Attribution: StanCoFair, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, noting, along with the keeper, that if they have not already left town, those hundreds of world class cows in Madison this week for the World Dairy Expo are on their way home, or maybe on to the next show ring.
Having a near worshipful attitude toward cows as a result of his boyhood experiences with them, the keeper had fully intended to make a personal appearance and deliver his message of unbounded cow support.
But the week flew by, what with Phylis-originated errands and the keeper’s napping until here it is Friday and the big cow show has packed up and hit the road! (Cow path?)
As his boyhood cow companions would attest, the keeper is not easily deterred if he has something to say, even if it might be of no interest whatsoever to a cud-chewing cow patiently enduring the routine of a jabbering kid tugging at her udder.
With age-credentials that include hand-milking cow memories, the keeper identifies as being almost as old as the first “cowboy” to try to milk a buffalo.
No such challenge was part of the hand-milking in the keeper’s boyhood. It was an agreeable arrangement with participants relating on a first name basis and with one-way discussions about everything from girlfriends to neighborhood gossip.
There was, however, the time a fishhook in the keeper’s hat pricked “Longlegs” in a sensitive spot and she kicked the keeper, along with the milk pail and milk stool, into a manure-filled gutter where she continued kicking him until he was rescued by his father who ran to remove the keeper’s hat still hanging from “Longlegs” flank by a fish hook.
As he rescued his bruised and manure-soaked son, the keeper’s father had the poor judgement to laugh. The keeper remembers that laughter as the final indignity of the incident and while he holds nothing against “Longlegs” he wondered at the time what kind of a father would be amused when his cow-shit covered first born is being pummeled by an irate bovine?
The keeper wants to tell the classy World Expo cows that he holds no grudges against them at this late date, and the pout over his father’s idea of something funny only lasted a day or two.
Hope to see all you cows next year. Bring the bulls: Madison needs milk but as a political hub it thrives on bullshit!
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