“Ready to Run”
The temperature was falling fast as Daphne made her way past a cow who had just had her calf and was munching contentedly on some after birth while her newborn shivered in the grass. Trying to get rid of that very natural, but let’s face it, gross image, Daphne high tailed it down the ranch lane and sped into town.
She entered the Saloon and threw off her coat and trapper hat. There was nobody at the bar except Glenn and Gwelda who were finishing up some dinner.
Gwelda: “Well you’re dressed for winter.”
Daphne: “It’s 25 f***ing degrees. It’s not Spring. I’m sick of the cold and sick of talking about the weather. Let’s change the subject.”
With that she opened up her Wall Street Journal and began to read.
Daphne: “Here’s an article on ‘Noah’ and building the Ark. I’m looking forward to it seeing it. Should be good.”
Gwelda: “Well I sure hope it’s accurate–biblical, that is. I know the Bible and those animals made their own way into the Ark. He didn’t gather them up. They came by themselves. So they just better tell it like it really was.”
Daphne thought about an appropriate reply and decided not to question the voracity of the story about The Great Flood. Nor did she want to get into a discussion about this ornery God of the Old Testament who supposedly, angry as all get out at the frivolous creatures he had created, decided to destroy every living thing on earth. But at the last minute took a shine to Noah and decided to spare him, his wife, his sons, his daughters-in-law and an Ark full of clean and unclean animals, reptiles, and birds. The catch was that he had to believe God and build this huge fricking ship in the middle of a field as the neighbors made a lot of fun about the whole project. Nor did she want to talk about how that same cranky God was going to have another little test a few hundred years later when he asked Abraham to kill his oldest son and then at the last minute right before the old man plunged the knife into the kid’s chest, God said, “Ha, Ha, just kidding! Had ya there, didn’t I?”
No instead Daphne replied, “I saw the trailer for the movie and the animals and snakes and birds are all definitely heading towards the Ark on their own steam. Looks real correct to me.”
Gwelda: “Well, we will see. Been doing any traveling lately?”
Daphne: “No, I feel I should be around during calving season.”
Gwelda: “That makes sense. Never know when Clay could get hurt. Did you hear that Jim Borgman got run over by a cow. Broke a couple ribs and collapsed his lung. That was Tuesday. He was in the hospital, but I think he’s out now.”
Daphne: “You’re right. Clay had a cow take after him during that big storm and twenty below weather. He put all the cows up in the corrals during the storm and she had just had her calf. Calf wouldn’t get up so he went to try to bottle feed it and the cow took after him. Barely made it out of the pen.”
Gwelda then told a story of treating a bull with hoof rot. He was lying down, but all of a sudden got up and took after her, Glenn and their two kids. The kids jumped into a hay feeder as the bull charged. Glenn put the hay feeder between himself and the angry bull while Gwelda jumped over the fence.
Daphne gathered up her purse and her papers, put on her coat and hat and bid everybody “Good night”. When she got home she sat down to write the story of the bull with hoof rot. But she couldn’t remember all the details, so she just filled in what she thought happened and vowed to take better notes.
The story of Noah and the Flood was passed down from generation to generation. Finally the pen was invented and some old geezers wrote these stories down. It’s also part of the story that God fact checked these stories, so that’s why Gwelda is sure that what she has read is “accurate”. Daphne’s story of the bull with a bad foot, having no such divine fact checker, may not be exactly like it was. In fact, it might be a bit of baloney.