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Mitch: 1, Cows: 1
Growing up in the country gives a person all sorts of interesting experiences and one of mine was raising cattle. My Dad, being a farmer, needed something to keep himself busy with during the winter months that also offered an alternate stream of income. By the time I had reached my teens, we had a small herd of about sixty of cattle. We didn't have any horses and since the pasture was only around 100 acres, it wasn't usually a huge deal to herd them up on foot.
Occasionally, things got a little out of hand, and cows being cows, they don't do what you want them to, so some days were longer than others.
On one occasion, after chasing the cows around the pasture for what seemed like the entire day, I came just about as close as I've ever come to personally exploring the concept of an afterlife.
I had been chasing a small bunch of cows, trying to get them back into the main herd so they could be moved toward the corral. I was carrying a small chunk of wood which I waved excitedly to help encourage the cows to run in the direction I wanted them to go. I'm not sure it helped much but it was better than just flailing my arms about. Things were not going well that day and at some point, the cows I was chasing just sort of scattered and I was left with just a single cow.
We were standing on tops of ridges between two gullies, about 30 feet apart just staring at each other. Both of us so tired of running that it was all we could do to breath. I guess she had grown tired of the stupid two-legged-human-people running them all over creation and otherwise spoiling a perfectly good day that could have been better spent chewing grass. Since I was nearest two-legged-human-people she could find, I became the logical target on which to vent her anger. And let me tell you, she was angry. Downright pissed off. At me.
After staring at me for a while, she made up her mind. Dropping her head and making that pissed-off-cow sound that pissed-off-cows make, she plunged into the gully and ran straight at me. It was about that time that I realized that Don and Martha's little boy was about to die. If not totally dead, then at the very least, mostly dead.
It's kind of hard to reason with something that eats grass for a living and is now hell-bent on running you over and to be quite honest, that whole dead thing didn't appeal to me very much. In fact, it rightly pissed me off.
Down her side of the gully, here she came; all red-eyed and pissed off and about to get herself one of them two-legged-human-people. So there I stood; chunk of wood in my hand, watching the world in slow motion, and trying to decide what to do next. Without really even thinking, I took a step back, dug my right foot into what would become a firm batter's stance, and in a move that would have brought a tear to Coach Williams' eye, made me a target of that splash of white that was her forehead.
The cow made her way through the gully and up onto my ridge. When she was just a handful of feet away from me, I swung with all of my strength and screamed, "You son of a…" WHACK! The chunk of wood hitting her squarely in the forehead and shattering into dust. After that, she just became this black blur that buzzed past me and on into the next gully. I guess she was a bit stunned by the blow since she sort of wobbled up to the top of the next ridge.
It would not surprise me in the least if my scream wasn't heard all the way into town. I was really expecting my Dad to say something about me cursing, but nothing ever became of it.
Alan, one of the guys who worked for my Dad, later told me, "Man, if you'd had a baseball bat we'd all be eating steak tonight."
As indeed we would.
That was the last time I had problems with that cow. Oh, and I wasn't dead ( fully or partially ). To this day, almost twenty-five years later, I can still see the scene as clearly as if it had happened this afternoon. The only thing I was really ever thankful for was the fact that she didn't have horns. Otherwise, the story would have had an entirely different ending.
The End
Copyright (c) 2009 by Mitch Milam
Tall Tales
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How Shiner Bock Saved the Day
I was headed to the lake one Saturday afternoon to hang out with some friends on their boat. As is usually the case, I was deep into a development project so when I arrived at the dock, I was still mentally in "development mode." I was also early. After sitting alone on the dock by their boat for half an hour or so, my urge to return back to my computer to finish my project finally overcame me and I decided to leave.
The highway near the boat dock was under construction and even on a good day, was usually packed with traffic. While waiting for what had to be five minutes for an opening in traffic, a curious development occurred right before my eyes.
