There are not many annual events in the world that make it nearly 80 years. It’s a tall order to pull something off so consistently that it keeps people coming back year after year.

And it takes a bunch of dedicated people, too, the kind of people that are really committed to something beyond themselves. For a lot of the long-time rodeo volunteers, tradition matters. People in Chautauqua County and beyond are counting on the Gerry Volunteer Fire Department to hold a rodeo every August and they know it and take it to heart.

So many things in our county make for a good story and the rodeo is one. There’s the folks who show up in their best cowboy hats and boots, and the people who smoke 1,500 pounds of beef every morning during the event to be ready to serve by 5:00 to hordes of barbecue fans, and there’s the raffles you enter because you’re absolutely sure you’re going to win, and the midway, and the rodeo clowns– all part of the Gerry Rodeo story.

Last Wednesday, opening day, 5:00 and under a blazing sun, thousands showed up for the rodeo. When I say it was a blazing sun, I mean it, but it was preferable to rain. And by the time the rodeo started three hours later, the sun had burned itself out anyway, readying itself for a dazzling sunset.

As for me, by 8:00, I’d eaten enough fair food to feel sick by the time the first rodeo event got underway. I’ve lived my entire life under the belief that a fair is fair game and if you want to eat all the good but bad stuff, here’s your one yearly golden opportunity. My short list was powdered sugar waffles and popcorn and French fries. You just give yourself permission to eat whatever you want at a fair, but I’m not ten anymore.

David Hall has been working the Gerry rodeo since he was six-years old. He used to be on garbage duty in the kitchen as a kid.

Now he’s the Assistant Rodeo Chairman. I love the whole “doing-something-for-most-of-your-life” part of David’s story. He started volunteering when the rodeo was just five years into its tradition, and he’s still at it, now in the rodeo’s 79th year, helping to hire volunteers and making sure things run smoothly. Bill tells me as soon as this rodeo is over, they’ll start planning next year’s. It takes 365 days to make a rodeo happen.

A gentleman we were talking to in the dining pavilion saw his teacher from 50 years ago walk by. He graduated from high school in Cassadaga in 1974 and his high school reunion is being held this week. The rodeo made for an Old Home Days event for his class.

He told me several of his daughters left town after high school but they all came back eventually. I bet wherever they moved to didn’t have a rodeo. We talked about all the traditional events in our area, and how some of them didn’t make it as long–like the Stockton Galladays or the Bemus Point Pops. We decided it was the people in our area who make things special, who keep coming back to yearly events, and even lure people home who moved away for a time.

In a packed arena, the Gerry rodeo, blending riding traditions and cowboys and cowgirls from across the United States, was about to begin. Not until the late 19th and early 20th centuries did figures like Buffalo Bill Cody, the horseman turned showman, and Teddy Roosevelt, the rancher turned war hero and politician, popularize the idea of the true American cowboy full of spit, shine and style. What would a rodeo be without cowboys in their fancy regalia? Western wear is a blend of many cultures: Native American, Mexican, European, that now seems distinctively American.

I read that the skills on display at a rodeo aren’t needed much in modern ranch work, so its popularity is mostly about legend these days. The rodeo seems like a throwback to the frontier, connecting us to something old and primal in ourselves. When we think of cowboys we think of handsome characters with their long drawls, and their own language, tied to an American past.

One of the most popular rodeos in the country takes place in New Jersey, which doesn’t make it any less authentic than a rodeo in Texas. Americans still like the lure of the rodeo, connecting us to something that symbolizes our country in a mythical way.

The last night of the rodeo in Gerry is tonight–Saturday night. The barbecue line gets long, but that’s because it’s good. Find your old cowboy hat in the basement and get yourself there.