Child's Play

As a child, I could generally be found engaged in activities that would be described to adults as "up to no good." It’s not that I set out to be wicked; it was more that the activities that seemed most intriguing were the ones that had been forbidden. One could only engage in the encouraged pastimes for so long before one understood that they were – beyond a doubt – boring. Sure, the coloring book seemed like a good idea for about ten minutes, but then one couldn’t help but notice how the kitchen wall could use a little "freshening up." There was also the added bonus of having one’s artwork on display, for all to see, without having to go through the work of locating a long-discarded coloring book or – even more tiring – having to pretend to have no idea of where aforementioned book had gone while wiping ones’ hands of the ashes created when the fire that was the book had finished its spectacular show.

Most often, I found myself in the company of my cousin R, who is six days older than me, and my younger brother, J. As a threesome, we were particularly dangerous to any and all creatures in the general vicinity. Again, it’s not that we intended to cause any harm; it was more that our ideas were not necessarily in the best interest of said critters. Many a day passed during which we filled our hours "snake hunting" or "toad catching." We often filled an entire bathtub with frogs, who endured our games unwillingly – attempting escape all the while. Kittens were dressed in clothing, hamsters were driven around in cars, gerbils were bounced about in blankets, ducklings were given "swimming lessons," and rabbits were encouraged to ride ponies. In the end, no animals were harmed in the filming of our childhood, but it was sheer luck that saved them on occasion.

For many years, my parents rented a number of acres to a local farmer. He used this land to pasture a herd of beef cattle. Naturally, it became my quest to make one (or more) of these creatures into my noble steed. I had many daydreams which involved me mounted upon the back of one of these fine creatures, my hair streaming behind me as we galloped around the hills that surround my family home. (It’s true that – during my entire childhood – I had a bit of a "thing" for horses. It is most unfortunate for the cattle that my dream of a horse was downgraded to fit the available livestock of the time. I was nothing if not resourceful.) In order to "break" a cow in, I understood that I would first have to get on its back. The cattle, as it turned out, had absolutely no interest in experiencing this sensation. In fact, one might even say that their interest level hovered somewhere in the negative numbers.

Many plans were made, and plots unfolded and foiled, in my efforts to capture a mount. R and J were my faithful cohorts; they assisted in the deployment of various traps and schemes, yet success was not ours. A particularly disastrous plan involved me swinging out of the branch of an apple tree, hanging by a grapevine, and dropping into the space where – moments before – a cow had been located, munching on an apple. Because the cow – using its early warning detection device – had been prompted to move out of the area at high speed, I dropped instead onto the hard packed ground. This was a bad place to land, particularly from any notable height. Angry at my stupidity, my breath knocked itself out of my lungs with no small amount of force. Even angrier at my lack of sense, my entire respiratory system refused to refuel for several moments, causing me to attempt to communicate with R & J in panicked, indecipherable sign language. Unfortunately, what could have been my last wishes went ignored, unseen by the two young boys who were doubled over in laughter.

Undeterred by this spectacular failure, I developed my masterpiece of a plan. It was quite complicated, and required a lot of planning and setup. Fortunately, I had my companions to assist. We industriously looted an abandoned barn, which provided the essentials of our cow-capturing device: An old, rusty stanchion (device which closes around a cow’s neck, locking it into place in its stall); a piece of wire and wood fencing (quite flexible); some wire with which to pull our plot together. The location was key: an old apple orchard which was a favorite loitering ground of the herd. Chuckling to ourselves, we used the wire to hang the stanchion from a branch of an apple tree and wrapped the fencing around the back. This created a small circular space that could only be accessed through the stanchion opening. In this space we dropped a number of tasty red apples. Delighted with the set-up, and confident of our imminent success, we all assumed posts within the booby-trapped tree and waited.

As the cattle meandered closer, we struggled to stifle our giggles of delight. In short time, a brave and curious cow approached our trap, oblivious of the danger that she was in. I eyed her speculatively. She was quite lovely, really. Black and white, with large brown eyes and a youthful gait. If one squinted, one could almost imagine that she was a pinto… As my mind drifted into visions of the bond that my steed and I would share, and to the long rides that we would have, the cow reached her head through the stanchion opening and began eating the apples, crunching loudly.

Seizing the moment, I slammed the stanchion closed. The lock clicked audibly. There was a brief second of shared delight and surprise as our human threesome registered our success, and then The Hell began. The cow did not like being trapped. She did not like it at all. In fact, she was adamantly opposed to it. With an unearthly moo/moan, the cow began The Battle. Her hooves dug into the dirt, pushing the large cow body away from the tree, pulling the stanchion and the branch that it was – as it turns out – very securely attached to. Her inability to remove her head as easily as she had placed it there caused the cow to panic, and she increased the volume of her frightening moans as her eyes began rolling back into her head.

Underneath the cow’s panicked cries rose an even more disturbing noise – the wails of three children who have realized that they may – in fact – have committed an act that might actually get them killed. There was no way that their parents were going to let them live after finding out that they had caused a cow’s head to pop off its body. The cow, hearing this bizarre noise that undoubtedly signaled the presence of a cow predator, stepped up the escape efforts. With a groan that could probably be heard within a five-mile radius, she yanked violently on the metal that held her captive.

At this point, I can only assume that the Universe took pity upon us, and had finally stopped laughing long enough to do something about it. Inexplicably, the stanchion unlocked. For a moment, the cow stood still, shocked. Then, with her tail held nearly straight in the air in a manner that I have seen at no other time in my life, she turned and bolted.

There was quiet for a few moments, save for the occasional sniffle. I considered the events that had just occurred. There was an important lesson to be learned here, and I – for one – had noted it well. What I now knew was this: One should NOT ever try to ride a beef cow. It was obvious that they were not suited to it. Turning, I scanned the neighbor’s acreage to the left. There, on the hillside, I spotted them – the herd of Holsteins. The answer to my problems stood in all of their black and white spotted glory. Dairy cattle – now those were friendly. There was no doubt in my mind that – somewhere within that group – my faithful mount was waiting patiently for me. All I needed to do was get on her back…