As promised last night, the following is a recount of my most memorable Father's Day.
My disjointed dream was thankfully interrupted by an incessant knocking, no, pounding, on the front door. I sat up groggily taking in the 7:00 on the radio and the early sun through the easterly window. Thinking that those were two sights that I had no intention of seeing before my waffles in bed, I hollered at the knocking that I was coming. Stumbling towards the door dragging on my pants one leg at a time (for those who are in awe of my celebrity, one leg at a time for me too), I was wondering what the heck is going on.
We have been conditioned through many years of living on the farm that any knock on the door after 9:00 pm and before 7:00 am means that the cows are out. We had just quit farming and sold the beef herd in February. We were a cow free zone, and in the intervening 4 months, we had let our emergency cow chasing readiness slip to C.O.W.C.O.N. 1. (My expatriate farming fan base knows exactly what I am talking about.) The knocking had only slowed and not stopped in the few moments that all of this was going through my head. I swung open the door and it was Felipe Reyes. What the heck? Felipe is a migrant worker who had worked our farm for the past 3 years. Never in a million years did I expect to see Felipe ever again. He had moved on to Chicago
He wasn't gone though. He was standing on my front porch gesticulating and pointing to the west, telling me over and over ovejas escapar. To which I give the international hand gesture of palms up saying huh. Felipe, remembering that a gringos' comprehension abilities expand when the speaker slows down and enunciates clearly and loudly, tries it again. OVEJAS ESCAPAR!!! I get it. He's saying "look where I am pointing to stupid." I look and see the last of the renter’s sheep heading south to town.
I had never been prouder of my family. While we had slipped to C.O.W.C.O.N. 1, we immediately shifted into our prearranged battle readiness roles when the alert went out. I jumped into the car. Ben went out to the first scout position. Grace and Bev went to the field they escaped from to open the gate and get ready for the herd’s return. Leaving Felipe standing there dumbfounded by our crisis efficiency, I tear out of the drive hunting for a street where I can take a parallel track and get around them. I was starting to panic as the street numbers rolled down 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. A flood of relief swept through me as I rounded 1st street and saw that I could get around them with a burst of speed.
Tires squealing, I come to a stop, jump out, and stare down the marauders just as they entered the intersection. They turn and head back towards home. On the way I notice that they were stopping at every bucket, birdbath, and mud puddle; they were draining every ounce of standing water in a 7 block area. Once they were surrounded and had their thirst slaked they were easy to get back in. We called the owners and suggested that they provide water. Chagrinned they assured me that they would be right on it. A roll of wire and some pliers and the fence was tightened up. Finally, excitement past us, we were able to visit with Felipe. It seems that he had brought the title to the powder blue Cadillac and presented me with a very fine junk car for father’s day.
It was off to church and the disappointment of going 0-3 in the father awards. Not the oldest, didn't come the farthest, and thankfully not the youngest. Christians are sneaky like that. "Let's offer a prize to identify all of the young fornicators out there." After those awkward moments, we came home, had a wonderful pork roast, opened my presents, and settled down for my late spring nap. And . . .
Knock, knock, knock, "excuse me sir. Do you own those sheep out there? They are out."
"Kids!"
We were off. Once again once the lead sheep was turned it was easy. We were just crossing the road into our yard and one was spooked by something. Who knows what? Maybe a butterfly, or cricket; through the years I have come to believe that the porcine gods communicated with the ovine gods to punish me for the wonderful lunch that I had enjoyed.
Whatever, it was I was facing the horns of a dilemma. I had 25 almost in. There was still a hole in the fence and only one out. So sending Ben after the one with instructions to just follow and not apprehend. We corralled the rest of the sheep. The van was parked in front of the hole. The owner was called for extraction, but he was taking his father's day siesta with his cell phone turned off.
