Sometimes you face your fears with determination and courage. Sometimes you face an angry mama cow the same way. Especially when the stick keeps breaking.
My mother was always game for helping with the livestock on the family farm. We had a small group of black Angus cows that needed to be moved to a new corral. Mom dried her hands on her dishtowel and jumped to the task.
Black Angus cows can be aggressive in their nurturing skills. This means that, when they had a new calf, they could be a bear to move into a new pen.
They’d rather knock you flat and then move into the new corral.
But Mom knew cattle and she scaled the fence with a stick in hand.
“You don’t back down,” she told us kids many times. “You face them and show them you’re in charge.”
So, in this case, she flailed her arms a few times, which generally got cattle moving in the right direction.
This particular cow chose the attack mode. She lowered her head and took a few menacing steps toward Mom.
Mom responded by bashing the stick on the cow’s head.
The cow stopped. The stick broke off at the end.
Then the cow lunged again. Mom slammed the stick onto her head and the cow stopped. The stick broke off at the end.
This continued with the cow charging, Mom banging with her stick, and the stock breaking until Mom was out of stick.
Fortunately, the cow had tired of stick bashing because she turned and trotted into the new pen.
“What did you do then?” I asked Mom later.
She laughed. “I’ve never gotten over that fence so fast.”
Freida’s fade into Alzheimer’s -unlike others, perhaps – seemed to take her to warm and cherished places.
Freida lost memory of her husband of 50-plus years and her 11 children. When she also lost memory of the stove burner left on high and glowing red-hot, her family moved her to the local nursing home.
“I want to go home,” became her mantra until her family gave in and made arrangements to allow her to live at home.
“I want to go home” was still her cry even as she sat on her own living room.
Home, I think, was a place deep in her memory.
Her favorite story, one she repeated countless times, involved an incident at her childhood church.
“It was Christmas Eve and the choir was sitting together with the Christmas tree right beside them. “
Her eyes were bright with the memory.
“All the candles on the tree were lit and suddenly the tree caught on fire.”
I calculated that this event happened somewhere around 1915.
Freida chuckled. “The usher ran to the door and grabbed the bucket of drinking water.”
“There was a bucket for drinking water?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said as though I had forgotten to pick up the milk from the store. “With the ladle hanging in the side.”
“Oh, sure” I agreed.Her memory was vivid.
“Well, that usher grabbed the bucket and ran to the front of the church. He threw the water toward the fire.” She chuckled again. “But he missed the tree and soaked the choir instead. Ladle and all!”
Freida shook her head and chuckled again. “Got the whole choir.”
I waited. She was smiling, her eyes bright with the moment.
“Uh, what happened to the fire?” I said.
She seemed to have forgotten me but she shifted her weight as she caught my eye. “Oh, the men carried the tree outside and threw it in a snowdrift.”
Although Freida’s family grieved as her memory faded, she accepted each day with an old story told with a laugh.
A heavy afternoon rain cancelled our planned hike in the Snowy Range of Wyoming, but gave me a chance to shoot some photos instead. I found this lone leaf on the front step of our cabin. The contrast of color and texture intrigued me.
The Internet has proven to be such a valuable resource for amazing topics. For example, our 18-year-old looked up from his computer the other day.
“According to research,” he said, “there is a right way to hang toilet paper.”
“Did somebody pay money for this research?” I asked.
“They studied the angle of the sheet and how efficiently you can unroll the paper.”
“Really. They studied this?” I guess there’sa little of the cynic hiding in me somewhere.
“Oh, yeah. I read a whole article on it. I could google it if you want to read it.”
“No, thanks.” He took time to discover this information?
“So they found out thatthe best way is to let the paper fall over the top of the roll.”
“Uh-huh.” Unlike some households, this has never been a point of dissension for us. I thought none of us cared. So I had to ask. “Is that the way you hang toilet paper?”
He’d already turned back to his computer but his head popped up.
“I never hang toilet paper,” he said. “I put it on the counter top.”
Freida was always ready to go along with the family.
When some visiting grandchildren clamored for a visit to a quaint museum in a nearby town, Frieda agreed to go. It was better than trying to take on the Zipper at the amusement park.
Arriving at the museum with a veneer of shake shingles and newly-painted clapboard, the group tumbled into the main room.
A costumed host greeted the family, answering questions as a turn-of-the-century resident would have done.
The living room boasted kerosene lamps, chairs of solid maple, and cameo paintings on the walls.
Freida followed the family into the tiny bedroom and then to the kitchen where many old utensils were grouped on the wooden table.
“Isn’t this great, Grandma?” asked Kim, one of the grandchildren.
Freida’s head pivoted as she studied the kitchen layout. “Sure,” she said. “But I don’t understand why you’re so excited. I have all this stuff in my kitchen.”
