A Cow Named Blondie

March 6, 1966

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Well, maybe it would be better to say Holly County, Kentucky. We don’t have cows on Main Street, Hollyhill. At least not often. Of course, there is that big farm right behind Main Street. They must milk 100 cows. None that look like this one. Their cows are Holsteins. That kind of cow just seems to hang around the barn waiting for milking time when they get extra feed.  If you didn’t grow up on a farm you probably don’t know that not all cows are milk cow. This mostly Charolais cow isn’t the kind anybody milks. She’s a beef cow. Her milk is just for her calves that get sold for steak and hamburger.

I didn’t grow up on a farm either. I’m a preacher’s kid. Not that preachers can’t be farmers. I figure lots of them used to be, but my dad is a newspaper editor besides the preaching. He says he’s a bi-vocational preacher. But he likes both jobs – most of the time. He says nobody can like every day of whatever work they have. Sometimes the stories he has to publish aren’t so good. Sometimes the people at church have problems or get in a fuss. Sometimes he just doesn’t think he does as good a job as he wants to do.

But I think Dad’s great all the time. He hardly ever gets mad and he loves everybody. I have a harder time doing that. There are some kids at school that… Well, let’s just say I’ve got to work on loving my neighbor sometimes. But my neighbor cows aren’t that hard to like. This one belongs to our neighbor, Mr. Crutcher. He doesn’t name his cows. I don’t know why. I would name every one if they were mine. In fact, I name a few of his. Like this one. I call her Blondie. She’s a character. Every once in a while, she decides to go for a jaunt around the neighborhood to see what might be on the neighborhood buffet. Maybe a few apples in the fall. In the spring she goes for lettuce or beans just sprouting up in the garden. Or the very worst, Aunt Love’s roses. I try to go out to chase her away before she gets to the roses because Aunt Love is ready to get the shotgun and work on her.

One thing about Blondie, she knows when it’s time to go home. All I have to do is wave my arms at her and she’ll give me that look, just like in the picture, and after a minute turn around and head toward home. Not that she always goes straight home. She stops to snack on other delicacies on the way back to her field unless Mr. Crutcher shows up with a bucket of feed. Then she gets a hustle on to follow that corn back home.

Miss Sally has some cows too. And does she have some cow stories. Maybe I’ll let her get on here to tell some of her cow stories next time.

See you then. Now I’d better start studying for my Chemistry test.

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