Fourth of Julie

Cornering the Bulls

Fourth of Julie

A return to the 19^th Century

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

             I’m tired.

            I don’t know if I feel elation or despair. The matter of elation relates to the cornering of the bulls. For over a year, we have whittled away at some rough country bulls that long ago should have been offered as Big Macs. They would have gone well with Idaho spuds, mustard, and ketchup.

            As it is, they have wreaked havoc on our breeding program as well as our health and wellbeing. We are nearly done with the lot of them and the relief has been immense even though the horses are tired, we are sunburned and dragging, and July arrives with still no rain relief. Progress, though, is the byline.

Yesterday morning at precisely 7:11 we loaded three of the worst of the worst along with six wild cows and sent them packing. We were able to pen them with other cows as we finished branding the Alamo calves. With some finesse, we got them sorted and locked behind gates to await the one way trip to their great reward.

We rehearsed the loading procedure. No horses were going in with them and nobody was going to be in the tub with them behind the loading chute. When we were all set, we opened the first gate to trap them in the alley. That all went according to plan except a single old cow that gummed up the works fighting us. She has shown symptoms of loco weed poisoning. She staggered after me putting me on the fence twice before we were able to get her in the alley with the other cattle.

Starting them out of the alley was mired by the same old cow. She wouldn’t leave and blocked the gate. We got her in by pushing the whole bunch at her.

They all made the corner just like we had hoped and were trying to load themselves when the same locoed cow refused to step into the trailer. Things got worse when another cow tried to get by her only to wedge the two of them squarely in the trailer gate. The bulls then got panicked and the fight was on. The next four or five minutes was a testament to cowboy logic. The long and the short was we got them loaded with the final act once again centered on the same old crazy cow that upset the balance of thought and action each step of the way. She was finally trapped in the back compartment of the trailer.

With our hats in hands, we watched the whole sordid bunch as they left the shipping pens in a gooseneck trailer. With the tips of horns turning and flashing in the morning light, they looked like mule deer bucks topping a rise.

Was elation the right word in witnessing their departure, or …was it something else?

            Incredulity

            These past two weeks have been much like the cornering of the bulls. Our nation, at least for those of us who count on some degree of consistency, has been battered.

            Perhaps the better description would be it has been much like dealing with the locoed cow. At least dealing with the bulls was a known. They would run over you given any chance, but they would also attempt to stay clear if given an option. The old cow wouldn’t. She didn’t really know what she wanted. Her physical and mental conditions were ragged, and all rationale behavior was diminished. She was going to do something other than what you wanted, but, when she got there, there was no satisfaction either.

            Those Americans who cheered the unconstitutional antics of the Supreme Court will encounter the same predicament. When it all shakes out, there will be let down. The expectation of some new and profound plane of exhilaration will be mundane and anticlimactic. Those characters won’t be professing the bad news, but we will know. We lost freedoms and standards that will likely never return. They were foundations for God centered individuals who don’t want or need legislated equalities beyond natural rights.

            As we celebrate this Fourth of July weekend, the only degree of hope won’t be coming from this Congress or any of the many bastions of unelected prime movers. It will have to come from you and your closest ring of family and friends.

It will have to come from within.

            History

            The American model came nearest to perfection in the 19^th Century.

            The voluntary contract between the citizenry and their unique Constitution peaked during the 1830s. It was never again as strong or as enthusiastically captured by the hearts and minds of the American leadership. It set the stage for the immensity of the industrial revolution when common men did uncommon things.

            That phenomenon was matched with two grand partnerships. The first was the immensity of the American resource base. It was and remains the greatest assembly of resources known to man.

            The second was an effective educational system that blossomed in the last quarter of that century. It might have been primordial in terms of basic research conclusions, but it brought to bear what was known with intense practical applications. Of course, the American work ethic was implicit in the union.

            The modern American version of communism has wrecked those partnerships.

            That point can be highlighted in a glimpse into a Kansas final exam from 1895. It was a required hurdle for passage. Let’s start with one question from the arithmetic portion of the exam.

            Find a bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.

            When you calculate that answer follow by composing a legible example of a sight draft, a promissory note, and a receipt. You will have an hour and 15 minutes to answer those questions and eight others.

            Let’s bring in any English teachers that might be amongst the readership. To those souls, what is meant by alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, and syllabication? Follow that with defining and giving examples of trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, and linguals. Then, mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following and name the sign that indicates the sound card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, and bilast. You will have an hour to answer these and seven more equally engaging interrogatives.

            For climate deniers and advocates, you are next. Start this one hour section by naming all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each. Move immediately into a description of the movements of the earth including the relative inclination of its rotation. When you finish, and, before you move to the final seven questions, go ahead and define climate and note the physical forces it depends upon. Remember, any greenhouses gases will not be excepted because they were not considered factors of climate at that time.

            We might as well bring in the forked tongue oath of office fornicators, Congress (as described by West’s Legal Thesaurus and Dictionary), to be the primary respondents to the history section spanning just eight questions over 45 minutes. Start this by naming the events connected with the dates of 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865.

            Next, give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided, and who were Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?

            We will dispense with the final hour of examination, Grammar, and leave that to the rest of the Kansas students who had to take this grueling five hour exam in order to graduate from … eighth grade.

             Fourth of Julie

            Since words no longer form any basis for standards, and, in recognition of the age of gaiety we must now live, July will henceforth be known as Julie. We will follow that next month with the interchangeable choice of Augustus or Augusta. We can also wave any number of days assigned to either. Use 30 days or 31 whichever suits your fancy. Chief Justice, John Roberts, will find a legal pathway to justify that new standard and his progressive black robed mob will adhere to any altered interpretation as long as it abrogates any suggestion of constitutional purity … such is our state of affairs.

            For my part, I will continue to ship culls with abandon and hold that up for public scrutiny of how to deal with Congress. I will also hold my great grandparents in much higher esteem. Those who passed 8^th grade knew a whole lot more than the coddled, indoctrinated neophytes of today.

            The one that had a college degree will be elevated into realms of highest respect. She would have joined me in loading those bulls, and … she would be appalled at the antics of this existential world gone mad.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “We are accused of placing too much emphasis on Heaven. If it is a place we can unleash the gifts of our possession … we have not even begun to fathom its importance.”