November 19, 2025 • 17 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, before he became one of the most respected rodeo bullfighters in America, Leon Coffey was a father searching for a way to pay for a simple gift. Rodeos were familiar territory, but stepping into the arena as a rodeo clown was something else entirely. He found himself staring down bulls that outweighed him by a thousand pounds, learning to move with a kind of instinct that kept riders alive.
His path carried him all the way to the Cowboy and Western Hall of Fame, and along the way, he helped shape the modern understanding of the rodeo clown, a protector as much as a performer. We'd like to thank the Oklahoma Cowboy and Western Hall of Fame for allowing us access to this audio.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from the city where the West begins,
Fort Worth, Texas. Being a rodeo clown is hard work
and important work. Besides being expected to entertain massive crowds,
bull riders literally put their lives in the painted hands
(00:34):
of those involved.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
In this unique profession.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
You to share his story on becoming a rodeo clown
is Leon Coffee. We'd like to thank the National Cowboy
and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for providing
us with this audio. Let's get into the story.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
My dad told me when I was born, we had horses.
I don't think I've had been a day in my
life that I'd ben't known at least one. Oh man.
I was born in Blanco, Texas in nineteen fifty four
in the courthouse because uh, in Blanco, Texas, the courthouse
(01:13):
was in front and the hospital was in back. And
we got a website called Courthouse Babies. It's quite a
conversation piece. Great granddad, my granddad and my dad broke
mules for the Highway Department when they made roads. Mule
teams and peris Nos. Granddad when he died was seventy
two years old and had forty head of horses. My
(01:35):
dad had to go get all them horses after he died.
And those two were the people that trained me and
formed my life. And uh long before I could walk.
They they put you on him horses and on 'em
baby coats and let the little babies ride around on 'em,
just kind of get 'em gentle and aurey accustomed to people.
And but I was the littlest of the herd. My,
(01:57):
oh my, my canfolk. I My granddad would gather all
the boys up every s every summer and we all
stayed around up fern rode horses. And I was the
littlest of the herd. So I got to ride Grunder's coats.
So I learned to ride bucket horses at a very
young age cause I was the smallest. But I rode
a lot of good bucket horses. And I started out
(02:18):
riding by the rock horses, and then I went to bulls.
And back then there was three hundred guys that would
enter a rodeo. Duh, you know a little rodeo, there'd
be fifty sixty guys there and they only paid four
or five. And uh, if there was paying four moneys,
I was most generally fifth. Every now and then they
I'd let me win, like the last hole or something
(02:41):
like that. I rode good enough to just start myself
to death. It was a lot of fun. But when
you get married and start having kids, you can't do that.
I had to try to feed the family. And uh,
this whole journey of fighting bulls being a rodeo clown
came from one day when my daughter said she wanted
(03:05):
a tricycle and I didn't have the money to buy it.
So I just got off of him and got in
front of a man told me one time all act
to his run fast night goodie. I said, you gonna
pay me for that? He said yeah. I said, man,
Now I used to get kicked out of school for that.
Now you gonna pay me? Yeah, I can do this.
So I went to work for Steiners because she wanted
(03:28):
a tricycle, and I was determined that I was gonna
make enough money to do that. M So I did it.
But I didn't. I thought I'd do this for a
couple of years and go ahead and try to make
a living somewhere and get a good occupation and try
to feed my family. But I got addicted to that
(03:50):
adrenaline rush that you have when you step out in
front of eighteen hundred pounds a massive beasts with baseball bats.
I gotta eat side of his hair, and the pair
of God and his eye wanted to annihilate you off
the pace of this earth, and you gotta wait to
make the right move. That's an adrenaline rush. That's match.
But nobody nothing. We we learned from the school of
(04:13):
heart knock. But uh. I would drive two or three
hundred miles to watch people work, cause it weren't those
schools that I could go to to learn how Cause
if you got hit going one way, you get up
and go back the other way. And if you're tough enough,
you gonna make it. If you're not, you gonna go
to house. I'll never forget a bull that cost seventeen done.
He was a yellow ball faced, mealy bull that I
(04:34):
kN to this day. I've never gotten around. He frightened me.
I got five gears, first, second, third, fourth, and fear gear.