Into the median of the divided highway screeched a red Toyota pickup truck. The driver immediately jumped out and opened the hood of his truck to fight the fire that had started on or near the engine. Yes, I said fire. That is not something you see every day.
Having limited fire-fighting equipment on board, he grabbed the only thing available to him, a spare shirt, and began to beat at the flames in hopes of extinguishing it. Not only were his actions in vain, but in the process also managed to catch his shirt on fire. After throwing the flaming shirt into the median, he began casting about for anything else that could be of assistance.
So there I set, watching these events unfold, while waiting for traffic to clear. I would surely lend a hand if I had a fire extinguisher or a bottle of water or something – anything that is capable of stopping a fire. Heck the only thing I have in my car besides myself is a twelve-pack of Shiner Bock that I brought to the lake with me.
WAIT. Beer is mostly water and mostly water is better than no water at all, right? I mean heck, it's better than peeing into a cup, right? Maybe we can use beer to put out the fire.
As circumstances would have it, traffic cleared about the same time I was having these thoughts. I gunned my car, jumped both lanes of the highway, and landed securely in the median beside the burning truck and the burning shirt, and the truck-on-fire-guy.
Using my finely honed ninja-like reflexes, I jumped out of the car, popped the hatchback, and extracted the twelve-pack, before darting toward the scene of the commotion.
Most people don't have a habit of running toward a fire so I guess when truck-on-fire-guy sees a red-bearded, 6'1" leviathan wearing a sleeveless tee-shirt and swimming trunks running toward him carrying a twelve-pack of beer, it must have been quite a shock.
About the time I made it to the median, a friend of truck-on-fire-guy also arrives and we both reach truck-on-fire-guy at about the same time. I put the beer on the ground, ripped open the top, and extracted two bottles.
Friend-of-truck-on-fire-guy eloquently states, "I'm not letting you waste a Shiner on a fire." Ah, a gentleman and a scholar. So refreshing.
Truck-on-fire-guy had no such qualms. I don't know, maybe he was neither a gentleman nor a scholar, but in any case, he grabbed the bottles from my hand, popped the tops, and poured them over the flames.
You can only imagine the smell of burning hops and electrical wire.
With the flames extinguished, I concluded that my job was done. As I turned to leave, truck-on-fire-guy reminds me of the remaining ten bottles of fire suppressant still setting in the middle of the median. I told him that I thought he was going to need them a whole lot more than me, so there they remained.
You can't save all of the world, all of the time, but, you can make small differences. Having done my good deed for the day, I return home, chuckling about the event the entire way.
Who knew that you didn't actually have to drink the beer in order to have a good time?
The End.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Mitch Milam
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I [had] a drinking problem
A year or so ago I developed a drinking problem.
( If my Mom ever sees this she'll be calling everyone in the family to proclaim my confession and acknowledge that she has known this for years. And years. And years. )
Anyway, it has nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with Wichita Falls, Texas. If you've never been to Wichita Falls, I really have to say you're not missing much. It's one of the extra-unordinary small cities in the middle of mostly nothing Texas.
Back in the Spring of 2005, I made four or five trips out there performing work for one of my former clients. On two of those occasions, I had very unpleasant experiences involving my attempts to either drink soda while driving or just drink soda period. Hence, my drinking problem.
Episode I:
The first episode started out innocently enough. I had dropped off some computer parts at a customer site and since it was almost 10:00pm, I was pretty much starving to death. Luckily, there was a Sonic drive-through located next door so I drove in and drove out with a Combo #1 and a Coke.So I'm munching my way down the street and eventually get back on the highway for the return trip to Dallas. I have a habit of putting my drink between my legs as I drive rather than using the cup holder and at some point, shortly after I entered the highway, I hit a bump and my drink dislodged and plummeted to the floor of my truck. Great, I thought. Not only did I just spill my Coke and will have nothing to drink on the way home, but I also just spilled it all over the floor of my truck and I'm going to have to clean that up sooner or later. Just great.
