Hennessey’s rodeo is this weekend, and it makes me think about when I was sitting on a wooden fence rail at that rodeo years ago. My husband was out in the arena taking pictures for the paper.

He walked over to hand me a roll of film when the rodeo clown yelled, “Bill, look out!” It happened in a flash. A bull was headed straight for my drugstore cowboy husband.

Bill ran for the fence.

I saw the bull’s horns, and I think there was smoke coming out of its nostrils.

I knew my honey was a goner.

Somehow my 5-ft. 10-in. cowboy cleared that 8-ft. fence and flew over my head.

Seconds later guys in cowboy hats and big belt buckles dusted him off and patted him on the back.

Bill’s love for cowboy boots started after he covered a school board meeting. He’d noticed that he and the lady osteopath on the board were the only ones who weren’t wearing cowboy boots.

The next day he made a trip to Langston’s in Cow Town for boots on his lunch hour from his OKC suit-and-tie paying job.

Bill’s collection of cowboy boots over the years filled his closet.  

He’d get out a box of polish, rags and brushes and meticulously clean and shine them.

Some boots had to be “re-shod,” and he prided himself on his well-kept boots.

Sometimes he’d shine the toes of his boots on the legs of his jeans.

I thought it was cute.

But the night after that bull almost got him at the rodeo was not a stand up and shine your boots on your pants night.

It was a single-malt Scotch night.

That’s when he told me: “I swear I could smell that bull’s breath.”