And when one get puts me in fear gear. God
couldn't catch me. This Bill put me in fear gear
a lot. I just could not get around him. I'll
never forget that Bill. I hated him, but he was
(04:58):
probably the one bull that broke an egg in me
and said I'm gonna do it. I I'm gonna face
that fear and got me over the hump. But I
never got around it. But he hooked me a lot.
But I just wouldn't quit. But you have to understand
something in rodeo. It ain't about to color your skin.
(05:19):
It'say about your ability. If you don't have the ability
to do it, you not gonna be there very long.
And that was another driving force I had to I
had to prove to everybody that I could do it
m besides the fact that I had to do it
M to make a living. When you out there riding
(05:42):
bulls and you get bucked off and you a bully's
about to run over you, you don't say send in
the white guy, not the black guy. You sit send
in the clowns. There's been places in times that were trying,
(06:05):
but being raised in Blanco, Texas act back off in
the woods right there. I never knew what prejudice really was,
and never I mean it just we all eat, sleep
and break bread together. And my granddad was a Baptist minister,
and I was raised in the Bible, so I had
(06:28):
I had no fear of what a man could do
to me as long as you doing your job. You know.
I there was things that was going on back then
that I I was uh privy too, But never let
it set me back. I just kept going, you can
(06:51):
slum me down if you are never gonna stop me.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And you've been listening to the legendary bl black rodeo
clown Leon Coffee, telling the story about his life. His
early life, well, let's face it, how many people are
born in a courthouse? And as he put it, just well,
he got into this line of work because he wanted
to get his daughter a tricycle, and he was told
all he needed to do was run fast and act goofy,
(07:19):
and suddenly he was addicted to the adrenaline rush. When
we come back, more of Leon Coffee's story here on
our American Story, Lee hbib here, and I'm inviting you
to help our American story celebrate this country's two hundred
and fiftieth birthday coming soon.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
If you want to help.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Inspire countless others to love America like we do and
want to help us bring the inspiring and important stories
told here about a good and beautiful country. Please consider
making a tax deductible donation to our American Stories. Go
to Ouramericanstories dot com and click the donate button. Any
amount helps Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give.
(08:09):
And we returned to our American Stories and rodeo clown
Leon Coffee's story. When we last left off, Leon was
telling us about why he got off of bowls and
put himself in front of him so he could buy
a tricycle for his little girl. Let's return to the
rest of the story. Here again is Leon Coffee.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
There's two aspects to what rodeo clowning and book biting is.
They've got to have a certain personality, but then they've
got to have the ile the tiger and control of both.
(08:52):
That's a very difficult task. I didn't have it to
begin I've learned it over the years. But to see
somebody in a wrect and run to get in it,
that's ludicrousy, but it's what we do. The only people
(09:13):
that really know what we do and how we do it.
As bull fighters are cops, firemen and soldiers mm m,
cause they all go into the fire, not away from it.
And when you can do that with expertise, it's great.
(09:33):
The crown Prince of Rodeo was Quail Dobs. To me,
Quail was a little short guy that he fought. Bill
was really good. It got a lot of great rodeos.
But Quail was funny. And he told me many years
ago he sais in no fundy, no money? I said, really,
(09:53):
He said, yeah, bull fighters are diamond. Does you terrap
and knee and you ain't funny? Yeah, you go into die.
So I had to put comedy in my book fighting,
and I W I heard a lot of my inability
to do things with comedy. I couldn't get around a
certain bill, but if I could not ham it up
(10:14):
to make the people laugh, and that's what I got
to seeing. Wow, that's great. Everybody's sitting up in any
stands up paying your bills. Another guy I W I
learned a lot from is is uh Bobby toad Cook.
I I will say I could never keep up with
Bobby toad Cook. He was phenomenal. Tell you a story
(10:38):
about Bobby toad Cook. There was a school of comedy
called the Red Skelton School of Comedy. And you don't
go to it, they come get you and take you
to it, the Lost Bagus, and they keep you there
for thr two years and they teach you how to
be funny. And they took him out there and he
had to train for two years to move every day,
(10:58):
had family, everybody. Yeah, I had to live there for
two years and learn how to be funny. And he
learned it, and he he was awesome. He had really
good stuff, and he knew how to do things, how
to make people laugh, how to make people feel good
about laughing at you. And he said, don't make 'em
laugh at you, make 'em laugh with you, he said,
(11:21):
with you. Hm, that's a different look. He said. The
only person that really needs to be entertained is you.
