Memories float away in the dust?

Dear Blog Reader

I hope this finds you doing well. I am pretty good overall. I am a bit frazzled. Last weekend went by too quickly. There were way too many things to do; taxes to do, son to visit, a nap to take, a sixty mile bike ride to ride. That’s right a 60 mile bike ride. There is a good reason for riding for 60 miles. I hope to announce the reason next week. I have a few more stars to align before any announcements are made. Just hold your horses, and no I am not going to quit my job and ride in the tour de france. I don’t like the French enough to spend a fortnight in their puny little country; unless it’s in the turret of a Abrams M-1 tank chasing gunless (gunless because they are gutless) French solders shouting “nois reddition.” I do not like them Sam, I am.

France not withstanding, I am pretty proud of the feat. I know that pride goeth before the fall, but tonight, I do not care. I rode 60 miles.

As promised, this blog will see the end of the recollections released and rehashed from the razing of an old barn that we had the farm. It is a good thing too. You see that pile on the ground has suddenly started to disappear. Like ants at a picnic, the folks from around southern Madison County have congregated around the skeletal remains and are carrying it off a piece at a time. And like their six legged brethren, great feats of strength and agility must have been exhibited. Those beams were heavy. I am sorry that I didn’t have a camera set up. I could have made a bundle in the documentary business; “The Scavenger Hill Jacks of Southern Madison County”, or at least sent a bill to those who wisely decided to ask forgiveness instead of permission. I feel a little sorry for the guy who stopped by and had to pay a nominal fee for a beam that will be crafted into a mantle for his fire place.

Back to the memories; Charlie was a steer that had had a terribly difficult life. His arrival to our farm was during the middle of a snow storm that witnessed 20 mile an hour winds, plummeting temperatures, and 10 inches of snow. It was the kind of snow that today, would have the Storm Team standing in the cold, talking to the drivers at the salt barn, and drawing circles on the STORM VIPER map. Back then, forty years ago, all we had was a winter storm warning icon in the upper right hand corner and three kids watching with baited breath as they alphabetized all of the school districts. “Come on South Madison, come on South Madison” Three kids trying desperately not to blink when suddenly South Montgomery, South Whitley pop up on the trailer. “Did you see it? I think I blinked. I am going to watch again.” Dr Malck was a sadistic superintendent who refused to call any school day before 5:00 a.m. He has won life’s lottery by hitting a game winning, last second, ½ court shot in the sectionals against Anderson when Hoosier Hysteria meant that you could turn those kinds of heroics into a nice life. So Dr. Malck had decided to repay life’s good fortune by having the kids of South Madison School Corporation get up early if they hoped to gold brick during a snow day.

Those were the less than ideal conditions that Charlie was born into this world. Charlie also had the misfortune of having a very stupid mother. She had an entire barn that was well bedded, out of the wind and quite comfortable. But she chose to shorten her tribe’s evolutionary prospects by use doorway for a maternity ward, where the wind, plummeting temperatures, and snow would most certainly doom her son’s chances. So that night, we watched her signs and portents of freshening. She was in the back part of the warm barn and so we went to bed sure that during the night a calf would be delivered and become part of the vast Sharritt herd.

The next evening came. Yes, evening; Dr. Malck decided that it would be good to send us out on treacherous roads to attend school the next day; evil, vile, misanthropic man. So the next evening, the kids returned from school, changed cloths, and headed out to do the chores. As we walked into the milk house, the only heated barn on the farm, we found Charlie under a heat lamp with dad rubbing his black coat briskly and preparing to tube him. Tubing is an emergency procedure on the farm when a ¾ rubber tube is snaked down the animal’s throat. After reaching it’s destination, the stomach, the free end is attached to a funnel. This contraption caused me to question my dad’s assertions, upon my arrival at Purdue, that he never went to college. Milk is then poured into the funnel for the over the lip and around the gums look out tummy here it comes trip. It is used in the emergency situation where the new born calf is too weak to take in needed nourishment; usually, because it does not have the sucking instinct. Yes, dad was a creationist not a “darwiniot”.

These were heroic measures used in dire situations and by definition rarely worked. Looking at Charlie, my cousin and I didn’t hold out much hope. Charlie made it through the night. The next day he was still with us. He lay there all sprawled out on the milk house floor, warm as toast. While he wasn’t laying there in the classic crèche repose of Bethlehem, life had re-entered the eye and there was hope. This proceeded for a month and it looked like Charlie was going to make it. A little worse for wear; he definitely had two frostbit ears. He held his head in a cockeyed manner, and he could not stand up on his own. Some infection had entered his ear during his desperate first few hours of life. That infection caused a disruption in his inner ear, disrupting his balance, making it impossible to sit upright let alone stand.

