The Baby Bull

 

Be not far from me; for trouble is near;

for there is none to help.

Many bulls have compassed me:

strong bulls of Bashan

have beset me round.

                                    -- Psalm 22:11-12

           

            Our good friend has finally come to admire and appreciate women. Oh!?! He finally realized that we're smarter than guys? Better looking, better smelling, and just generally better all around?

 

Noooooo. He just had to bottle-feed his baby bull Curly for a while. He admits that he got a new appreciation for what mothers go through, especially breastfeeding mothers. Curly, you see, was an enthusiastic feeder, twice a day. "Man, he's got a sucker on him," our friend exclaimed. "He'd suck the skin right off you."

 

All together now, breastfeeding mothers: ". . . and that's no bull."

 

The exploits of Curly the baby bull is actually a metaphor for what's gone wrong with our economy, and what we're going to have to do to fix it.

 

The tale goes like this: our friend has a country spread on a pretty piece of land near a big city, where he keeps his menagerie. One day about a year and a half ago, he saw an ad for a bull calf that a fellow had to get rid of on account of the mama cow had had twins, and was having a hard time managing both.

 

(Mothers of twins, all together now: ". . . and THAT'S no bull.")

 

So our friend drove right over there and bought the calf on the spot for $50. He's a beautiful mixture of red Angus and Brahman. At the time, he weighed about 20 pounds, the size of a middling dog.

 

 

This isn't Curly, but I'm guessing this is close to his baby picture.

 

 

Then came the reality check. How was he going to get this baby bull home? Isn't that just like a guy? Big idea . . . no trailer.

 

But no problem. The seller was a guy, too. He showed him how to cram the boisterous bovine into the passenger seat, wrap the seatbelt around him with a click . . . and then stick his thumb in the baby bull's mouth all the way home.

 

Hunhhh?

 

            Suuuuure! Curly sat there like a human, just a-sucking and a-sucking, and our friend drove the 12 miles home with his thumb stuck in that powerful mouth. He was the target of some funny looks from passing motorists, but that was OK.

 

And so, with little fanfare, Curly came to live in his pasture.

 

            Our friend fed him through what seemed like gallon-sized milk bottles, and Curly did his Baby Huey act twice a day. The two of them bonded as the milk feedings gave way to hay and an occasional bucket of corn. These days, Curly comes when our friend whistles. He nuzzles him and rubs on him. Most of all, as the months passed, Curly's enthusiastic feeding habits paid off.

 

            Now, he tips the scales at 1,500 pounds. And he's still growing.

 

 

This also isn't Curly, but he's a big'un.

 

 

            He has fathered a couple of calves already. They may be worth as much as $500 apiece. Not bad for a $50 investment and a sore thumb.

 

            But our friend is also realizing that he has kind of created a monster. Curly has developed the habit of rubbing on him, but he's so big now, he could rub on him up against a fence . . . and kill him!

 

            One time Curly and the heifers all got out, and a neighbor came over on a 4-wheeler to try to help round them back up again. Curly had his head under the machine and was about to tip it over, when our friend ripped off four rounds from his rifle into the air, got Curly's attention, probably saved the neighbor's life or at least nerves, and eventually got the bull back into captivity.

 

            Then, a couple of weeks ago, after it had been cold and drab, he thought Curly would appreciate a nice treat - a bucket of corn. So he hauled it out to the field as he had always done.

 

            And here came Curly - nostrils flaring, powerful legs churning, literally galloping toward him. This was no cute little calf! This was a creature six times his size! And he was out there all alone . . . vulnerable . . . at 6'4" suddenly feeling very small.

 

            The bull kept coming and coming. Our friend said, "I kept thinking, 'Stop! STOP!!! STOP, PLEASE!!!!!"

 

            Curly could have run right over him and killed him in his excitement over the bucket. But he did stop, and stuck his muzzle in there.

 

            Before he knew it, Curly had gotten around behind him and nudged him up in the air, light as a feather, driving his muzzle deep into that bucket. There wasn't a thing he could do, trying to grab a toehold, because of the powerful animal's focus on that corn.

 

            "If he'd wanted to, he could've pitched me 30 feet," he said.

 

            The moral of the story: friendship with a giant bull has its limits. Our friend is going to keep the fence between himself and Curly from now on, for safety's sake.

 

            I just see so much of what's gone on with our economy in this cautionary tale. For the wrong kinds of reasons, largely greed, many people have about sucked the skin off our economy. The public servants and business leaders who should've known better just kept hauling in the gallon-sized bottles and big buckets of corn. So now our economy's rubbed raw, and then some. And what could have been a manageable problem has now suddenly zoomed up giant-size and out of control, threatening our nation's very life.

 

Quite a few of us have been taken for a wild ride. A lot of us have been bucked off. Many are nursing bruises, breaks and worse. Most of us are scared.

 

We can be bullish on the economy again, one day soon. I totally believe that.

 

But now's the time to set limits . . . separate ourselves from the unwise and unGodly leaders and foolish and crooked financial dealings that have hurt us so badly . . . and remember that oftentimes, the Big Trail Boss in the Sky uses tough times like these to goad us into honoring safety fences that we should have honored in the first place.

 

All together now: AND THAT'S NO BULL!!! †