I put down the cheeseburger and reached down to pick up the drink cup. Feeling around, I found that it had somersaulted on the way down and landed on its lid, which was still firmly connected to the top of the cup. Cool, I thought, I still have a drink. So I picked it up and placed it back into its prior position, between my legs.
It was about that time that I felt this unmistakable fire shoot through my testicles. Actually, it wasn't fire, it was the sensation of ice cold Coke penetrating the protective layers of my jeans and underwear and plunging the family jewels into the relative climate of Antarctica. You ladies will have no idea what I'm talking about but most guys will wince in empathy.
It turns out, that when the cup landed, it pushed the straw through the bottom. I was so happy about the lid not coming off, I didn't think to check the bottom.
So there I am, driving down the highway at 60 MPH, trying not to run off the road, trying to not to be concerned about my testicles, and trying to figure out what the heck I'm going to do with a drink cup that is pouring Coke from both ends.
Finally, I decided to slow down enough to where I could safely toss the cup in the back of my truck and I continued on back to Coppell, Texas with merely a hint of dehydration and testicular frosting. No body parts where lost in the endeavor, but it made the trip back, very, very, uncomfortable.
Episode II:
This one was even more bizarre – and more messy.Given my Southern upbringing and redneck heritage, I do indeed put peanuts into my bottle of Pepsi and consider that to be a meal. Yeah, I know. You Yanqui's are all saying: "Gross."
Anyway, I was about half-way back from Wichita Falls and about mid-way through the afternoon when I realized that I hadn't eaten lunch. Not having a ton of options, I pulled into the nearest gas station with a quicky-mart and proceeded to purchase a 20oz bottle of Pepsi and a bag of peanuts.
This is where I ran into my first problem. The normal Planters Salted Peanuts where totally out of stock and I'm not really that into Cashews. My choices were: Honey-Roasted, and Spicy Hot. Not thinking that Pepsi needed any more sugar, I chose the Spicy Hot variety. That, it turns out, was my second problem.
I get back into the truck, open the Pepsi bottle, and drank a couple of sips to make room for the peanuts, which I eased into the bottle a bit at a time. So far, so good.
Normally, when you put peanuts into a cola, it foams up a bit as the salt from the peanuts reacts with the cola. Today was no different. I sucked off the foam and add the final batch of peanuts and started to pull out of the parking lot. As expected, it foamed up again. And again, I sucked off the foam.
This is the point where things when horribly, tragically, wrong.
It seems, that last bit of foam wasn't a bit of foam at all. Nosiree. Evidentially, it was a plug and the only thing keeping Mt. St. Helens from erupting. And lucky me, I removed said plug.
So there I am, toodling across the parking lot with a volcano of Pepsi erupting in my mouth. Pepsi and peanuts were shooting out of my mouth, my nose, and most probably since there is nothing to block the path, my ears as well. My cheeks looked like Dizzy Gillespie and I have no doubt my eyeballs had distended to the point to where they were touching my spectacles. It was very, very, ugly.
I finally managed to bring the truck to a stop. I threw open the door and expelled what Pepsi and peanuts remained in my mouth while holding the volcano at arm's length and and pointed away from me as it completed its eruption.
The entire left side of the cab of my truck reminded me of what it looks like when you stick an M-80 firecracker into a bottle of soda ( not that I've ever done anything like that, mind you ). It took me weeks to clean my truck completely and about 10 minutes to start breathing normally again.
Needless to say, I never again attempted to put Spicy Hot peanuts in my Pepsi.
Conclusion:
Events similar to those above have not reoccurred but I'm not sure if its because I haven't been to Wichita Falls, Texas, or the fact that I now only drink water while on the road.Tall Tales
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Fishing with Snakes
Growing up in the wilds of Arkansas gave me a natural inclination towards fishing, and I took clear advantage of any opportunity that came along.
