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Hooter- Strategic
Grazing & Stuff
By
Wes Ishmael |
If
there was one thing that could ruffle Hooter faster and more
completely than an interrupted settin’ hen, it was
thoughtlessness and rudeness. Consequently, anytime he had to
drive somewhere more heavily infested with traffic than Rio Rojo
County his ruffle-meter was set on the red line.
“Doesn’t anyone have the decency to use a blinker anymore!”
Hooter would holler out his window at someone who had hit their
brakes in front of him for no apparent reason, laying on his
horn all the while.
Lord help anyone with the temerity to respond with sign
language. Hooter had been known to track them until they parked,
then explain to them why he took umbrage at them endangering his
life, not to mention his pickup.
“I don’t know as I’d be doing that this day and age,” Lonnie had
cautioned him. “The way folks are now, you never know who might
just pull a gun on you.”
“At least they’ll know I was there and what I thought before I
go,” replied an unrepentant Hooter.
In Hooter’s way of thinking bikers were the worst of the lot,
though, expecting a full traffic lane when they could be on the
sidewalk or best yet on some trail taxpayers had already funded.
That’s why he’d installed speakers under the hood, loud ones.
Hooter had a recording of a massive wreck; squealing tires,
shattering glass, metal crying as it tore apart. He’d get just
behind a biker and hit the switch; even the stoutest-hearted
jumped the curb, fast.
On one occasion he was leaning across the cab of his pickup
explaining his venom to a two-wheeled miscreant in Fort Worth
who had rolled through a stop sign in front him, without using
hand signals. He also shared his views with the policeman who
stopped behind him to see what the fuss was about.
“Well sir, this is a designated bike trail,” said the officer
politely.
“Who in their right mind would make a bike trail on a highway?”
wondered Hooter.
“We would,” said the officer pointing to the city sign. Then he
gave Hooter a ticket for not wearing a seat belt, for his own
safety.
“You mean to say I could ride a motorbike 70 miles an hour on a
busy interstate without wearing a helmet, but it’s against the
law for me to not wear a seat belt in my own pick-up?”
“I don’t make the laws,” smiled the deputy. “I just enforce
them.”
All of that is why Hooter got such a chuckle out of the
newspaper article a buddy sent him from the Boulder, CO Daily
Camera:
“…The woman was riding her bike on the trail when she
encountered the cow, and she stopped to let the animal pass…The
cow knocked the woman over and walked on her legs…”
He’d never known, never even thought that a big city might lease
some of its open spaces for grazing.
The article continued, “…In 2003, a woman was rammed three times
and her pelvis fractured by a grazing mama cow when she
accidentally ran between the animal and her calf on the South
Boulder Creek Trail.”
That got Hooter to thinking.
Birthing a Concept
“If people are taking over the open spaces, taking them away
from cattle, why can’t cattle take them back,” explained Hooter
to the Rio Rojo County Cattlemen’s Association. “Maybe the
trails have to be there, but there’s nobody saying people have
to use them and keep pestering the cattle.”
“You know, there’s actually an element of logic to that,” said
Lonnie, contemplating the notion with thumbs hooked on the
straps of his overalls, rhythmically getting his money’s worth
from the Mail Pouch in his cheek. “That scares me.”
“You already checked, and there’s no rules against it?” asked
Peetie Womack, the defacto association president.
“Far as I can tell, we can sub-lease, and the only restriction
is the number of head and that only grazing animals can be on
it,” said Hooter.
“I’ll bet some of those earth muffins can find a loophole,” said
Lonnie.
“What can they say? This is our ace in the hole,” said Hooter,
peeling back the sheet. It was draped over a newly painted sign:
“American Friends of Livestock Association (Rio Rojo County, TX
Chapter).” Then in smaller letters, “North American Rodeo
Relocation Program.”
The climax of the thought process was sitting in the gooseneck
Hooter was pulling—a package of Aunt Pinkie’s past-prime bucking
bulls that she couldn’t bear to part with, on the outside chance
they’d tame down enough to keep using.
“I told her I’d find some grass for these mangy worm traps,”
chuckled Hooter as he popped the gate latch. “I just didn’t say
where.”
On his way out of the pasture, up and over cement bike paths,
Hooter came across a biker, flagging him down. It was the first
time Hooter could ever remember being glad to see one.
“Are you brining us more animals and wildlife?” wondered the
biker with the enthusiasm of a child talking to Santa Clause. He
was wearing the uniform Hooter had seen others of his ilk
wear—bulbous helmet with stripes of some kind, a shirt and
britches that fit way too tight to be comfortable, postage-stamp
sized review mirror dangling from space-age sunglasses.
“I just unloaded some cattle if that’s what you mean,” said
Hooter.
Everything on and under the bike rider sparkled with precision
and price.
“We so enjoy looking at them. I was hoping that you weren’t
taking them away,” said the cyclist.
“No sir. I plan on them being here a spell.”
“Huh? Oh, I get it. That accent of yours threw me. Well, that is
good news. So it’s alright to ride on then?”
“Certainly,” said Hooter, patting him on the back. “Happy
trails.” |
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