I said, how is that? He said, Eh, your clown.
If you tickle, everybody else ought to be in stitches.
He said, So try to entertain yourself. And that's what
(11:43):
I've done. He also told me, he said, look, if
you tell a joke, it's all yours. If it bombs,
it's all you. And it's all about the delivery of
that joke. It's how you delivery, it's when you delivery.
It's the timing. You've got to have the right timing
(12:04):
to tell the right stuff to make it work. That
was extremely difficult to do, but I I went out
and tried to find Uh. I studied it. Uh Red
Skelton tapes and Bill Cosby and all the great comedians.
Bill Cosby only because he would it was great with
(12:25):
facial expressions. Red Skelton because he was the king of comedy.
Comedy is not jokes. Comedy is physical. Comedians tell jokes comedy.
When you work in comedy, it's physical. And Uh, I
am the last of the Mohicans that was a book
(12:49):
writer and comedy. Nowadays that's just not You don't mix
'em too. But it's evolved over the years to where
these guys nowadays, I couldn't hold a candleton because they
study it and they work at it, and they they
finessed everything from the word going. These these guys nowadays
are unbelievable athletes. When rodeo first got started, it was
(13:12):
the guy that got hurt riding bulls would get out
there and get the bull's attention to get the bull
away from the cowboy you know, just kind of he
cause he couldn't ride no more or at that time,
and he'd get 'em away from him. That sir a
heid all got started and then uh we would uh
had to go tell jokes or entertain the crowd and stuff.
(13:33):
And when you go as a bullparty, you got a
lot of lives on the line with the best bulls
in the world. And you cannot be out of position
to take that bill away from the cowboy mm, which
means if you're out there too far and that bill
sees you and he quits bucking t wants to chase you,
(13:55):
you just crossed that cowboy around. You have to be
in the right place at the right time and be
there when you need to be there. That's a very
difficult task. But the guys that go there, they're voted
in there by the by the bull riders, and when
you get to that point, they're telling you that you're
the best in the business at that time. I believe
(14:19):
in God. I will never say I saved a guy's life,
because that's God's chopping. But I will say I save
a lot of guys from a lot of bodily injury.
I've had fourteen knee surgeries, knee replacement. I've had a
hundred and forty different breaks, some of 'em two or
(14:39):
three times. Uh, justin Heeler had a breed out on
me one time. It was four pages long about the
injuries that I've had over the years, and I've been
beat up. But like I said, I never had any
formal training of how to do it. So every time
I had a injury, it was basically because I'm made
(15:00):
a mistake. M If you do everything exactly right, the
bull can't catch you because that bull cannot hook his
own hump. So that's the safest place in the world
to be a little difficult to get there, to say
the least. But once you get there, you're in char
You're in charge. Cowboys go down and about to get
(15:23):
hooked or something, you go in there and take that
hooking for 'em. That's your job. You go in there
with every spec of you trying to get your job done.
Whatever happens happens, and you live with it, but you
try to minimize the injury to yourself and the bull
ride it because you have got to face the next one.
(15:50):
On a book I was told me many years ago,
he said, that if you get hurt on the first one,
you ain't gonna be there for the last one. The
Good Lack gave me any ability to do what I
do MM and I've always said when he takes that
ability where, that's when I'm quit. He's taking m He's
taking my book fighting ability away cause I was not
banging enough to stay out there and keep backing bullets
(16:12):
when I didn't knew I didn't have a step to
do it. I'm still working some rodeos. I don't work
a lot of 'em. I still work some 'em right now.
I'm still working the Houston livestock shilling rodeo right now,
but I'm not in the capacity that they used to be.
Like a man told me one day, he said, you
(16:33):
worked a lot a long time for that name, and
I let that name work for you. So I'm I'm
doing that, and I'm enjoying what the good Lord gave me,
the ability to do foot bude and sis and put
smiles on faces. I'm'a tell you what my motto of
life was. God put me on earth to do two
things that's made people happy and help people out. And
(16:53):
I can do 'em both right out. There in that arena,
and when he takes that ability away, it's when I'm quit.
He's taking some of it, but not all of it.
This is a place I never in my life thought
i'd be. When I was trying to get my daughter
that trashaicle, I never thought I'd be shitting right here.