One Saturday, my Uncle Forest and I decided to take a trip out to my Uncle Emmett's ( his brother ) pond to try our luck. As with most fish and game, you need to get there early to catch them when they start feeding at the beginning of the day. This placed us at the pond around 6:30am or so.
This was not a huge deal of a pond, maybe three or four acres if you pushed it. Regardless, it had your typical dispersal of fish as found in most places in the Southern United States: bass, bream ( sunfish ), crappie, and catfish. Not after anything in particular, we usually hauled in just about anything that made the mistake of putting a hook in their mouth.
Uncle Emmett kept a Jon Boat on the bank that gave us easy access to the entire pond. You generally store your boat upside down to keep it from filling with water should it happen to rain. When Uncle Forest and I arrived, we flipped the boat over, loaded up our gear, and pushed off into the breaking dawn. I took the bow and Uncle Forest took the stern, both of us using wooden paddles for propulsion.
As I recall, there weren't a huge number of fish being caught that day, but the weather was mostly pleasant and the company was good. We fished the pond in a clockwise motion from our jumping off point and by 9:00am or so, we had reached the far side of the pond and were attempting to coax some bream from beneath the willows along the bank.
It was about that time that I happened to look down and found, much to my shock and surprise, a three-foot long water moccasin between my feet.
Now I don't care if you're from Arkansas or New York City, but having a water moccasin of any length between your feet is a bad thing. Very bad thing. And I tend to have very diverse and adverse reactions when I encounter a very bad thing. This occasion was no different. I can't exactly remember what happened next, but somehow I was standing amidships on the seat. I figure that either 1) I teleported there; or 2) I went Ninja and performed one of my patented triple-somersault-180-degree-turn maneuvers that I have since become famous for, but no longer do. Either way, I was now standing completely upright on the middle of the seat on a Jon boat in the middle of the pond. Uncle Forest, of course, had no idea what in the heck was happening; not having seen the snake, and not really seeing me move to the middle seat.
Still in my highly-excited state, I grabbed a paddle in each hand. Facing the bow, and bending my knees into a squat, I proceeded to play the part of steam-powered paddlewheel and rowed me, Uncle Forest, the boat, and the snake to shore as quickly as I freaking could.
And that was then end of our fishing expedition, for that day.
Oh, I guess you want to know what happened to the snake.
Well, as soon as I vacated the bow seat, he slithered underneath and remained there until we reached shore. It also happens that I have some type of pheromone that makes water moccasins are extremely allergic to me, and this one was no exception. Shortly after we beached, after being in my presence for what couldn't have been more than 10 minutes, he passed on to the afterlife. Poor thing.
But I bet in the next life, he thinks twice before attacking a Ninja, with a paddle, on a boat, in the middle of a lake.
And how did the snake get in the boat in the first place? Well, it turns out, he was there the whole time. He had been sleeping in the middle seat while the boat was upside down. Since snakes are cold-blooded, and since it was rather chilly that morning, he had remained as he fell, upside down on the floor of the boat. Young water moccasins have a yellow belly and that was what was upturned. My Uncle Forest had been looking at it all morning but thought it was a piece of rope and paid it no attention.
When the air temperature rose enough to warm up the snake, it "woke up" and decided, post haste, to leave the boat. Fortunately for us, but not for him, he came forward as opposed to moving aft. My Uncle, who was in his 60's at the time, would probably have had a heart attack or jumped out of the boat and things would have turned out much differently.
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Calf: 1, Mitch: 0
Some time last year I was out with my Dad trying to find a newborn calf so that we could verify its sex and put a tag in its ear for identification purposes.
When a cow has a calf, they will hide it to keep predators from finding it. This sometimes makes it rather difficult to find the little critters.
Normally, the Momma cow doesn't range too far from the little one so when we found her, we knew the calf would be fairly close. But we looked, and looked, and looked, and still no calf.
It was about then that I was to test my theory that I'm smarter than a Momma cow. I know, rather risky, but this was not a life or death matter, so I thought I'd just throw caution to the wind and go for it.
