Goat Ropers, Corn Dogs and Hey Rube

We didn’t make a dime that first summer that I was with the carnival. It was so bad that we were all “eating out of the apron.” That is, we were taking money from the evening start up cash to buy our meal for the day. Corn dogs for dinner on a nightly basis -- I get a wee bit nauseous just at the memory of them.

Morris, (the boss of wondrous hair and weed), had his joints (games) booked into a small carnival owned and run by a man named Shorty. The man looked like a bald, pasty white medicine ball wearing a ten gallon hat. His wife? A tall polyester clad woman with a fluorescent blond dye job piled high on her head, sprayed to withstand 80 mph winds flawlessly intact. She was only ever known as “Mrs. Shorty.”

Morris had heard that Shorty always booked solid money making routes. He kept telling us that the next spot would be better and the one after that...well, he’d heard all kinds of good stories about it. I remained hopeful-ish but the stress and fear of having to hitchhike back to Pennsylvania (versus riding a posh Greyhound bus), with no money for schoolbooks and art supplies was growing larger with every wretched corn dog I consumed.

In my “hello and welcome to the wonderful world of carnies” intro spiel, given upon my arrival two months prior, I’d been told about the “Hey Rube.” This is what a carnie called out when he/she was having big, huge trouble with a local. It was a call to rally ‘round, to fight and defend fellow carnies. The fights could reach riot levels and fatalities were not unknown. Becky, Morris’ wife told me to relax though -- she’d been "with it" (with the carnival) for a decade and never seen one.

We rolled into Hoxie, Kansas in early August -- a town with a feed and grain, three Baptist churches, two bars and a laundromat. Things looked somewhat less than promising. Again.

It was on our second night, only a dozen or so potential customers (ok, ok...”marks”) on the midway. I hadn’t even "broken the ice" yet (had my first player) when I saw ride jocks zooming past me and heard the Hey Rube. I was stunned and afraid as I watched  my fellow jointees hopping out of their games, legging it hell-for-leather up the midway to the Trabant where the riot was going down. Me, I ducked under the counter of my joint and stayed there until the all clear sounded. I'm a real daredevil like that.

Afterward, with everyone accounted for, we were told the show was shut indefinitely. At that, we all came together with our meager resources and had a big party -- chili, corn bread and Lone Stars for all . No one died that night. Hell, black eyes and sore ribs were the worst of it. Everyone was happy to the point of giddy which puzzled me. Shouldn’t we be concerned about attacks tonight? Maybe we should tear down and get gone? I realized that the fight had been cathartic fun for our guys as well as the locals.

The next day the directive came down to us from Shorty -- we were not to go into town on our own -- it was full of “goat ropers” spoiling for fights. Gee...duh...yeah and goat ropers?


Two of the *cough* cleaner definitions from the Urban Dictionery:

"A goat roper is a wannabe rancher or a cowboy poser. Goat ropers have the 4x4 pickup and the cowboy hat, but no cattle, horses, brain, or land.

"I really could use a pick-up truck now and then, but I don't want people to think I'm a goat roper.""

"Not to be confused with a "goat rope", a Goat Roper is an archaic term for a redneck. It lost popularity in the late 1900's, but has had a resurgence in popularity recently. A goat roper denotes someone who is a "hick", and/or clumsy and stupid. Usually said person works in the farming industry, but is not exclusive to this.

"That guy Bill is a real goat roper, did you see the spit stains running down the driver's side of his old, dented 1978 Ford F150 pickup?""

This, THIS, is just some of the important cultural crap you miss when you grow up in small college towns