(17:18):
I never thought that trashaicle what put me in here.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And a special thanks to Leon Coffee. To see someone
in a wreck that's a cowboy and run into it
towards that ball is, as he put it, ludicrousy. Only cops,
firemen and soldiers understand what I'm talking about, but they
don't have to be funny too. And funny is money
(17:48):
in the world of rodeo clowns. The story of Leon
Coffee here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from the city where the West begins,
Fort Worth, Texas. Being a rodeo clown is hard work
and important work. Besides being expected to entertain massive crowds,
bull riders literally put their lives in the painted hands
(00:34):
of those involved.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
In this unique profession.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
You to share his story on becoming a rodeo clown
is Leon Coffee. We'd like to thank the National Cowboy
and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for providing
us with this audio. Let's get into the story.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
My dad told me when I was born, we had horses.
I don't think I've had been a day in my
life that I'd ben't known at least one. Oh man.
I was born in Blanco, Texas in nineteen fifty four
in the courthouse because uh, in Blanco, Texas, the courthouse
(01:13):
was in front and the hospital was in back. And
we got a website called Courthouse Babies. It's quite a
conversation piece. Great granddad, my granddad and my dad broke
mules for the Highway Department when they made roads. Mule
teams and peris Nos. Granddad when he died was seventy
two years old and had forty head of horses. My
(01:35):
dad had to go get all them horses after he died.
And those two were the people that trained me and
formed my life. And uh long before I could walk.
They they put you on him horses and on 'em
baby coats and let the little babies ride around on 'em,
just kind of get 'em gentle and aurey accustomed to people.
And but I was the littlest of the herd. My,
(01:57):
oh my, my canfolk. I My granddad would gather all
the boys up every s every summer and we all
stayed around up fern rode horses. And I was the
littlest of the herd. So I got to ride Grunder's coats.
So I learned to ride bucket horses at a very
young age cause I was the smallest. But I rode
a lot of good bucket horses. And I started out
(02:18):
riding by the rock horses, and then I went to bulls.
And back then there was three hundred guys that would
enter a rodeo. Duh, you know a little rodeo, there'd
be fifty sixty guys there and they only paid four
or five. And uh, if there was paying four moneys,
I was most generally fifth. Every now and then they
I'd let me win, like the last hole or something
(02:41):
like that. I rode good enough to just start myself
to death. It was a lot of fun. But when
you get married and start having kids, you can't do that.
I had to try to feed the family. And uh,
this whole journey of fighting bulls being a rodeo clown
came from one day when my daughter said she wanted
(03:05):
a tricycle and I didn't have the money to buy it.
So I just got off of him and got in
front of a man told me one time all act
to his run fast night goodie. I said, you gonna
pay me for that? He said yeah. I said, man,
Now I used to get kicked out of school for that.
Now you gonna pay me? Yeah, I can do this.
So I went to work for Steiners because she wanted
(03:28):
a tricycle, and I was determined that I was gonna
make enough money to do that. M So I did it.
But I didn't. I thought I'd do this for a
couple of years and go ahead and try to make
a living somewhere and get a good occupation and try
to feed my family. But I got addicted to that
(03:50):
adrenaline rush that you have when you step out in
front of eighteen hundred pounds a massive beasts with baseball bats.
I gotta eat side of his hair, and the pair
of God and his eye wanted to annihilate you off
the pace of this earth, and you gotta wait to
make the right move. That's an adrenaline rush. That's match.
But nobody nothing. We we learned from the school of
(04:13):
heart knock. But uh. I would drive two or three
hundred miles to watch people work, cause it weren't those
schools that I could go to to learn how Cause
if you got hit going one way, you get up
and go back the other way. And if you're tough enough,
you gonna make it. If you're not, you gonna go
to house. I'll never forget a bull that cost seventeen done.
He was a yellow ball faced, mealy bull that I
(04:34):
kN to this day. I've never gotten around. He frightened me.
I got five gears, first, second, third, fourth, and fear gear.
And when one get puts me in fear gear. God
couldn't catch me. This Bill put me in fear gear
a lot. I just could not get around him. I'll
never forget that Bill. I hated him, but he was
(04:58):
probably the one bull that broke an egg in me
and said I'm gonna do it. I I'm gonna face
that fear and got me over the hump. But I
never got around it. But he hooked me a lot.
But I just wouldn't quit. But you have to understand
something in rodeo. It ain't about to color your skin.