Anyway, I told my Dad to get back into the truck and drive away while I walked into the nearby trees and hid.
As expected ( me being smarter than the cow ), Momma walked over to the calf to check on him. Did I mention he was lying in the middle of the pasture mostly in plain sight except for the slightly higher grass? No, I don't think I did. Stupid humans.
Anyway, once I spotted Momma with the calf, I ran over and grabbed "ahold" of it.
Now if you've never been around cows, what you probably don't understand is there is a pretty good reason that the La Riata was invented. [ Uh, that's Lariat, or rope, for you American types. ]
It's because when a calf gets to be about 4 or 5 days old, they can run like rabbits and you just can't catch them on foot. Which is what we have to do since my Dad doesn't have horses.
Anyway, the calf was only a couple of days old, and since I had the act of surprise on my side, I was able to catch him before he took off.
So I'm squatted down, holding onto the calf, trying to keep it calm, and waiting for my Dad to return so we can tag this feller ( it was a boy-cow ) and get on our way.
The main thing you have to watch out for when you have ahold of a newborn calf is thier fear-reaction – which mainly involves pooping on you. And yes, I said poop. It's yellow and is rather liquid and your Mom will probably make you take your clothes off on the car port before she'll allow you to walk into the house to take a shower. ( it's ok, even though the highway is 100 feet away, most people don't pay attention to half-nekked white boys on the car-port. )
Besides being rather poopy, newborn calves are also very slick from the oils on their hair. This makes them about as easy to hold onto as a greased watermellon.
By the time my Dad made it back, me and the calf had both ended up lying on the ground in a wrasslin' match that was actually quite comical. I was trying to hold onto the calf and not get pooped on, while my Dad was trying to find the ear-tagging device.
After wollering around on the ground for what seemed like 10 minutes, a curious thing happened: Me and the calf ended up facing each other. No longer was I worried about the poopy factor, I was worried about getting kicked in some of the more delicate regions that are located on the forward-facing side of my body. All the while trying to hold onto this damn calf. And my Dad still couldn't find the damn tagger.
It was about this time that the calf discovered that while the smelly-two-legs was smarter than his Mom, it was not smarter than him.
And the little bastard raired back a front leg and stabbed me quite expertly in the middle of the chest with one of those rather sharp newly-manufactured front hooves.
I thought I was going to die. It hurt like hell. So there I was, lying on the ground, ahold of the calf, trying not too get pooped on, trying not to get kicked in the family jewels and trying not to let go of the calf while at the same time trying to catch my breath and not have a heart attack. ( did I mentioned I cried? didn't think so. )s
All of those things combined were way more that I am qualified to handle at any one point in time.
Luckily, my Dad called out to me that he couldn't find the tagger and to let the calf go. I did.
I stumbled back to the truck and the look on my face made my Dad ask what had happened.
I pulled up my shirt, which had a mere muddy-spot on it, to reveal a quarter-inch deep bloody divot residing in the middle of my sternum. It hurt like hell. Did I mention that already?
And the thing that really pissed me off? The fact that I could have sworn I heard the calf-equivalent of laughter as he ran away with his Mother into the safety of the woods and away from the annoying two-legs.
Calf: 1, Mitch: 0
Two words calf-boy: ham-burger.
Copyright (C) 2006 by Mitch Milam
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My pants were on fire and my ass was catchin
A funny thing happened to me last week. What started out as a typical lunch with friends took a completely and unforeseen turn to the unbelievable.
It all started as I headed to lunch with three friends at one of our favorite eateries.
Not quite half way there, I noticed a rather warm sensation developing on my thighs and buttocks. I found this to be quite surprising. While I must admit my thighs and buttocks have been known to become inflamed, it does not usually occur when I’m in an automobile with an outside temperature of forty degrees or so.
