Courtesy of Calvin Hennick
The highway leading into Maxwell, Iowa.
- Writer Calvin Hennick found himself at a loss when it came to teaching his son about what it means to become a man.
- So the summer before his then five-year-old son went to kindergarten, Hennick took him on a 10-day road trip to his hometown of Maxwell, Iowa to see the annual rodeo.
- Hennick's memoir, "Once More To The Rodeo," recounts his journey and the questions he faced along the way.
- While Hennick didn't find exact answers to many of the big questions he faced, he did find the value of sitting with these issues and figuring out what he aspires to be as a father.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Calvin Hennick went to the rodeo to see if he could find some answers.
It was 2016 and his son - his oldest child - was five and preparing to go into kindergarten. This triggered "sort of an extended panic attack" for Hennick, he said.
And so Hennick, with five-year-old son Nile in tow, packed up his car in Rockport, Massachusetts - a seaside town north of Boston - and set off on a 10-day road trip to his hometown of Maxwell, Iowa.
The journey that followed is detailed in Hennick's new memoir, "Once More To The Rodeo," out today.
Courtesy of Calvin Hennick
"Once More To The Rodeo."
"It sort of hit home that I was responsible for teaching him how to become a man - and that's a big responsibility," Hennick, a freelance writer and journalist, told Business Insider. "It made me think about, 'How formative an idea do I have about what it even means to be a good man at this moment in time?' and to try to raise a boy into a good man."
Hennick's tale of race, fatherhood, and Americana has already been awarded the 2019 Pushcart Editor's Book Award. But three years out, he still finds himself grappling with the questions at the heart of the book. In a conversation with Business Insider, Hennick discussed what he learned - and what he's still working on - as the memoir is released to the world.