{"id":2484,"date":"2010-01-29T18:40:03","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T01:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=2484"},"modified":"2013-08-27T07:27:21","modified_gmt":"2013-08-27T14:27:21","slug":"sweethearts-of-the-rodeo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/29\/sweethearts-of-the-rodeo\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweethearts of the Rodeo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Rodeo Princesses in Aberdeen by Nerd's Eye View, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nerdseyeview\/4314366569\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"Rodeo Princesses in Aberdeen\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4045\/4314366569_a8d3a4469d.jpg\" width=\"560\" height=\"319\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>They were heading out of The Popcorn Factory while we were heading in &#8212; one of the girls almost backed into me. I asked them if I could take their picture and they were sweet as pie about it. &#8220;What do you have to do to become a rodeo princess?&#8221; I asked.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You have to learn stuff! About horses, yeah, but also, about politics and history&#8230; if you want to go to the nationals, you have to learn international things too, like who&#8217;s the Prime Minister of England&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I thanked them and didn&#8217;t keep them too long, they had rodeo princess duties to attend to. The woman behind the counter asked me if I knew them. &#8220;Nope, but really, how can you resist?! Four rodeo princesses! They&#8217;re adorable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>AC\/DC &#8211; Highway to Hell &#8211; was playing on the radio. We ordered coffee and got a cupcake and a little bag of sweet and salty popcorn. Some other out of towners came in and the gal behind the counter, also adorable and sweet, pointed out a photo of a very young Kurt Cobain, Aberdeen&#8217;s unfortunate claim to fame. When you drive in to town the sign that says &#8220;Welcome to Aberdeen&#8221; also has the words &#8220;Come as you are.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;His grandfather comes here,&#8221; she said to the women holding bags of popcorn and eying the more familiar images of the martyr of grunge. &#8220;He gave us this photo of Kurt to put in our store.&#8221; Kurt looks like he&#8217;s 12 or 14, smiling and blond and like any neighbor&#8217;s kid, like the kind of guy who could have, a few years later, dated a rodeo princess instead of Courtney Love.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We had our funding cut for 4-H,&#8221; said the first woman behind the counter. &#8220;That&#8217;s too bad,&#8221; I responded, &#8220;because it seems like you have to learn that kind of stuff to become a rodeo princess.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Last time I drove through Aberdeen &#8211; July 2013 &#8212; the Popcorn Factory was closed.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They were heading out of The Popcorn Factory while we were heading in &#8212; one of the girls almost backed into me. I asked them if I could take their picture and they were sweet as pie about it. &#8220;What do you have to do to become a rodeo princess?&#8221; I asked. &#8220;You have to &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"Sweethearts of the Rodeo\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/29\/sweethearts-of-the-rodeo\/#more-2484\" aria-label=\"Read more about Sweethearts of the Rodeo\"><br \/>&#8230;read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[427],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pacific-northwest-elsewhere","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2484"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8110,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484\/revisions\/8110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}