I received some feedback on this story idea so I have decided to tell the tale here. First off, it's important to understand why an 11 year old boy was standing in a muddy grass field with a herd of heifers.
It isn't like this is how I normally spent my childhood. I was bored to tears on one of Dad's cemetery search projects. We had come out to a farm in western Pennsylvania because he had received permission to catalog a private cemetery in what was now pastureland on a dairy farm. A forest and fields now grew where a family had lived and farmed for the last two hundred years. The small business they had left had let the cemetery's few remaining upright stones be kept mowed by a small herd of young cows. Don't ask me if they were Holsteins or Jerseys- they were light brown is all I remember. That and they were a bit, shall we say, unsettled by our presence.
Dad went to work with his modified rebar poker, jabbing it in the ground every couple feet in an effort to find headstones which had toppled and been buried by the years. Each one he found was lovingly cleaned and the inscription recorded for his records. Later he would compare his findings with old newspapers and family Bibles if things went as usual in these circumstances, but for now it was time to systematically probe the ground for missing graves. There was little I could do, and with no book to read I decided to wander around. Fortunately, the cows looked amenable to my approach. They had grouped together near the edge of the small woods both to get away from us and to get out of the spitting rain. I walked toward them unconcerned. I'd been around cows on the Stan's Farm all my life, although usually with the milk cows or their calves. These were teenage cows and, as I was to learn, they didn't act like any cows I'd ever met.
Once I got within a couple car lengths of them (1970's cars, not these modern Mini Coopers), talking to them calmly as they watched me approach with cud in their mouths, I noticed a rather wild look start to appear in their eyes. They started to get antsy and made strange moaning and snorting sounds. I stopped and decided, belatedly, that maybe they didn't want company. Dad had gotten farther away than I liked and, as was his routine on these trips, he was on his knees taking chalk rubbings of fallen stones. I could've screamed and I doubt he would have looked up. It turns out I was right...
The lead heifer decided I'd gotten too close and started to walk toward me. I backed off, looking her in the eyes, and was just trying to decide my next move when she and her buddies snorted and started running toward me. Boy, could those big things move! I high-tailed it toward the car, figuring the fence and gate were closer than getting to Dad. They were very, VERY close and I knew I wouldn't have time to unhook the electric fence. Instead I dove like a baseball player to get under the gate. I almost made it.
Whether it was the constant drizzle or that my backside was a bit too elevated, I got hit by that electricity with what seemed like a double dose. I plowed into the mud face-first thinking I'd been kicked by those cows. I was stunned, emotionally, and spent from the sprint. After a moment I got up and looked through the fence. The cows had returned to chewing their cud and slowly walked back to their tree-covered refuge as I watched. I swear the last one kinda winked at me, but it could've been mud in my eye.
Once they were well and truly gone I went back into the pasture to tell Dad what happened. He only stopped to look at me once I was right on top of her speaking. He wouldn't let me in the car looking like a mudcake, so he decided to have me jump in the nearby pond clothes and all. Of course, that was when the sun finally came out, wouldn't you know.
So I don't really have a lesson here except: don't trust a teenage cow. They're as spooky as kittens and move much faster than something their size has a right to do. They'll completely cure you of any urge to visit Pamplona, Spain.
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