The Day FWSSR Broke My Heart

When you’re a kid, you look forward to things: Christmas, birthdays, Grandma’s house, summer vacation...Sometimes those things carry over to adulthood and you are lucky enough to continue to look forward to them. Things that spark wonderful memories of times that were happy and fun and when you return to those places, they make you feel young again. 

It all came together for me at the Fort Worth Stock Show. 

I’ve spent hours walking the barns, smelling the smells, breathing in the dirt, shivering through the cold and melting in the heat. I’ve eaten the cotton candy, ridden in the parade and watched it from the sidewalk. I’ve eaten the best corn dogs on earth, sang the National Anthem, prayed with Bob and loved every second of it. 

As an adult I’ve purchased my tickets eight full months ahead of time and waited with anticipation to get my advance tickets. I’ve lugged my heavy Dickey’s jacket through the yards just because I wanted to go a whole day by myself as I took advantage of free admittance on Dickey’s Day to see everything I wanted to see, and took as long as I wanted to see it. 

My favorite things to visit were the Brahmas, my beloved Stockyard Longhorns and the Art that kids from all over worked so hard on. They always blew me away. 

I’d get my corn dog and make sure to stop by the Children’s Barnyard to see what was going on there and I was always proud of the FFA kids and their hard work. Being a FFA alum myself, I know what goes into their service and how important the program is. 

When Bull’s Night Out came along, I had tickets every year. After the first year, we made sure to purchase a whole row to ensure that we could bring friends and family to enjoy the event. Having some important folks with us that had difficulty climbing the steep steps in the coliseum, we asked for consideration while fulfilling our seating request and were mostly very happy with our tickets each year. 

Excited to add the Ranch Rodeo to our ticket purchases, as our grown kids partake in the like, again we purchased 9 tickets for that event as well. Depending on where we were located, 9 seats were an entire row and we filled it without issue. If funds were more plentiful we would have bought a whole section! There was never a problem finding people to accompany us to the show. 

Yay! I was now heading to the Stock Show three times! Yeehaw! I didn’t mind paying the parking and enduring the miles of travel and walking one time a year. It was the Fort Worth Stock Show! THE number one thing I looked forward to every single year for as long as I can remember....until 2020. 

Oh, I was excited to see the new coliseum. I hoped to still enjoy the best corn dog on the planet and I still went a day by myself to soak up all the traditional favorites...but I was worried about the new seating. There wasn’t a seating chart available yet and I was concerned about parking: how far it was to the seats, where they were, were there steps? It was all new and different and I had no idea what to expect. 

Eventually my tickets arrived and I still couldn’t tell where in the world everything would take place. So I called the office. 

The staff in the ticket office were nice enough, but they really didn’t know any more than I did. However, they vowed to find out. 

Soon, I was assured that the seats I had were good and easy to access. They promised me that there wasn’t a bad seat in the house and that elevators and escalators were available and that accessibility was of utmost importance in the design of this beautiful new venue. 

I still had a bad feeling…

Low and behold the day finally came. Bulls Night Out. My husband took off early so we could drive the hour and a half to Fort Worth and see everything we wanted before heading over to check out the new Dickey’s Arena.

Wow. I really wish a person with difficulties, disabilities, had been on the design team. 

For starters, the parking garage is nice, but a pretty good click from the venue. Thankfully there were handicap spaces available closer to the arena and so my placard came in handy. But where to park? Do we park close to Will Rogers, go through the exhibits and then drive over and pay for parking again to keep from having to go all the way from there to Dickey’s and then back again to our truck after the show? Well, when you have to walk with a cane, that’s what you do. Or, if you have to push someone in a wheelchair, that’s what you hope happens. 

So, we were already in for parking twice-Bummer. Maybe I wouldn’t get my corn dog after all…

Finally, we get to the new arena and thankfully, we were able to find out enough information to make sure we parked on the same side of the venue as our seats. After being run over on the turn from one escalator to the next on our way to the third level which was NOT the mezzanine as we were told, we made it to our section, only to find that our seats were on the very last row. All the way at the top, next to a landing where wheelchair access that completely blocked our view of the chutes, was located...How were we supposed to enjoy Bulls Night Out when we couldn’t even see the chutes? Never mind the light blasting, strobing screen in our faces. 

Speaking of the enormous screen flashing in front of me, I had to be thankful that my grandson wasn’t able to attend with us because I was fearful that it would have triggered his epilepsy. Nevermind the fact that if I wanted to watch television I could have saved a thousand dollars and stayed home! 

Sure, help was offered for our daughter who uses a wheelchair. She was more than welcome to sit at the landing while the rest of our party sat ten feet away where we could mingle and chat and wave to her periodically-not fun. 

At long last, the torment seemed to be coming to an end. We moved towards the elevators that were promised access to; and as we pushed through the happy, intoxicated folks in the bar they were located behind, I prayed no one spilled their drink on our daughter or fell onto her in the wheelchair or banged an elbow into her head. How humiliating for someone in a wheelchair. How embarrassing for someone to unwillingly assault a handicapped person.

Why on earth does this have to happen? There was standing room BARELY in that bar, thus we were having to squeeze a wheelchair, a person pushing it and two people using canes that have balance issues on their own without inebriated people bumping into them, through a BAR to get to the elevators in order to get to and from bad seats, to try to enjoy something that was looked forward to for so long. 

That was one of the longest evenings of my life. 

That was the day that FWSSR broke my heart. 

Will I go back again? Not likely. Just thinking about it makes me sad. I’m grateful for the years FWSSR gave me; the many memories throughout my life and my children’s lives. And I’m grateful for the smiles and laughter that my grandchildren have shared there...but I’m afraid that’s all that the end of January will hold for me anymore, memories. 

And I’ll just pray that the next venue that is ever built will be done having a person with disabilities on the design committee. The entire design crew should spend some time in a wheelchair, using a cane, with earmuffs on or even blindfolded. Maybe then “accessibility” will really be addressed and not assumed. And I pray the Dickey’s ticket office and the FWSSR ticket office become one. It was an exhausting experience just dealing with the two ticket offices. The knowledge of the FWSSR team and the manners of the Dickey’s folks would make for a much more pleasurable customer service experience.

Until we all live in a perfect world, be blessed. 

Always a fan- no longer a spectator,

Diana Blessing