I confess to not owning a tractor. I have
plenty of friends nearby with tractors. But in a lapse of good judgment
I borrowed one to brush hog a patch of weeds. Experienced farmers, even
an 8 year-old farm kid knows that you always drive a tractor thumbs up.
I didn’t remember.
As I was farming
around I managed to hit a post with the front wheel. The steering wheel
spun like a helicopter blade and jammed my protruding thumb! It swelled
up so big it wouldn’t fit through the neck of a quart jar.
I
only mention this humiliating self-inflicted injury because Dr. Willis
sent me a scientific report regarding wound response in plants. It said,
in effect, that localized injury in one part of a plant causes a
protective response in another part of that plant. For instance, when a
caterpillar gnaws on a near leaf, a change occurs in a far leaf that
inhibits that type of caterpillar’s digestive enzymes.
It
is therefore a natural assumption that if plants are able to protect
themselves, that the human body, particularly my human body would work
to prevent further similar injuries to itself.
But
when you listen to rodeo cowboys recount the list of their broken bones
it is obvious that some human bodies forgot to read the scientific
report. However, it is possible that no protecting mechanism could
safeguard people who leap off galloping horses onto stampeding steers or
tie them selves to twelve hundred pounds of horns and hair and then
scream, “turn ‘im out!”.
I
admit, there is some sort of warning that goes off in your brain the
second time you realize you have not completely latched the head gate.
Or you’re fixin’ to stab yourself with the pistol grip syringe again, or
you’ve just set yer hair on fire with the branding iron like you did
last year.
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