HUNG LIKE A BULL!

This story was told to me by an old man as a true incident he witnessed as a young lad:

Jed and Junior are a father and his young son; the storyteller is a cousin about the same age as Junior.

Jed had a bull he wanted to take to market, but he didn’t have a chute and couldn’t get the bull in the old pickup truck. So, he reasoned that he would sling the bull in ropes and hoist him a few feet off the ground in the barn doorway, using the haymow pulley and a block and tackle. Then he planned to back the pickup under the bull, insert the gate, and let him down in the truck. Sounds like a good plan, huh? So they crowded the bull in a tight pen and slung him with ropes. Not having a tractor or any other vehicle available, they hitched the lift rope to a two-horse team which Junior was in charge of. They let the bull go, and he was relatively calm as Junior coaxed the horses into pulling the bull over to where the lift was to begin. However, as soon as the bull’s hooves left the ground, he turned into one mad, bad SOB! He bellowed and writhed and snorted and bawled and made such a commotion that it frightened Junior and the horses! They bolted and Junior was unable to control them. The bull made a quick trip clear up the side of the barn until the sling jammed in the pulley. The bull, finding himself roughly even with the open haymow door, pawed and clawed his way over into the haymow as the rope came loose from the horse team. By now, he was thoroughly pissed! He ranted and bellowed for half an hour as Jed and the boys tried to figure out what to do next with the mad bull in the haymow. Jed was at a loss for fresh ideas, and finally Junior asked him; "Pa, how on earth are we ever going to get that bull out of the haymow?"

Jed just sat there and thought for a while, then he picked up his trusty rifle and said:

" A bushel at a time, son."

Tom Gaddis        September, 1998