Bull Shoo, A Barnyard View of the Current Economy

Once upon a time there was a bull called Shoo.  He was called Shoo because when he was just a little calf, he was smarter than the other calves and he somehow he kept getting out of his pen.  He would get up on the back porch and made an awful mess of Mama’s canning supplies.  When Mama saw him she would start screaming at the top of her lungs, “Shoo, Shoo you bad ole calf!” and the name just stuck.

 

Now Shoo grew to be one of the best bulls in all the county. He was known far and wide for being pretty darn good at doing what bulls are supposed to do.  Other farmers would occasionally even bring a few cows over to visit ole Shoo.  Every year Daddy would have a nice bunch of calves that looked a lot like Shoo, and Shoo came to think very highly of himself.  He was the king of our farm, and everybody knew it.  Shoo would spend his day lounging around and when the occasion called for it, he would wander off into the herd of cows and do what bulls do to earn their keep.  

 

The years went by and one day Shoo noticed that Daddy had a little bull calf over in another pen.  Shoo remembered back to the time when he was a young bull.  He could barely recall that Daddy had taken the older bull on the farm off in a trailer down the road somewhere, and just about that time Shoo started receiving the grand treatment. 

 

Now like I said earlier, Shoo was smarter than most and he knew that he liked life here and would just as soon keep things the way they were.  But how?  He knew that my Daddy was always happy when Shoo was out doing his job, and by golly by gum, that’s just what he’d do.  But old Shoo also knew that as he was getting older, sometimes it took awhile for even the prettiest cows to get him. “in the mood.” 

 

Then one day while Shoo was eating his hay he noticed that there was a bundle of paper in his hay.  Now while Shoo was smart, he was, of course, just a bull.  He took a bit of the paper in his mouth and started to chew.  Now about that same time, a very pretty little cow walked by and gave old Shoo… the look.   Shoo, having been well rested from all his thinking about his problem, immediately took the matter in hand, shall we say.  The next day Shoo again took a bit of the paper in his mouth to chew, and again another pretty little cow sashayed by with similar results.  Did I mention that as bulls go, Shoo was smarter than most?  Shoo got to thinking that this paper must be bringing back the vigor of his youth. So he gobbled up a bunch of the paper and hid the rest throughout his pile of hay.  As often happens, mind over matter took over, and all of a sudden Shoo was doing his job so well that it made Mama and us kids blush.  The cows even became a little scared when old Shoo was in the pasture.  Daddy, on the other hand, was very pleased and even bought a few more cows to keep Shoo busy.  

 

This went on for awhile and in Shoo’s next pile of hay he found even more paper, and Shoo chowed down.  But all this paper along with the extra activity started taking its toll on Shoo.  He started getting skinnier and skinnier, and Daddy started giving him more and more feed, but old Shoo just kept eating his stash of paper.  Pretty soon, Shoo was looking pretty ragged, and it was plain to all that old Shoo just couldn’t keep up.  But Shoo was afraid that if he stopped eating the paper, he wouldn’t be able to take care of all those cows like he was supposed to.  

 

This continued until the time came for all those cows to bring into this world their calves.  But, low and behold that time came and went and only a few calves were born, and for some reason they looked more like that new little bull.  Then Daddy remembered how one of us kids left a gate open one day and the new bull got into the pasture with the cows for a couple of hours.         

 

Without the income that comes from new calves, we didn’t have much and just struggled through the next several years.  It was a tough time for us on the farm for awhile and Daddy even had to work in town part-time to make ends meet.   Daddy took old Shoo away in a trailer, and I do remember we ate a lot of hamburger for awhile. 

 

We learned a valuable lesson from Shoo back then.  You see, a bull full of bad paper is only worth as much as the hamburger you can make from him.