According to 2010 census data,
the number of teenagers living with both parents has
reached an all-time low. If there were a Super Bowl
of societal decay, an astonishingly huge number of
Americans would be sporting Super Bowl rings. Less
than 17 percent of black teenagers and 54 percent of
white teenagers live with mom and dad. For 50 years,
fathers have been incrementally replaced by welfare
programs and the left ignores this destruction of
our American culture by spinning it as progress. To
promote an intact family, here is the secret
ingredient behind my successful 36 year-long
marriage—curiosity and suspense. Stick with me while
I ramble to my point.
It is calving season and Wednesday evening Steve
called to say he had a cow with problems, so I
gobbled dinner and zipped to the clinic. Laurel is a
thriving city quickly becoming the cultural center
of Montana as we have both a McDonalds and a
Wal-Mart. My clinic is located four blocks from the
bustling downtown financial center, so my biggest
fear has always been the escape of a critter
exhibiting mad cow disease. I have custom built my
pipe corrals over eight feet high and use a heavy
log chain to secure the rancher’s trailer to the
access gate, so the possibility of escape is one in
a million. Steve’s cow was the one.
Steve’s critters rarely peg the crazy meter, so I
barely noticed the snorts in the front compartment
of the trailer as I was chaining up the gates. I
took my place behind the crowding gate and Steve
tripped the trailer’s divider gate. The black cow
exploded out the back in a single bound before
bouncing off a holding panel. Snorting and throwing
gravel she gathered herself and attacked me. I hid
behind a four inch pipe post set in concrete and she
covered me with snot and slobber before ricocheting
off and colliding with the main gate chained to the
trailer. Steve had wisely sought refuge on top of
the loading chute and would have truly enjoyed the
show had the cow been owned by someone else. Sensing
motion between the gate and trailer, the cow began
tossing her head back and forth across the security
chain. Realizing she had discovered the weakest
link, I exploded into the parking lot. The cow kept
pounding the gate and then suddenly jumped back into
the trailer. I seized the moment, tripped the safety
chain and slammed the trailer gate shut, but this
brand of trailer does not have a slam latch. While I
struggled to lock the gate, the old girl blew back
through the trailer gate into the corral tossing me
into the parking lot. I quickly grabbed the corral
gate and frantically tried to trap her inside.
Spotting me pathetically fumbling with the chain the
sweet thing hit the gate full force knocking it wide
open and bouncing me across the gravel. My last
visual was the rear end of a criminally insane cow
high-tailing it down the alley towards the center of
town. Unbefitting a Christian, I cursed and not
quietly.
Steve tore after his cow in his pickup, while I
locked up the clinic before jumping in my pickup.
Between driving and looking for a cow I called the
trophy wife. “Could you give me the number for the
Laurel Police Dispatch, we had a crazy cow get
loose.” She gave me the number and hung up and this
brings me to my point.
Because of curiosity and suspense, for the next
couple hours my marriage was 100 percent secure and
would remain such until I got home and finished my
story. Druann could have discovered every evil
skeleton in my closet, but she would not leave me
until I told what happened to the wild cow…and
neither will you. Regardless the feedback in tainted
letters to the editor, no readers will cancel their
subscriptions until I finish this story in next
week’s column. The relationship between writer and
reader is similarly secured by curiosity and
suspense.
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