“What, oh what, could be the problem,” I thought. Actually I was just a little bit more vocal than that – yelling out something to the effect of “What the hell’s going on!” It turns out that I’m rather sensitive about my thighs and buttocks being abnormally warmed. Oh well; live and learn. Life is but an adventure.
Anyway, there were at least three separate conversations occurring at this moment. All of which stopped when I became rather animated.
My very first thought was that my so-called friend, the owner of the vehicle, was attempting to kill me – albeit slowly and unusually. All I could determine was that he had wired the battery to my seat in a vain attempt at electrocution.
Either that or he had developed a “Fiendish Thingy” which relyed on Microwaves that were slowly but surely altering the chromostones of my yet unhatched offspring.
Either way, I was quickly becoming excitable.
About the time I was readying myself for a progeny-saving plunge out the truck door, it occurred to me that this was a fairly new vehicle and had all sorts of wonderful gadgets, features, and doo-dahs.
Still in my excited state, with my voice raised to the limit of hearing for dogs, Moms, and very small children, I shouted “Does this truck have a passenger-side seat-warmer?” “Why, yes it does.” Came the answer. “Is it on?” I queried. “I don’t know. Probably.” Was the response. “Well how the hell do I turn it off?” The instructions were provided, followed to the letter, and at long last the ambient temperature of my buttocks returned to normal. Whew!
Lunch continued on as usual and though I have a fairly decent explanation of the event, I have yet to rule out an assassination attempt. You just never can tell who your friends are these days.
Copyright © 2000 by Mitch Milam
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The Adventures of Jimmy the Squirrel
First off, let me make it clear that these aren't really adventures, they are more like observations. I'm writing the story, not Jimmy, mostly because squirrels don't word process at a high-level these days. Secondly, who in the heck is going to pick up a story called, "The Observations of a Squirrel Named Jimmy?" So, get over the fact that I've already lied to you and let me get back to work. Ok?
Jimmy is your typical suburban squirrel: fat, lazy, smokes too much and has a slight fermented-acorn addiction. As with most juveniles, all of these factors combine to make Jimmy a less than stellar social citizen. By now you're probably thinking that I don't like squirrels. That couldn't be further from the truth. Lightly battered and deep fried, them's good eatins. But I digress.
So one day I'm out in my garage building something or the other out of wood. The sun was shining, there was a gentle breeze blowing, and it was it was otherwise just a beautiful day outside, so I had my garage door open.
I'm sawing away on a chunk of wood when I catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. Since my fingers were rather close to a sharp, spinning, piece of metal, I elected to finish my operation before I looked up to see what it was that had caught my eye. It was Jimmy.
Since it was such a nice day, and given I had made 10 trips to the home center, I had the windows rolled down and the keys still in the ignition. I caught Jimmy with only three feet on the ground, the fourth was reaching for my truck. That little bastard was going to steal my truck! Just then, he looked up and saw me staring at him. Beady little eye to beady little eye we stood. Finally, he decided to play dumb (not hard for a squirrel) and jumped on a pile of logs that I have beside my driveway and started barking and flicking his tail at me as if to say, "It's just me, Jimmy, the harmless little neighborhood squirrel." Yeah right.
While this was happening, and as nonchalantly as I could (pretty hard when you're about as big as a house), I grabbed my Porter Cable model BN200V12 cordless 18-gauge brad nailer and taped the safety mechanism off and slapped in a fresh magazine of nails. While Jimmy was still playing "squirrel," I took off after him, brandishing my brad nailer, screaming something about "supper" and firing that thing about as close to full-automatic as the manufacturer could manage. Over the logs, around the truck, and up the tree went Jimmy – with me close on his tail. He reached the top of the tree just about the time my magazine ran out of nails so I had to call a halt to my operation. The neighborhood, while showing signs of concern, merely shook their heads and mumbled something about "proper ventilation" and "glue pots."
Anyway, it was the last time Jimmy made a run to jack my truck, but I don't leave the keys in it any more either.
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