Beech Tree News Network

When my cousin, Steve, was eleven years old, he found himself in the wrong cow pasture, facing the wrong bull—if there is a right bull.  His mom watched in horror from the other side of the fence, yelling, “Run, Stevie, run!”  Steve quickly realized he couldn’t outrun the large Angus and stopped to pick up some small rocks in his path.  He aimed for the bull’s face and threw the rocks with all the force an eleven-year-old boy could muster.  The bull stopped in its tracks.  Steve, like David before him, defeated the giant with a handful of stones and sheer bravado.
    When I was about the same age that Steve had been, I faced my own bull on our farm on Ashes Creek.  Actually, there were two bulls, one on our farm and one on the neighbor’s farm.  One or the other of the bulls decided he wasn’t happy with his less-than-greener lot, so he crossed into his opponent’s territory.  You know the whole “like two bulls in a pasture” scenario.  The rest was textbook example.  They fought like only two bulls in one pasture can fight.  There was bellering and head butting and goring and blood everywhere.  That makes quite an impression on you when you’re eleven.
     My parents decided to try and separate them, so they stationed my sisters and me at different points around the perimeter of the field in case the bulls decided to take their argument to an adjoining farm.  “If they come this way, head them off,” they told me.  I am currently five feet tall and weigh 125 pounds.  I was even smaller then.  As I stood my post, I weighed my options.  I could be hit full on by a raging bull—possibly two—or I could take my chances with an angry stepmom.  I had survived my stepmom’s wrath, I wasn’t so sure about the bull’s.  I decided to let him pass.
    Just last week, the FED-EX guy knocked on my door to tell me there were cows running amok in mine and my neighbor’s yards. The cows had crowded one another together in the horse lot by the barn and had inadvertently forced a gate up and off its hinges.  In case you don’t know, the cardinal rule of cows is:  If a gate is open, a cow will pass through to the other side.  It makes no difference what’s on the other side—skate park, water slide, NASCAR track—a cow is going to walk through an open gate.  It is one of the strongest calls in nature, equaling the calls of the swallows to Capistrano, the newly-hatched Loggerheads to the ocean, and me to the “Hot Now” sign at a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop.
 I saw in the news this morning where the tradition of the running of the bulls that takes place in Pamplona, Spain each year will be coming to the US next year (Virginia is the first state to sign on).  If Kentucky gives the okay, Garey and I should probably try to capitalize on the event.  Last week, when Garey came home to help me get the cows back into the pasture, the bull decided he was coming back out before we could get the gate closed.
“Stop him,” Garey yelled.
“You stop him,” I said, as I stepped aside to let the bull pass.  
I could do this running-of-the-bulls thing with very little effort.  After all, I know how to leave a gate open and I know how to get out of the way.