(05:19):
It'say about your ability. If you don't have the ability
to do it, you not gonna be there very long.
And that was another driving force I had to I
had to prove to everybody that I could do it
m besides the fact that I had to do it
M to make a living. When you out there riding
(05:42):
bulls and you get bucked off and you a bully's
about to run over you, you don't say send in
the white guy, not the black guy. You sit send
in the clowns. There's been places in times that were trying,
(06:05):
but being raised in Blanco, Texas act back off in
the woods right there. I never knew what prejudice really was,
and never I mean it just we all eat, sleep
and break bread together. And my granddad was a Baptist minister,
and I was raised in the Bible, so I had
(06:28):
I had no fear of what a man could do
to me as long as you doing your job. You know.
I there was things that was going on back then
that I I was uh privy too, But never let
it set me back. I just kept going, you can
(06:51):
slum me down if you are never gonna stop me.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And you've been listening to the legendary bl black rodeo
clown Leon Coffee, telling the story about his life. His
early life, well, let's face it, how many people are
born in a courthouse? And as he put it, just well,
he got into this line of work because he wanted
to get his daughter a tricycle, and he was told
all he needed to do was run fast and act goofy,
(07:19):
and suddenly he was addicted to the adrenaline rush. When
we come back, more of Leon Coffee's story here on
our American Story, Lee hbib here, and I'm inviting you
to help our American story celebrate this country's two hundred
and fiftieth birthday coming soon.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
If you want to help.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Inspire countless others to love America like we do and
want to help us bring the inspiring and important stories
told here about a good and beautiful country. Please consider
making a tax deductible donation to our American Stories. Go
to Ouramericanstories dot com and click the donate button. Any
amount helps Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give.
(08:09):
And we returned to our American Stories and rodeo clown
Leon Coffee's story. When we last left off, Leon was
telling us about why he got off of bowls and
put himself in front of him so he could buy
a tricycle for his little girl. Let's return to the
rest of the story. Here again is Leon Coffee.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
There's two aspects to what rodeo clowning and book biting is.
They've got to have a certain personality, but then they've
got to have the ile the tiger and control of both.
(08:52):
That's a very difficult task. I didn't have it to
begin I've learned it over the years. But to see
somebody in a wrect and run to get in it,
that's ludicrousy, but it's what we do. The only people
(09:13):
that really know what we do and how we do it.
As bull fighters are cops, firemen and soldiers mm m,
cause they all go into the fire, not away from it.
And when you can do that with expertise, it's great.
(09:33):
The crown Prince of Rodeo was Quail Dobs. To me,
Quail was a little short guy that he fought. Bill
was really good. It got a lot of great rodeos.
But Quail was funny. And he told me many years
ago he sais in no fundy, no money? I said, really,
(09:53):
He said, yeah, bull fighters are diamond. Does you terrap
and knee and you ain't funny? Yeah, you go into die.
So I had to put comedy in my book fighting,
and I W I heard a lot of my inability
to do things with comedy. I couldn't get around a
certain bill, but if I could not ham it up
(10:14):
to make the people laugh, and that's what I got
to seeing. Wow, that's great. Everybody's sitting up in any
stands up paying your bills. Another guy I W I
learned a lot from is is uh Bobby toad Cook.
I I will say I could never keep up with
Bobby toad Cook. He was phenomenal. Tell you a story
(10:38):
about Bobby toad Cook. There was a school of comedy
called the Red Skelton School of Comedy. And you don't
go to it, they come get you and take you
to it, the Lost Bagus, and they keep you there
for thr two years and they teach you how to
be funny. And they took him out there and he
had to train for two years to move every day,
(10:58):
had family, everybody. Yeah, I had to live there for
two years and learn how to be funny. And he
learned it, and he he was awesome. He had really
good stuff, and he knew how to do things, how
to make people laugh, how to make people feel good
about laughing at you. And he said, don't make 'em
laugh at you, make 'em laugh with you, he said,
(11:21):
with you. Hm, that's a different look. He said. The
only person that really needs to be entertained is you.
I said, how is that? He said, Eh, your clown.
If you tickle, everybody else ought to be in stitches.
He said, So try to entertain yourself. And that's what
(11:43):
I've done. He also told me, he said, look, if
you tell a joke, it's all yours. If it bombs,
it's all you. And it's all about the delivery of
that joke. It's how you delivery, it's when you delivery.
