April 29, 2010

What childhood fear do you remember?

It was a fear of bulls and was well earned. I remember so vividly going out to help dad kill a beef for our families meat for that year. I went after I had heard him fire the .22 rifle knowing that meant he had shot it and would soon be needing my help as we would drag it over to the slaughter house to skin it and prepare it for cutting and freezing. As I rounded the corner of the barn I was shocked to see dad clear the pole gate with very little effort even at his age of around 55 or so. (Now that I am 56 I can see that it wasn’t as big of a shock as I had thought it was and that I could even do it if I was given the motivation that he had.) The bull was right on his heals charging him at full speed. I was glad that he was as close to the gate as he was or I would have had a whole different scene in front of me. The .22 didn’t do what it was suppose to have and it was not because dad was a bad shot, it was because the skull was a lot thicker than imagined. It only took another three shots to finally bring it down. I had helped dad several times as we did that same thing every year but that was the only time that I remember a bull that was so hard to bring down. I was actually pretty glad to see him go because I could never trust him and hated being in the same field with him. I was glad when dad had chosen him for the year’s supply of meat.