Skip to main content

FIELD NOTES: Of Cows and Men

On my way to get a cup of coffee early Saturday morning, I came across a strange sight along a lonely stretch of rural road. A dead cow was lying in a shallow ditch just a couple of feet off the pavement. Several other cows grazed contentedly on the other side of an intact wire fence, oblivious to the fate of their fallen sister. I wondered what had happened. How did the cow escape the apparently undamaged fencing? How does a cow just drop dead along the side of the road? Do cows have heart attacks? I also wondered if anyone had informed the farmer and whether cows are insured against sudden death. But mostly, I felt bad for the deceased cow.

I passed the cow again later in the day. No one had made any obvious attempt to move it, and it occurred to me that a full-grown cow must weigh over a thousand pounds and would most likely require a front-end loader to lift it out of that ditch and onto a flatbed truck for a trip to the landfill or the rendering plant.

I was up in that neck of the woods celebrating my 60th birthday by clearing a plot of land where I hope to build a cabin one day. I welcomed my 40th birthday as finally reaching the age where people would take me seriously. I shrugged off my 50th, climbing Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, to prove I could still do anything my 40-year-old self could. But 60, that's a different number altogether. Sixty is old; no getting around it. One in ten Americans don't live to see their 60th birthday.

On Sunday morning, I attended a small country church within walking distance of my land. The mountains are peppered with these tiny spiritual outposts, spaced just a couple of miles from each other; a nod, I suppose, to the days before automobiles when the community walked or rode horses to Sunday services. I suspect the same dozen or so families have been attending that church since before my progenitors came to this country, and I wasn't entirely sure how they would react to an outsider. 

They welcomed me with open arms, and while the service was somewhat different than what I'm used to, maybe that's a good thing. The preacher's sermon was on how we do not know the hour of our demise and tomorrow is not promised. It concluded with the story of a church member, "Jim."

"When Jim woke up on Friday, he didn't know he would be in a terrible accident. And when he left work at 2 a.m. Saturday morning, he didn't know what was waiting for him on his drive home. And when he hit that cow, black as night in the middle of the road, he surely wondered, is this the end? Is my time on this earth up? Now, Jim will be alright, but it could have ended very differently..." Well, one life mystery solved.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Don't Listen to the Old Man in the Pickup Truck

As economic development director for Anson County, I strongly urge you to vote FOR the Mixed Beverage* Election November 8th. But, more importantly, I encourage you to listen to the voices of the young professionals upon whom the future of the county will depend. If you look closely at the lower right-hand corner of the blue and white signs urging a FOR vote on Mixed Beverages, you will see they are paid for by YP Anson. So what is YP Anson? Is it some political action committee funded by out-of-state alcoholic beverage manufacturers and casino owners? No, it's Young Professionals Anson, an organization made up of and funded entirely by local business people and community members under the age of 40.  They are the bankers, real estate agents, lawyers, shop owners, entrepreneurs, factory managers, and tradespeople who will lead Anson County into the next decade and beyond. Most of them were born and raised here, left to get a college education, and chose to return and raise a family...

FRIDAY MATINEE: Midnight Mass (🍺🍺🍺🍺)

I held off writing this review until I had seen all seven episodes of the new Netflix limited series “Midnight Mass.” I’ve been burned in the past by shows that start out well and then devolve into silliness as they progress. While “Mass" doesn’t completely stick the landing, I think even the East German judge would give it a solid 9. Taken as a whole, I think it is as effective a piece of horror as the combined “It” movies from a few years ago, and right on par with “Hereditary” and “Midsommar.”  The story revolves around a man returning to his childhood island home after a prison stay for a drunk driving accident that killed a teen girl. Coincidentally, it is the same day the island’s beloved elderly priest, Monsignor Pruitt is supposed to return from a trip to the Holy Land. Unfortunately, the priest has taken ill and is being treated on the mainland. A temporary priest arrives to take his place.  The story takes a little while to get going, and anyone who’s familiar with t...

FRIDAY MATINEE: Ghostbusters: Afterlife (🍺🍺)

I was surprised by the raucous crowd in the theater last night for a showing of Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The original Ghostbusters was always a perfectly okay movie to me. I liked it, didn't love it. The tone didn't resonate with me. It wasn't quite funny enough to work as a comedy, and it definitely wasn't scary enough to work as a horror film.  I first realized that other people had different ideas about it as a cultural touchstone when the 2016 remake, featuring an all-female cast, was received with violent rhetoric usually reserved for religious extremism and SEC football. It seems that a relatively significant group of teenagers from the 1980s consider it one of the greatest motion pictures of all time, right up there with Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. Our Town Cinemas was packed with those die-hards, their children, and (gasp!) grandchildren last night.  Apparently, they got what they came for since they gave the movie a standing ovation at its completio...