It's the timing. You've got to have the right timing
(12:04):
to tell the right stuff to make it work. That
was extremely difficult to do, but I I went out
and tried to find Uh. I studied it. Uh Red
Skelton tapes and Bill Cosby and all the great comedians.
Bill Cosby only because he would it was great with
(12:25):
facial expressions. Red Skelton because he was the king of comedy.
Comedy is not jokes. Comedy is physical. Comedians tell jokes comedy.
When you work in comedy, it's physical. And Uh, I
am the last of the Mohicans that was a book
(12:49):
writer and comedy. Nowadays that's just not You don't mix
'em too. But it's evolved over the years to where
these guys nowadays, I couldn't hold a candleton because they
study it and they work at it, and they they
finessed everything from the word going. These these guys nowadays
are unbelievable athletes. When rodeo first got started, it was
(13:12):
the guy that got hurt riding bulls would get out
there and get the bull's attention to get the bull
away from the cowboy you know, just kind of he
cause he couldn't ride no more or at that time,
and he'd get 'em away from him. That sir a
heid all got started and then uh we would uh
had to go tell jokes or entertain the crowd and stuff.
(13:33):
And when you go as a bullparty, you got a
lot of lives on the line with the best bulls
in the world. And you cannot be out of position
to take that bill away from the cowboy mm, which
means if you're out there too far and that bill
sees you and he quits bucking t wants to chase you,
(13:55):
you just crossed that cowboy around. You have to be
in the right place at the right time and be
there when you need to be there. That's a very
difficult task. But the guys that go there, they're voted
in there by the by the bull riders, and when
you get to that point, they're telling you that you're
the best in the business at that time. I believe
(14:19):
in God. I will never say I saved a guy's life,
because that's God's chopping. But I will say I save
a lot of guys from a lot of bodily injury.
I've had fourteen knee surgeries, knee replacement. I've had a
hundred and forty different breaks, some of 'em two or
(14:39):
three times. Uh, justin Heeler had a breed out on
me one time. It was four pages long about the
injuries that I've had over the years, and I've been
beat up. But like I said, I never had any
formal training of how to do it. So every time
I had a injury, it was basically because I'm made
(15:00):
a mistake. M If you do everything exactly right, the
bull can't catch you because that bull cannot hook his
own hump. So that's the safest place in the world
to be a little difficult to get there, to say
the least. But once you get there, you're in char
You're in charge. Cowboys go down and about to get
(15:23):
hooked or something, you go in there and take that
hooking for 'em. That's your job. You go in there
with every spec of you trying to get your job done.
Whatever happens happens, and you live with it, but you
try to minimize the injury to yourself and the bull
ride it because you have got to face the next one.
(15:50):
On a book I was told me many years ago,
he said, that if you get hurt on the first one,
you ain't gonna be there for the last one. The
Good Lack gave me any ability to do what I
do MM and I've always said when he takes that
ability where, that's when I'm quit. He's taking m He's
taking my book fighting ability away cause I was not
banging enough to stay out there and keep backing bullets
(16:12):
when I didn't knew I didn't have a step to
do it. I'm still working some rodeos. I don't work
a lot of 'em. I still work some 'em right now.
I'm still working the Houston livestock shilling rodeo right now,
but I'm not in the capacity that they used to be.
Like a man told me one day, he said, you
(16:33):
worked a lot a long time for that name, and
I let that name work for you. So I'm I'm
doing that, and I'm enjoying what the good Lord gave me,
the ability to do foot bude and sis and put
smiles on faces. I'm'a tell you what my motto of
life was. God put me on earth to do two
things that's made people happy and help people out. And
(16:53):
I can do 'em both right out. There in that arena,
and when he takes that ability away, it's when I'm quit.
He's taking some of it, but not all of it.
This is a place I never in my life thought
i'd be. When I was trying to get my daughter
that trashaicle, I never thought I'd be shitting right here.
(17:18):
I never thought that trashaicle what put me in here.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And a special thanks to Leon Coffee. To see someone
in a wreck that's a cowboy and run into it
towards that ball is, as he put it, ludicrousy. Only cops,
firemen and soldiers understand what I'm talking about, but they
don't have to be funny too. And funny is money
(17:48):
in the world of rodeo clowns. The story of Leon
Coffee here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com