Donkey Basketball Heart
Trye turned to me on the bleachers as the crowd began to whoop and holler, to proclaim that—despite living for nearly thirty years in Arkansas—, this is the most redneck thing he’s ever seen. What he’s seeing is—of course, obviously—: a Donkey Basketball tournament. Local Rodeo Queens and club members are competing against Thorp School District teachers and students, in Thorp’s only gym, on the backs of donkeys.
A teacher makes her shot during the final match of the tournament.
The donkeys wore rubber shoes as they tromped across the waxy floors in what was simultaneously the slowest and the most action-packed basketball game I’d ever seen. The rules: players may only shoot or carry the basketball while riding their donkey. If a ball or shot is fumbled, players may dismount to chase after the ball, but they must hold the reins of the donkey at all times. If there’s one thing these pro baller donkeys resist more than being ridden toward a hoop, it’s being dragged across a slippery court by a high schooler.
During the tournament, players hopped on and off donkeys, struggling to throw their legs over in time to catch a pass. Some slumped off the bare backs, losing their balance as they tried to steer their donkey with one hand and shoot with another. Many slipped and scrambled on the gym floors as donkeys steadfastly refused to be pulled by the reins. One teacher’s donkey turned away from the hoop before she could shoot, so she threw the ball behind her blind—and made the shot! The stands erupted in cheers.
Donkey trainer referees in striped shirts used herding canes to help keep the donkeys in the court and to ensure their safe and fair treatment as tournament contestants urged them forward. Since donkeys like to stick together, there was generally a herd following the breakaway player like preschools swarming a soccer ball. In the stands, a packed crowd shouted, groaned, and gasped as an epic unfolded before us. My friends didn’t figure out how the teams were divided until the third game, so we spent the whole time prior cheering for shots at the hoop, forgetting about the competing teams’ division.
My friend who lives in Thorp had told me and another coworker about the game earlier that week, and I roped my pals from trivia and DnD into coming. We were surrounded by proud parents, local cowboys, neighbors, and lots of school staff. The whole school district has one school and 250 students, but this fundraiser (for gym improvements) was nearly sold out. Volunteer pooper scoopers ran out with shovels, and when a donkey pissed on the court (after a referee confidently threw a single ShamWow into the puddle), the superintendent himself rolled in with a mop bucket.
People say there’s not much to do in Kittitas County. I live in our largest city—with 20,000 other people—and we make up nearly half the population, surrounded by lands that are 80% public. There’s one business, in the whole county, that could maybe, if you squinted, be counted as a dance club, but even that’s dead on a Friday night. Kittitas County is boring, to most folks, because they’re looking for excitement in the wrong places. We don’t have the big city offerings and amenities, but on a Friday night, we might have Donkey Basketball.
As the news this last month continually filled me with more dread:—federal funding frozen (impacting mine and friends’ work), executive orders attacking the rights of my trans and immigrant neighbors, Cle Elum declaring bankruptcy (the second town in state history to do so)—I fended off dread with the thought “on Friday, I have Donkey Basketball.”
At the game I said, “Not to put undue pressure on these children, but I’m counting on this to carry me through the year.” A parent behind me laughed and murmured agreement. It wasn’t just a joke, though. I genuinely believe Donkey Basketball will carry me through. The tournament itself was a hoot, but beyond the raucous laughter and voice ~a little hoarse~ from cheering, it’s the feeling of a community coming together that I’m riding. Sitting among friends from high school, youth group, and work, among strangers with familiar faces, among teens I’ve lead on field trips before, I got a glimpse of what it looks like to support your community. Not always a spectacle of struggle and stoicism, it can be a spectacle of glee, too.
The giddiness didn’t subside after the final match. I discovered as we filed out of the gym that my bid had won a silent auction item: a crocheted blanket of two donkeys (who look suspiciously like Donkey from Shrek), playing basketball. I happily paid into the fundraiser and declared it a future heirloom, showing it off to my group. As praise flowed over the blanket like a Christening (a Shrekening?), a student approached us to let me know that his grandmother had designed and crocheted the blanket. Shrek blankets are her specialty. Small town moments like those are my favorite.
The week after the Donkey Basketball tournament, I drove one town over to Kittitas every night for my Hunter’s Ed class. Five volunteer instructors hosted the “traditional” course in the Kittitas City Hall. The mayor, who went through this very class when he was eight years old, and who took his kids through it too, let us use the council room for free. He stopped by one night just to say hi. One of the instructors, Deb, is on a Teanaway Community Forest subcommittee with me, and she’s the reason I signed up for the class. Deb was one of the first female game wardens in the US, and she’s still a brilliant badass, who can be both imposing (despite her height) and a gentle teacher at the same time. I figured any class she was leading would be a good one. I wasn’t disappointed.
