Them was some smart cows alright

My papaw Chesney owned several acres of farm land in rural Knox Co. He gave my parents an acre of it and that is where I grew up. The land around our house was cow pastures and woods. My best friend, Kevin, and I, spent our whole lives playing on that piece of land. We camped, played, worked, fought, and rode our bikes on every piece of dirt of it.

Up on the very top of the property was a huge area where our families would all garden. We planted taters, beans, corn, okra, tomatoes, watermelon, squash, strawberries, peanuts, and anything else imaginable. Our garden was a very large part of our lives and sometimes our only means for providing food for our family.

One summer, I think I was 10 years old, Kevin and I had been riding our bikes up and down the hill and all around the garden. We ramped off of hard crusted cow-piles and tried to dodge the hundreds of dried up hoof prints that permeated the ground. I guess we probably rode around for at least 3 hours or so before we headed back down to my parent's house.

Later on that evening Kevin and I were out playing in the front yard when dad came running up to us. "What in the sam-hill were you boys doing playing in the garden?" "Huh? We weren't playing in the garden dad," was my reply. "Yeah you were, and you left the gate wide open and the cows have gotten in and ate up all of the corn!" I thought dad had lost his marbles. "Honest dad, we never opened the gate." "Well it didn't just open up by itself and you all were the only ones up there this morning!" "But we didn't open the gate!" Dad carried on for another 5 minutes or so telling us how we had ruined the corn crop and we were never again to ride our bikes up on the hill. He then stomped off madder than a hornet. Kevin and I just stood there and looked at each other in disbelief. We had not opened that gate or even gotten near it.

We walked up on the hill to the garden to survey the damage. Sure enough, cows had destroyed the entire corn crop. Papaw was in the garden trying to upright fallen corn stalks and trying to find ears that had not been eaten. We tried to explain to him that we didn't leave the gate open but he wasn't hearing it. He wouldn't even look at us. We just walked away with our heads hung low and wondering how the cows had gotten into the garden. We decided that them cows were just smart cows and had somehow let themselves in.

We were never allowed to ride our bikes around the garden anymore after that and no one ever believed that we weren't the cause of it all.

Moral of the story: Sometimes your just in the wrong place at the wrong time, life happens, deal with it!