More about a Gallant Dog Named Happy

Happy gained our hearts with his valor and loyalty. Three stories jump out of my memory bank in relation to our ten years with him. Farmers sometimes forget the dangers of farm animals especially a bull faced with competition or a cow that senses her calf is in danger. On one cattle drive, Dad attempted to force a cow in direction of a gate and at the same time physically separated the cow from a young calf. The cow turned on my Dad and ran over him. Immediately the cow began to tromp and headbutt my father. I was only 8 or 9 at the time and yelled bloody murder at the cow. But the cow paid no attention. I then saw Happy watching and said the magic words, “Sic her!” The dog attacked the cow with all fury and drove the cow running, the little calf in tow. But Dad rose very slowly and in a lot of pain from what would prove to be broken ribs and scrapes from the cow’s hooves.

The Yarmouth Heist by the Watkins and Willson Gang

The Yarmouth Heist by the Watkins and Willson Gang

Some imbibing farm owner talked often talked too much and revealed information that could be used against them. In this case, the B. H. family lived a quarter of a mile north of the Willson farm. The Watkins and Willson families often got together to play pitch or pinochle. In those days, social life centered around meals, cards, and homemade ice cream. Terry Willson and I became the best of friends, always ready for a minor caper.

Sometimes the discussion around the card table included the difficulties of the sharecropper life. There were months when putting meals on the table would have been impossible without a great deal of ingenuity. Bob Watkins and Grover Willson were two men that were willing to hover near the line of the tolerably illegal to secure what their family needed.

I specifically remember fishing with dynamite or a telephone magneto, two practices considered illegal by the game and fish commission of Iowa. These were “never fail” methods when the hook and bobber attracted no fish. One stick of dynamite thrown into a creek could easily bring a bushel basket of fresh stunned fish rising to top to be collected with fish net on a long pole. The magneto produced an electric shock when two copper wires were attached to the positive and negative poles on the magneto. Then, we just dropped one wire over each side of the boat and an electric charge rushed out in all directions trying to find an object upon which to discharge. This method was rather selective since it sent an electric charge to the bottom dwelling catfish. Regardless, rain or shine the two systems were foolproof and nearly free except for a stick of dynamite that was always laying around in a secured box in our garage to blast an unwanted tree stumps from the ground.

But, in the worst of times, our families were not above stealing from some of our less appreciated neighbors. I think you will certainly agree that some neighbors are far from ideal. Since we always got by with the bare necessities, it was humiliating to drive by neighbors that lived like kings and queens, and gave their workers very little for being pushed so hard every day.

Word had gotten out that the B. H.’s had quite a bit of gold hidden in different parts of their large house. What we didn’t know was where. But, we connived that if we could enter when everyone was soundly sleeping, we could hunt carefully. A problem was how to break in without alarming them. We decided to make a visit to their house during the limited darkness of a full moon. Our fathers would make the exploratory visit. They would wear ski-mask and heavy brown coveralls during the initial quest for the most viable hiding places for the gold.

The neighbors lived very close to a small creek running through their property. Huge oaks and maples dotted the property. Our fathers questioned whether the cache might be hidden in one particular old tree that appeared to be dead, but had slabs of wood, eighteen inches long, nailed into the side of the tree leading up to an abandoned tree house. A few of the steps had long since fallen making the climb to the structure above nearly impossible. They would return we very early in the morning to investigate the tree in early sunlight, hoping the tree would be the home to the gold.

Dad, Grover, Terry, and I would make the heist on a very cold morning three days before Christmas. We hoped the near freezing temperatures would keep the victims sound asleep while we struck. We all carried an ax, a long pry bar, a chain saw, and six five gallon buckets in case there was adequate loot to haul away. A quick look at the tree in the light of the morning revealed that the suspected hiding place was nearly 12 feet up the tree in the first vee where the trunk branched into three huge limbs that were the supports for the tree house. The tree would have to be cut down to reach the loot. We were concerned that such a racket would bring the owners of the gold to protect their loot. We would have to strike quickly and escape into the woods.

When the tree fell, it broke into several large divisions and exposed more gold than we had expected. The severe cold made the inhabitants of the house reluctant to leave the privacy of their sleeping compartments and only a few of the bees harmlessly left the hive as we scooped the freshest parts of several years of savings by the queen and her workers. We left a lot of gold behind exposed to others that would pass, but trudged away with five full buckets of fresh honey and cone—a gold heist without a single sting, a memory for the season.

Marilee and Bob Watkins, Harriet and Don Kennedy, Elnora and Grover Willson.

Can’t You Think Like a Cow? 1955

When I was a child, my parents recruited me to help them to move cattle from the open field into a lot near the barn.  This involved forcing one or more cows to enter through a narrow gate into the sorting lot.  Like so many things on the farm, I hated the job.

Our problem rested with the fact that although cows are not included in the list of the ten most intelligent animals according to “Animal Planet.”   Incidentally, the chimpanzee is the brightest.   However it is proven that cows have enough memory to recall former negative experiences. For them, the appearance of the confining feedlots meant one of several things to them. It might mean weaning (kidnapped) their babies that inevitably created a bawling storm that lasted for days.  It might mean being stuck (stabbed) with the sharp vaccination needles.  It might mean being fogged (suffocated) for grubs.  It might mean the grinding of the nerves (neurological abuse) as cattlemen removed head horns with hack saws, or a number of other negative experiences even far worse than those noted above.  I hated these experiences and tried to hide somewhere on the farm to avoid the activities.

You Can Lead a Horse to Water, but A Cow Will Drink!

Cattle remember pain.  Regardless of their limited mental processes, they never wanted to enter through that small gate leading to the sorting lot.  So farmers had to form a sort of fence created by three or four people to corral them toward the gate.  It never seemed to fail, the cows would submit to direction and then they would find the weakest link, would fake a movement in one direction and then slip right past me.  My mom got so aggravated with my ineptness that she cried, “Dang-it, Bobbie, can’t you think like a cow?”

I decided against becoming a farmer as soon as I had processed her observations.  Somehow, I thought my mind was worthy of higher pursuits than thinking like a cow.  In retrospect, incidents like this were fundamental in “Why I Am the Way I Am.”  I altered any idea that I might choose farming as a profession and began to look for another direction.

In retrospect, her teaching point served me in many ways.  You have to anticipate what is going to happen in order avoid both problems and danger.  A strong lesson from a simple point.