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From Where I Lie: Rambo and Me

Tuesday March 22, 2011

By Larry Johnson

    As anyone who knows me will testify, I am a great lover of all two-legged and four-legged animals, humans included for the most part. There are only a few instances in my long life that I have had a confrontational relationship with non-human critters. One memorable exception to the rule was many years ago when I was living on a dairy farm in Weybridge with my family. We had one cow who suffered, I believe, from a human-type condition often referred to as paranoid schizophrenia. Mad Cow, as we called her, also had homicidal tendencies and would attack, without provocation, anyone or anything that she could.

     Mad Cow’s strategy was to feign a limp. Observing her from a safe distance one could easily believe that she was in great pain and would succumb to her disability at any moment. This was, as we came to understand, a ruse in order to lull the unsuspecting into a false sense of security. Get close enough to her, within sprinting range, and she could run like a white tail deer. My brother and my cousin Reggie Johnson discovered this deception at their peril. Mad Cow caught my brother in a careless moment, ran him down and attempted to gore him as he was rolling around on the ground trying to avoid her horns. If our father hadn’t been in the vicinity with a pitchfork, brother Bob would have undoubtedly suffered serious injury, if not worse.  Cousin Reg, a big, muscular man, saved himself, when Mad Cow threatened his well-being, by wrestling her to the ground. No intervention on my father’s part was necessary or available.

     My own dealings with Mad Cow resulted in a race, that I barely won by swimming a wide, water-filled diversion ditch that bisected most of our farm. I was getting the cows from the night pasture one early morning, around 4:30 a.m., careless as only a nine or ten year old boy can be at that ridiculous hour, when I realized, too late, that I had gotten within sprinting range of Mad Cow.  Mad Cow immediately took advantage of this opportunity and dove at me with the fierceness of a wild buffalo. Fortunately I was near enough to the ditch that I was able to dive into the slimy water and flail across to the other side, just out of Mad Cow’s reach. Scrambling up the muddy bank I noticed that my legs were covered with leeches, those creepy, blood-sucking creatures that were once the mainstay instrument of primitive western medicine. Suddenly, I was fully awake and maintaining top speed toward the barn, screaming in mind-numbing fear. Dad immediately realized the situation, lit a Pall Mall cigarette and burned the dozens of icky leeches from my legs.

     Mad Cow made a strategic mistake when, for a reason no one could fathom at the time, she was on the loose in the barn while all the other cows were stanchioned. She took this opportunity to gore the udder of a young, well-bred heifer that was destined for beauty contest fame. The heifer was so damaged by this attack that she had to be destroyed. Mad Cow, by this sadistic act, had also signed her own death warrant and was sent off to hamburger heaven.

     My next adventure with a mad, domestic animal happened many years later. It so happened that a neighbor asked me if I would drive her to the local hospital to visit her husband who had suffered injuries in an automobile accident. I gladly agreed, drove her to the hospital and discovered, much to my dismay, when we got there, that her husband had died from internal injuries while we were on the road. The situation was horrible, to say the least. After dealing with the paper work and the seemingly endless explanations, I drove the woman home and walked her to the door. As I opened the door, a very small, white poodle ran from the house and sunk its tiny teeth into my ankle. I forgave the dog immediately. There was no intent of malice on its part. It was merely protecting its mistress, it thought, who was crying profusely.

     My adventures with Rambo were entirely different from those earlier experiences. Rambo is an aging ram sheep, who is suffering from testosterone depletion, while still romanticizing his waning male role,  and falsely believing that there is still youthful fire in the old furnace. Rambo is not much different in his denial than many of his male human counterparts. That makes it all the more pathetic.

     My friend Alex owns the small subsistence farmstead where Rambo rules over a flock of Ewes who are under the illusion that their male leader is still the man he always was. When Alex travels, which she does frequently, I take over the chores of the small farm which includes fifteen chickens, ten to fifteen sheep and occasionally a couple of pigs. Rambo apparently believes that he is the king of the barnyard and on days when his age and arthritis aren’t too painful, and his imagination is able to conjure up images of his youth, he will challenge anyone who enters his domain. If it wasn’t so dangerous it might well be funny, in a pathetic sort of way, but Rambo takes his jousting seriously and this can easily translate into a beating from a very determined, hard-headed sheep.

     After getting whacked a few times by Rambo, I took to carrying a canoe paddle with me whenever I had to go into the barn to feed, water, or fetch eggs. The first time I had the paddle, Rambo walked over to me and smelled it. Then he back up, the first indication that he was about to charge, lowered his head and came at me, full speed. I raised the paddle and when he got close enough I hit him with it, flat-side down. This stopped him from making bodily contact and set him back on his haunches. He backed up again, the prelude to another attack, lowered his head once more and charged again. Once again I whacked him with the paddle and once again Rambo stopped and backed up, but this time I detected a slight smile on his sheepish face just before he lowered his head and attacked for the third time. “My God,” I thought to myself, “he’s enjoying this.” From that time on, whenever I’ve entered the barnyard without the paddle, Rambo looks disappointed and refuses to attack. Somehow the paddle supported his sense of male dominance. It was the challenge and the physical contact, it seems, that renewed Rambo’s sense of power and purpose in life.  
       
     

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