The lessons, taking us through a 100 page workbook, covered conservation history, firearm safety, methods for hunting, wilderness preparedness, and ethics. Students ranged from a six-year-old to a sixteen-year-old’s dad, who was taking the class with her. All of us heard, repeatedly, from each of the instructors, each with a slightly different angle, that Hunters must stick together. Hunting is a privilege, not a right, so we have to protect each other’s reputation and access. We learned about muzzleloaders and archery, and also about why hound hunting for big game and trapping have been restricted. Over and over, we were reminded that our actions will reflect on the rest of the community, and that we must hold each other accountable while presenting a unified front.
Hunter’s Ed was, beyond being a comprehensive lesson on safety, regulations, and ethics, a lesson in solidarity. It was a free, weeklong course teaching people in a rural community how to unite to protect what they share and to be strategic about how they voice their opinions. Since hunting and fishing license fees and taxes on firearms and hunting equipment pay most of the Fish and Wildlife budget, we were reminded that we have a direct stake in management. Not just because we use the lands—it’s not simple entitlement—but because we pay for and maintain them. Our voice is rooted in our responsibility and obligation to the land.
I liked that framing. We must stick together, regardless of differences. We must hold each other accountable without tearing each other down. And we must remain involved in management because of our support of the ecosystems and communities we live in. It was a heartening lesson, one I wish more people in liberal/leftist communities got taught just as explicitly. Many of my lessons in solidarity I learned from the practicalities of life in a small town, from genuinely knowing my neighbors.
Inspired by what I was learning in Hunter’s Ed, and by that glowy feeling of community support at the Donkey Basketball tournament, I signed up for my first shift at the Cold Weather Shelter. A couple months ago, at the barber shop, I overheard a familiar voice, which I couldn’t place at first, talking about volunteering at the CWS. When the barber spun my chair around, I recognized the librarian I TA-ed for in eighth grade. I didn’t say hi then—outing myself in the barbershop to someone I hadn’t seen in fifteen years seemed a bit risky—but I did start thinking about how he’d mentioned to his barber that they were always looking for more volunteers. So, after the Donkey Basketball tournament and halfway through Hunter’s Ed, I looked at the CWS calendar and picked a shift.
The Cold Weather Shelter offers folks a communal room at the Rodeo grounds to sleep and eat breakfast in when the temperatures drop below freezing. When I arrived for that first shift, it was only 3 degrees Fahrenheit. The other volunteer was my old librarian, whom I’d overheard at the barbershop. I was delighted to speak with him again, to re-introduce myself.
As we served oatmeal packets and coffee, people talked about how they were going to spend their day: applying to jobs on the public library computers, reading on campus, trying to out-walk the cold. I remembered the frustration of the summer I spent recovering from two knee surgeries while job searching. How disheartening it was to apply to dozens and dozens more jobs while sleeping in the house my parents rented for the summer, two different places I housesat at, then a family friend’s couch after my parents’ lease was up. Without my parents’ support and their network of friends, I would have ended up homeless, with a leg I couldn’t bend or put weight on. Almost half my friends have been homeless at least once in their lives, and two of my friends work with unhoused people in their research. We’re all one step away from being homeless, and we all need community support to be secure.
It took me too long to start volunteering. I’m glad I finally did.
I guess what I mean to say is, take heart. There’s a lot of shit going down in the world right now, but, while there’s a few assholes with outsize power, there’s even more people who want to do good. There are gyms full of people cheering on the most absurd and rural takes on a basketball fundraiser, donating hand-made Shrek blankets, donating weeks of their time to lead free Hunter’s Ed classes, teaching communities to unite and steward their landscapes, mopping the room they share with a dozen other folks as shelter, volunteering to help the unhoused people who were once their students, scrambling to keep funding flowing to essential programs, risking their jobs to keep people alive, keeping people alive.
In an increasingly globalized world, it’s tempting to become desensitized to our neighbors (now we have so many). But seeing the whole world as a small town—“it’s a small world!”—that might be an answer. Having so many neighbors can be overwhelming, but it’s also a blessing. They come with so many more opportunities for those small-town moments I love. For seeing everyone around us as a fellow human being, with a life worth living and protecting and inquiring after.
If a couple of bumbling bigots on the other side of the country want to steal our futures, they’re in for a fight. They might have money and cowardly cronies on their side, but we have our neighbors—and our neighbors have the communal ingenuity, audacity, and joy of Donkey Basketball—and a million more games and futures that I’m so excited to learn about.
We’ll always have Donkey Basketball.