Even 13 year olds knew that this was an impossible situation. Cows have to walk around. They are quadra pedal lawnmowers. You can’t go to the vet and get a wheel chair and move them from the feed trough to the water trough. It wasn’t going to work. Dad, however, had Charlie love. Spurred on by that love and long before the American’s with Disabilities Act, he made unreasonable accommodation after unreasonable accommodation for that calf. The Sling was the first. Attached to the milk house ceiling, Charlie would be hoisted on his feet every day. Enough slack left in the contraption to allow some weight to be kept on his feet to keep his muscles from atrophying. He was left in the heated barn for two months, because “he was used to the warm temperatures and the sudden jolt of late winter or early spring cold may delay his recovery.

Every day, the tension on the sling would be adjusted so that Charlie would have to bare more and more of his own weight. Every day he would get a little bit stronger. Two months later, taking shaky and timorous steps, he left the barn. It was a miracle! His only mar was that misshapen head, missing ¾ of each ear, held down and to the right with just a bit of a tilt to the left. Those were the manifested scars of his ordeal. Less immediate but just a real was an overall lack of vigor. Charlie grew very slowly.

Two years later it was time to select our calves for the 4-h fair. At the Sharritt farm, the quality of calves for selection was often up and down. Some years, we had John Elway, Jim Kelly, and Dan Marino to choose from; other years Vince Young, Matt Leinart and Kellen Clemens. That is my point exactly. It was a Vince Young kind of year. Holding the second round draft pick and no good prospects, dad suggested Charlie.

“What, are you kidding me!? Look at that ugly misshapen head; those ears. He’s two years old.”

Two weeks ago in my blog “Where Does it Say That?”, I complained bitterly about all of the things that weren’t written in the 4-h handbook about criteria used for judgments. However, it did say that beef animals would be no more than 18 months at the time of the fair. Charlie would clock in at 30 months.

Dad was undaunted. “He doesn’t look old. Other than the head, he looks pretty good. No one will look inside his misshapen head to figure is age from his teeth. You can hold his head up straight. He has had so much time around people that he will be easy to break to lead. Look at your other choices. No I’m not kidding you. Stop your bellyaching, go down and catch him. He’s your draft pick.”

The die was cast for that cloudy, February, Saturday afternoon. My cousin,  a friend and I found ourselves in a 15 by 15 stall with a single 100 watt light bulb illuminating the gloom that came in through the open barn door and lone window on the south side of the barn. Our quarry, the three calves were standing there looking at us, Charlie in the middle.

We approached them; moving them back into the corner; my cousin and I in front, with a rope halter to slip over a head, the friend standing along side. Back, back, into the corner, we maneuvered them. Until the right angle, became the 4^th and 5^th men on our team, we reached out with the halter. It touched Charlie’s head, and . . . . he went crazy. He let out a bellow that would have waked the dead. His companions momentarily stunned by the blood curdling bellow soon woke up also and surged forward along the wall. Three calves, a ton and a half of grade A on the hoof shot forward with a crack.

Space and time being what it is and my initial position, in front of that ton and a half, I found myself pinned between Charlie and his companion along the wall, feet elevated off of the floor going for a merry 15 foot ride until the next corner got into the fray and stopped my traveling companions. With a block wall looming as a threat, some of my company stopped others turned. Since I did not have my wits about me yet and hadn’t used my feet for any of the journey, I hit the straw covered manure, landing on my back. I can close my eyes today 37 years later and see the following events clearly.

I look up and see Charlie’s head passing over me. The silhouette of his head is against the backdrop of the haymow floor 13 feet above me. I feel his right front hoof impact the ground by my left hip. His head passes out of sight. My ceiling suddenly becomes his brisket six inches from my nose as his right front foot hits beside my head and his left hind foot takes the front foot’s place beside my hip. I close my eyes as the right front lifts and is carried on to be replaced by the rear foot and then it is over.

Hands are grabbing me, lifting me, brushing the straw from my body, nervous laughter, a backing from the stall, six pairs of wild adrenalized eyes staring at one another. We close the door to the stall, locking it behind us and . . .

Memories float away in the dust.

Take care,

Roger