Off I ran to the house to get my bike to find Ben. Just three blocks away I found him and his quarry. To this day I can see the following sequence vividly in my mind. I had spent numerous hours chasing animals in my previous 44 years; many of them under the harsh tutelage of Lloyd Sharritt. Life and his verbal barrages had taught me well that driving an animal is all about spacing. And inch here or there, a verbal prod at the right instant is the only difference between success and failure. I can close my eyes and see that ewe running down East street towards the train track and the busy state highway just beyond. I am on my bike trying to swing wide to make an outride that will get me between she and certain death on the tracks or the road and there is a chain link fence that kept me too close. I sped up as she sped up. We were racing for the same spot at the intersection of 1st and East streets both knowing instinctually that it would be decided at that spot. I had to swerve around a crotch destroying (44 year old on a bicycle) pothole and both of our fates were sealed.
She got by and into the thickets around the train tracks. I couldn't find her. Ben and I picked up the bike and walked back home to find Grace and Bev fighting to keep the sheep in. It appears that once they have seen gay Ingalls it is hard to keep them down on the farm. We shored up the fence and a neighbor came driving up with a sheep sighting. Thinking that she is on the right track, she was heading West down the middle of the tracks.
I go trotting off to jump in their car and Bev hollers at me to throw her the keys to the van. I pull them out of my pocket and in an adrenaline charged throw, they go sailing through a maple tree that was between us, and they never came out. Stuck up there in the crotch of two limbs, later that evening I would throw a basketball at it for a half an hour, to no avail. It stayed up there for 3 months before a zephyr strong enough to dislodge it would come along. I found it in September. It's acrylic "best dad ever" busted to pieces. Oh the irony.
I know what you’re thinking "what about the sheep." She was still heading down the railroad tracks. I jump in my neighbor's car and off we go. At the west edge of town, I she her tail bouncing along, and a crowd was gathering to see the drama. I hop out of the car and take off after her. I am starting to wonder about trains. The tracks, that we live near, are some of the busiest in the nation. Sure enough, I look up and see the white eye of rage about 4 miles away and about 100 yards away is the sheep obliviously heading for her doom and destruction. I remember thinking to myself. “At least it would be over.”
I run back to the neighbor’s car and tell him to drive down the road and I will try to get around her. We do and I scramble up the railroad bed to find the sheep about 300 yards from town and the train closer but not dangerously so. I take off running after her. We are heading back to town making pretty good progress. As we are running, I see all of the town folk gathered on the North side of the train tracks jostling for front row seats for sheep meets train. “Hon what do you want to do for father’s day? You want to watch NASCAR in a wife beater and drink beer?” “Nah. I got a hankering to watch the Sharritt’s chase a sheep over hells half acre. Who knows maybe it will get hit by a train.”
There must have been thirty people there on the North side of the track trying to be helpful. If that sheep ever got there, they were going to drive it North. If you are good at directions you will have realized that we wanted to head south back to the farm. So I am screaming at them, waving for them to get on the south side of the tracks which they mistook for get really close to the tracks because I want to drive this sheep into on coming traffic on SR 67. The closer they got. The louder I yelled whipping the sheep and the crowd into a frenzy. The situation was reaching a crisis point when the sheep cleared the under brush along the tracks and bolted south behind the post office into the middle of SR 67. Cars honking and dodging. The crowd ooohing and aahing. One wife beater clad hill jack came up to me and said “that sheep sure can run.” No shit Sherlock I thought; channeling my father in homage to the little sayings he used to shape and sculpt my future alliterative skills.
By this time my neighbor had to leave; Bev and the kids had found me, and we started a grid search on the south side of the tracks. There was one sighting to keep us energized, and we found some tracks in a corn field over the next three hours. After three hours of hopeless searching, I decided that when Christ told the parable about the lost sheep, He didn’t know what he was talking about, or the scholars got the Greek translation wrong. It actually said after 6 hours the good shepherd got tired of hunting for that stupid sheep and decided that 99 wasn’t too bad and went home for some father’s day homemade ice cream. There was a message on the phone about a month later. They had spotted our sheep south of town. I didn't call them or the owner. You know we never saw that sheep again.
I was remembering this story yesterday and sharing it with Grace. She told me that she had been telling friends at an ice cream shop at Ball State
See I knew there is an award for leaving your kids with good stories.
Take care,
Roger
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