Photo credit @davoswain
This big guy would rattle anyone
I drive these country roads daily. Mostly I encounter potholes, people driving in the middle of the road, quarry trucks, and tailgaters. But one morning as I maneuvered down a double S curve, I came face to snout with a black bull. I can’t even begin to describe how massive this creature was that was ambling steadily toward the hood of my car.
Bulls can weigh anywhere from 1,100 to 2,100 pounds and this guy was on the heavy side of that scale. Remember the book called The Worst-Case Scenario Handbook? It was all about what to do if you had to escape by jumping from a window into a dumpster, how to take a punch, those kinds of things. I don’t remember reading about what you do when you meet a ginormous black bull strolling down the middle of the road.
I rolled up the windows. I looked the bull in the eye. I ran out of ideas. There was no place for me to go around the sucker without getting stuck or possibly tumbling over into a deep ravine. So, there we were in a standoff Mr. Bull and me. I honked. The bull looked unhappy. Bad idea.
I heard a shout from a barn off to the left. As I rolled down my window, an old man wandered slowly out looking at my situation.
“Hank,” he shouted. “Herkimer is out again and he’s in the road in front of some lady’s car. Git over here and git him.” Hank wandered out from behind the barn even more slowly than the older guy.
“God damn it! ‘scuse me ma’am,” he swore. “That bull is a regular Houdini. Don’t rile him. I’ll git him. Come on ya old rascal!” This last with an affectionate laugh said to Herkimer, not me.
Herkimer wasn’t anxious to be redirected.
“Back up real slow like, ma’am,” Hank said to me. “I got to git to the front of him. Once I git him turned round, you stay right there ‘til he goes through that gate over there.”
It took Hank and the older guy swearing and sweating to move Herkimer into the pasture from which he’d escaped. We all waved to one another as I got the okay and took off down the road. Well, Herkimer didn’t wave, he just swished his tail and watched me drive onward.
I enjoyed telling the boss why I was late to work that day. Because you can’t make this stuff up with the same flair as the real thing. And I can assure you that people who run in front of the bulls in Pamplona? They’re out of their minds.
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