming live from Enginseers house live in geektown. More news at 11!
Wait. Donna Summer had two songs?
Also, although it's nice of you to give the benefit of the doubt, I'm not so sure that's "mud." I'm just sayin'.
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